Intel Corporation has previewed a new Intel Xeon processor codenamed "Nehalem-EX." The processor will be at the heart of the next generation of intelligent and expandable high-end Intel server platforms, which will deliver a number of new technical advancements and boost enterprise computing performance.

In production later this year, the Nehalem-EX processor will feature up to eight cores inside a single chip supporting 16 threads and 24Mb of cache. Its performance increase will be dramatic, posting the highest-ever jump from a previous generation processor. Nehalem-EX will add new reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) features traditionally found in the company's Intel® Itanium processor family, such as Machine Check Architecture (MCA) Recovery. Together with new levels of performance, both high-end processors should speed the move away from more expensive, proprietary RISC-processor based systems.