Intel Xeon E3-1200 v5 Skylake Memory Details Emerge

Recently we spotted some information on the Intel Xeon E3-1200 v5 memory compatibility on the Intel website. (See here.) We do know the Intel Xeon E3-1200 v5 series is coming. Typically, Xeon parts are released after their desktop counterparts. At IDF15 this week we saw more information released on the desktop Skylake and we have already seen mobile Xeon Skylake parts launch. It is little surprise we are starting to see the Intel Xeon E3-1200 v5 processor families. Today we have information on memory modules tested with the new chips.

Listed below are the results from a small sample of DDR4 2133 ECC UDIMM modules tested on Intel reference workstation platforms based on Intel® Xeon® E3-1200 v5 processor family (formerly Skylake). These DIMMs have been tested at 2DIMM/channel, 2 channels loading configuration at 1.2V.

Parsing that out a bit, it means that each of the DIMMs below were tested at DDR4 2133 speeds with 4 DIMMs installed, 2 per channel. The document specifically calls out UDIMMs so these are unbuffered ECC memory modules.

Perhaps one of the more interesting insights from the above is that we now have four 16GB kits. One from Crucial, Kingston, Micron and Samsung on the list. It seems like the practical limit will double for the first time in the Xeon E3-1200 series from 32GB in versions 1 to 4 to 64GB in v5. This does align with what we have seen previously with the mobile Skylake also reaching up to 64GB of DDR4 ECC UDIMMs. We had been hoping to see RDIMM support on the E3 v5.

One of the more interesting implications is that Broadwell-DE now only has a 2x advantage over the E3-1200 v5 generation. The Xeon D/ Broadwell-DE can utilize up to 128GB of DDR4 RDIMMs. The Intel Xeon E3-1200 v5 will be a two generation leap for the Xeon E3 series since the E3-1200 v4 was a limited release at best. It will be interesting to see how the chips perform (similar to desktops) and how that changes the landscape when the v5 series is released.