Something that we have noted would be coming this year is a new Atom series. Specifically the Intel Atom C5000 series. Today, Intel finally has announced the first six models in the Intel Atom C5000 series lineup, although there is not too much information out there on the new chips.
Intel Atom C5000 Series Stealthily Launched
Here is what we were able to put together in terms of the new Atom SKUs:
These SKUs are on the lower core count end of the spectrum ranging from 4-8 cores and still dual-channel DDR4 memory (up to 256GB supported.) The official specs say that all of the new parts have QAT onboard which is going to be a bigger feature later in 2022 and into 2023. PCIe generation for all of the parts is listed as only PCIe Gen3 on Ark.
The other major note is really the TDP. These are relatively high TDP parts. Just for some sense of scale, the 4-core 32W C5310 is in line with the 16-core Atom C3955 of the previous generation:
With the 10nm process shrink, we expect more, but we need Intel to disclose that information so we can share it. Patrick has put the ask in.
Here is the first table we have with a bit more on the networking side:
We are going to put the larger table on the Intel Atom P5000 Series Mightily Expanded and with a NetSec Card piece.
Final Words
For now, most of our readers are still going to be looking at Intel Atom C3000 devices for edge networking. At some point, Intel will be transitioning to new generations. The C-lineup tends to be the one that is often found in servers.
One of the biggest challenges with covering the new Atom launches is that Intel has little by way of a formal press release process for them. In 2017 we held Denverton Day for the start of availability for the original Intel Atom C3000 series (beyond the C3338) SKUs. We only knew about it because OEMs were telling us that Intel was not planning a launch so we decided to hold our own launch.
Hopefully, we will get more from Intel and be able to update this soon. Also, stay tuned for more on Snow Ridge which also was refreshed today.
Yet another quick news posting that caught my interest.
I would like to learn more about these new processors. I missed out on finding retail products using the C3xxx series CPU-SoC to replace my older C2xxx boards. This new C5000 series CPU-SoC could be useful to me.
Out of the 3 servers that I have with C2xxx bugs baked into them I have lost 1 due to that bug. As part of replacing that bugged board I also replaced board #2 which uses the same model of board as server #1. Both of those servers have very similar applications so they both use the same types of hardware in their original and rebuilt versions; the rebuilt version uses a ‘1151’ socket CPU.
The 3rd C2xxx-series server that I have is a specialized application, but the 4-core and 8-core C5000 series CPU-SoC would be perfect for it. If the global economy ever rebounds and the ‘chip crisis’ ever goes away, then perhaps I’ll see a C5000 CPU-SoC in a retail board that does not sell for a ‘heavenly price’ while having the very short list of features that I require.
Intel atom at 50 watts? Some core I series has even lower TDP than this.
I don’t think the Core i series chips have 100Gbps networking.
SM has a few C5000 MBs on their site now. Yet again it seems like they dropped the ball on networking.
https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/A3SPI-8C-LN6PF
https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/A3SPI-8C-HLN4F
https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/a3spi-4c-ln6pf
https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/a3spi-4c-hln4f