According to Turkish site Donanim Haber, Intel Xeon-EP or Nehalem-EP is coming in the final month of Q1’09, March. Prices are set at $285 for the 2.66 GHz model, $555 for the 2.93 GHz part and $990 for the 3.2 GHz beast. All of the prices here are for single- and dual-socket motherboards, while the real cash cow, 4S version is coming later this year.
Afore mentioned three models are almost identical to already existing Core i7 920, 940 and 965, but for the QPI inteface, which is allegidly set at 5.4 GT/s on all parts. G Also, very interesting part is the similarity in names between Core and Xeon series, something we haven’t seen recently. 2.66GHz Nehalem corresponds to the name Core i7 920 and Xeon 3520, i7 940 is Xeon 3540, while the 3.2 GHz part is known as Core i7 965 and Xeon 3570. We estimate this small change in number is due to QPI link.
We all saw the execellent scores that appeared in legally leaked benchmark results on several sites on the ‘Net. Thus, AMD’s Shanghai should better brace for impact, because Nehalem is coming from high altitude.
This also practically confirms the rumors of faster Core i7 Extreme processor, since Intel had the tradition of launching higher-clocked desktop part as soon as server parts reach the clocks of desktop versions (at least, up to Core 2 Quad era).
