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  • Harry Lloyd - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    The 1230 has always been a very good choice if you want a cheap 8-threaded CPU.
    I do some video encoding, so I chose the 1230 v3 back in 2013 hoping it would also do well in games (multi-core CPUs in consoles). And while it is sufficient, an overclocked i5 is still a better gaming choice even today, at least if you are targeting 60+ FPS.
    I hate that server chipset requirement, that change was very uncool.
  • MTEK - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    I never understood why Intel plays feature Hokey Pokey with its single socket Xeons. This is a professional's CPU. Just throw in hyperthreading across the board.
  • nevertell - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    Because money.
  • bill.rookard - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    I have an original Xeon E3-1230 and it's a pretty powerful CPU (even with no overclock).
  • Samus - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    What's always been great about Xeon is they don't hold their value like i5 and i7 cpu's. You can get E3 1230 v3's for $150 and 1280's for $200, both significantly cheaper than i7's while being virtually the same thing, just not overclockable. They also benefit from ECC if you have a compatible board.
  • azrael- - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    For the regular "Kaby Lake" processors Intel apparently only plans Windows 10 driver support.

    Considering most businesses aren't particularly busy upgrading to any flavor of Windows 10 in the foreseeable future, what will Intel do driver-wise?
  • eSyr - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    It is not Intel's decision but rather Microsoft's one — to provide and certify those drivers.
  • azrael- - Wednesday, January 25, 2017 - link

    See my reply to niva below.
  • Ariknowsbest - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    The move in enterprise to Windows 10 and Office 2016 will pick up during 2017. Testing, integration and training takes a while, custom enterprises system will not be ready from day one.
    And the trade-off between paying for extended support or move on.
  • Michael Bay - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    I`m not so sure about 2017 timeframe. MS is only just rolling out the transition tools and all the enterprise policies jazz.
    We in office will be on 7 for all eternity, if XP phaseout is anything to go by.
  • Cygni - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    I work for one of the largest Microsoft customers in the world by user base. My IT just told me that they have cancelled all plans for migration to 10 on any system.

    Unless Microsoft releases a highly scrubbed, business specific version of 10, its getting skipped just like Vista and 8.
  • close - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    @Cygni - Since MS claims that Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows - read "they will provide rolling upgrades without actually changing the OS name" - "skipping" Windows 10 might be a real feat. Regardless, it's not like nobody tried it before, just that most of those who did are now trying to wipe that specific job experience from their CVs. Usually the result of their handy work and sound decision making made the news.

    Most of the time the major roadblock is that companies develop some internal application(s) or framework that relies on a specific OS like Win7 and can't be easily made to work on a newer one. So while the developers crack a bottle of champagne saying their job is done until the next-next version of Windows (you know... Windows 11 or smth) the admins have to scramble and find a solution. And that is usually to "cancel all plans for migration".
    2 years from now they still won't have a "highly scrubbed, business specific version of 10" (whatever that is, I expect something was lost in translation between the IT guys, the messenger and you - it can't mean they expect MS to develop and maintain a completely separate edition) but they will scramble to migrate under pressure from management to do it by the end of extended support.
  • Michael Bay - Wednesday, January 25, 2017 - link

    Oh, come on, "just told" and "cancelled all plans" is a dead giveaway already.
  • niva - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    What are you talking about Intel planning? Drivers and architecture by Intel are completely open. I have a new Kaby Lake laptop and as far as the CPU on it is concerned everything runs fine in linux. Drivers for Windows are a Microsoft deal, unless there's something I'm not understanding here.
  • azrael- - Wednesday, January 25, 2017 - link

    So, in your opinion Microsoft writes the drivers for nVidia's, AMD's and Intel's graphics cards. And Intel's storage products (RST). And Intel's networking products. And... and... and... well, you get the drift.

    While Microsoft can and does provide basic driver support shipping with Windows drivers supporting advanced features are developed and released by the manufacturers themselves. Microsoft only performs driver validation (WHQL), if asked (and paid) to.

    While the CPUs themselves will probably still work (they're x86/x64) there's a whole eco system that follows with it, e.g. the chipset and onboard devices (storage, network etc.) on the motherboard and of course the integrated GPU of the CPU.

    Intel (and AMD apparently) have stated that their latest CPUs will only support Windows 10 with drivers. Why? Because Microsoft has forced them to. How they achieved that is a bit beyond me, since Microsoft needs Intel and AMD more than they need Microsoft.

