I don’t often wax poetically on technical forums (and it’s my first time doing so on macenterprise.org), nor do I actually post any more overall given how persnickety *some* people are about how you go about posting (*some* of which btw is very understandable). But I like the new Xserve, and after seeing a number of posts on a list that were, well, knocking the new Nehalem Xserves, I had to pipe up on the wtf question about the new microprocessor, Nehalem, and why Apple would have chosen a seemingly desktop CPU for its only server product being offered:
While it is correct that the i7/microprocessor architecture is going to be more prevalent at the desktop and laptop for the Windows architecture, it’s worth noting that Nehalem based chips are coming out for multisocket servers in Q3 of this year. And that Jasper Forest was just announced this week, for embedded and storage appliances. And the new BladeCenters come with 55xx processors as well. And those new plants Intel is building are geared towards microprocessors…
In other words, while it isn’t specifically designed for a server, there are plenty of other vendors using it for such. While they may appear to be edge cases at first glance (storage, blades, etc), microprocessors are going to become more and more dominant (either that or Intel will loose their shorts). Also, expect to see 32-nm chips in addition to these 45-nm ones once the first factory comes online for them – Intel is building massive capacity for microprocessors.