Intel announced the ‘Jasper Forest’ line of processors earlier this year. The new processors, named for a petrified forest in Arizona, have gone from concept to prototype and Intel is giving customers a peak now at what the 45-nanometer Jasper Forest CPUs have to offer.
Jasper Forest is based on Intel’s robust Nehalem chip architecture. However, the Jasper Forest processors deliver unique functionality to benefit dense server environments such as storage and communications environments and it does so while reducing power consumption by 27 watts.
Seems like another week, another headline-making processor announcement. First AMD revealed the new 40-watt Istanbul chips, then Intel rolled out the Lynnfield processors and the P55 chipset. Now, Intel is making news again by announcing it is ready to start shipping the Jasper Forest processors.
Intel derived increased functionality and reduced power consumption by integrating some I/O functionality into the processor itself. The result is that those functions are managed more efficiently and they do not require a separate controller which lowers the overall power consumption of the system.
The processors are capable of configuring RAID 5 or RAID 6 data protection natively without an additional RAID controller. Jasper Forest processors also integrate PCIe hub functions which allows for even thriftier use of power and space.
Jasper Forest processors also help prevent data loss in the event of a power failure using a Asynchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory Self-Refresh Memory. If ever a technology was in need of a catchy acronym- I think this might be it. We’ll go with ADRAMSRM. The ‘ADRAMSRM’ feature detects power failure as it is happening and allows the memory controller to complete its functions before shutting down so no data is lost.
The Jasper Forest processors will be available in single and quad-core versions operating between 23 and 85 watts using the same CPU socket. Intel is backing the processors up with 7-year lifecycle support so customers can purchase with confidence that next week’s CPU headlines won’t render the Jasper Forest purchase obsolete prematurely.
Tony Bradley is an information security and unified communications expert with more than a decade of enterprise IT experience. He tweets as @PCSecurityNews and provides tips, advice and reviews on information security and unified communications technologies on his site at tonybradley.com.