Yorkfield

Lore & Background

Yorkfield processors were expected to be released in January 2008, but the release was delayed to March 15, 2008. Initially the delay was attributed to an error found in the Yorkfield chip, but later reports claimed the delay was necessary to ensure compatibility with the 4-layer printed circuit boards used by many mainstream motherboards. At the Intel Developer Forum 2007, a Yorkfield processor was compared with a Kentsfield processor.

The Yorkfield family includes several variants. The standard Yorkfield (product code 80569) features a dual-die quad-core design with two unified 6 MB L2 caches, used in Core 2 Quad Q9x5x series and Xeon X33x0 series, and was released in late March 2008 beginning with the Q9300 and Q9450. Yorkfield-6M (product code 80580) uses two Wolfdale-3M-like cores for a total of 6 MB L2 cache, appearing in Core 2 Quad Q8xxx (with 4 MB enabled) and Q9xxx and Xeon X3320/X3330 (with all 6 MB enabled). The Q8xxx processors initially had no support for Intel VT, unlike Q9xxx, but later versions all have VT enabled.

On November 11, 2007, Intel released the first Yorkfield XE processor, the Core 2 Extreme QX9650, which was the first Intel desktop processor to use 45 nm technology and high-k metal gates. It features a dual-die quad-core design with two unified 6 MB L2 caches, a 1333 MT/s FSB, a 3 GHz clock rate, SSE4.1 instructions, and 820 million transistors on 2x107 mm² dies. The QX9650 and QX9770 share product code 80569, while the QX9775 (for dual LGA 771 motherboards) uses product code 80574 like the Xeon X5482 Harpertown. The OEM-only Yorkfield CL (product code 80584) consists of Xeon X33x3 processors with 80 W TDP, made for LGA 771 but supported only in single-socket configurations; they are typically used in blade servers.

Reader's Guide

Yorkfield's significance lies in being Intel's first 45 nm desktop processor family, marking the transition to the Penryn microarchitecture as the 'Tick' in the Tick-Tock cycle. It replaced Kentsfield and brought a smaller manufacturing process, enabling higher transistor counts (820 million) and the introduction of SSE4.1 instructions. The family's multi-chip module design, with two dual-core dies sharing unified L2 caches, allowed Intel to offer both 6 MB and 12 MB cache configurations, targeting different market segments from mainstream desktops to servers. The delayed release from January to March 2008, initially blamed on a chip error and later on motherboard compatibility issues, highlighted the challenges of introducing new process technology. Yorkfield's successors were the Nehalem-based Lynnfield and Bloomfield processors. The mobile version of Yorkfield is Penryn-QC, and the dual-socket server version is Harpertown; the MP server Dunnington chip is a more distant relative based on a different chip but using the same 45 nm Core microarchitecture. The Wolfdale desktop processor is the dual-core version of Yorkfield.

Did You Know?

• The Yorkfield XE QX9650 was released on November 11, 2007.
• Yorkfield processors come in two L2 cache sizes: 6 MB (Yorkfield-6M) and 12 MB.
• The Q8xxx Yorkfield-6M processors initially lacked Intel VT support, but later versions included it.