    Google "Kaby Lake Windows 7" for more.
  • Michael Bay - Wednesday, January 25, 2017 - link

    "Forced"? They were happy to support just one driver set, you can be sure of that.
  • Zan Lynx - Sunday, January 29, 2017 - link

    The Kaby Lake turbo features require operating system scheduler support. That's why Intel can't fix it, even if they wanted to, because they can't write a driver that replaces the Windows task scheduler.
  • Meteor2 - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    Businesses are changing to 10. Slowly, but it's happening.

    Some places wait until hardware refreshes for OS changes and with IT kit often being up to five years old, it takes time.
  • Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    Oooh 8 watts. Take my money.
  • Anato - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    There is +200MHz too, definitely worth upgrade :P
  • BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    You're right, 8 watts doesn't seem like a lot, but it's a 10% reduction which, for a mild CPU update, is a notable difference. I doubt any current Xeon owners will feel pressured to upgrade, but I think Intel's focus on slowly driving TDP downward is a far better approach than the GPU half of the industry that has been creeping upward lately.
  • flgt - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    When you put it in those terms I'm thinking that companies running datacenters will be happy when the remaining Xeon variants are release.
  • BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    They might indeed. There's other factors besides CPU TDP to consider that'll play a role in the total cost of ownership analysis. I don't know of many companies that will undertake upgrades outside of planned lifecycles so businesses running 3-5+ year old equipment are most likely to pick up Kaby Lake parts almost regardless of power and cooling considerations. Companies with newer hardware probably aren't going to be tempted into making capital investments to keep up with generational processor upgrades unless there's greater incentives like platform upgrades as well that'll offer a really compelling argument to justify upending current hardware. The TDP is important, but its more like the icing rather than the entire cake.
  • Molbork - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    For individuals it's not a big deal, but the improved perf/(cost*Watt) value scaled across thousands of servers\workstations over a couple of years is significant.
    8W savings for iso-perf across 1000 machines for 1 year at 10¢ per kWh(ha I wish, but businesses might be able to negotiate that low) assuming 66% up time under max load...
    8W*16h/day*365days/year*1000cpus/(1000kW/W)*0.1$/kWh =4672$/year for 1k CPUs with my probably flawed calc which doesn't include cooling $$ savings. And if the performance went up, you are getting more done with less energy/cost.
    Or $4.6/year out of your personal stations pocket, ya not much!
  • SharpEars - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    Xeon and only quad core - makes sense (not).
  • jardows2 - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    Xeon E3's have always been quad core parts. What you add across the board is ECC memory support. Older models also had more cache, though that doesn't seem to be the case in the current lineup. You also can get parts without integrated graphics, and you can get close to or equivalent performance to an i7 for less.

    For example, the Skylake Xeon E3-1230 v5 has the same base clock as the i7 6700, but a 200mhz lower boost. Intel's price is about $50.00 less than the i7. If you don't overclock, and don't need the integrated graphics, it could have been a great deal for a home computer, before Intel killed support in all but the C series chipsets. If you are a professional working with large datasets and can't risk memory errors, the ECC support is a huge plus.
  • tomaz4 - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    Skylake E3 v5 has functional TSX or not?
  • MTEK - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    I believe TSX was disabled for most Haswell models and fixed sometime during Broadwell.
  • BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, January 24, 2017 - link

    I think it's notable there's only a 1 watt TDP difference between KB Xeons with graphics versus those without since they share the same CPU clock speed and arguably identical processor performance. If those leaked numbers are accurate, then there's likely significant binning between a part with and one without graphics. After all 1 watt TDP can't account for all the difference in those iGPU execution units being disabled or not.
  • close - Wednesday, January 25, 2017 - link

    The TDP number is not an absolute for power consumption. It's actually more useful for cooling. So the parts with IGP might be able to sustain boosted clocks for shorter times than the parts with no IGP.
    Also you will see the TDP stays unchanged even with a 100MHz increase. That would warrant ~2W.
  • Ej24 - Wednesday, January 25, 2017 - link

    Yay. More Xeons that require a dedicated, more expensive chipset, that is identical to its Q/H/Z counterparts yet far more difficult to find in m-itx form factor. I can't imagine this helped Intel when they mandated special chipsets for lga1151 E3's. I'm happily running several lga1150 haswell e3 1275l's on Z87 mini itx boards. They are absolutely killer cpu's that are low power but still turbo like champs. Why did Intel make low end Xeons so exclusive again?!

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