Thermal Specifications
6 Thermal Specifications
6.1
Package Thermal Specifications
The Intel Xeon Processor E7-8800/4800/2800 Product Families processor requires a
thermal solution to maintain temperatures within its operating limits. Any attempt to
operate the processor outside these operating limits may result in permanent damage
to the processor and potentially other components within the system. For more
information on designing a component level thermal solution, refer to the Intel®
Xeon® Processor 7500 Series and Intel® Xeon® Processor E7-8800/4800/2800
Product Families Thermal and Mechanical Design Guide.
A complete solution includes both component and system level thermal management
features. Component level thermal solutions can include active or passive heatsinks
attached to the processor integrated heat spreader (IHS). Typical system level thermal
solutions may consist of system fans combined with ducting and venting.
6.1.1
Thermal Specifications
To allow the optimal operation and long-term reliability of Intel® processor-based
systems, the processor must remain within the minimum and maximum case
temperature (TCASE) specifications as defined by the applicable thermal profile (see
Table 6-1 and Figure 6-1 for 130W TDP Intel Xeon Processor E7-8800/4800/2800
Product Families processor, Table 6-1 and Figure 6-2 for 105W TDP Intel Xeon
Processor E7-8800/4800/2800 Product Families processor, and Table 6-1 and
Figure 6-3 for 95W TDP Intel Xeon Processor E7-8800/4800/2800 Product Families
processor). Thermal solutions not designed to provide this level of thermal capability
may affect the long-term reliability of the processor and system. For more details on
thermal solution design, please refer to the Intel® Xeon® Processor 7500 Series and
Intel® Xeon® Processor E7-8800/4800/2800 Product Families Thermal and Mechanical
Design Guide.
Intel Xeon Processor E7-8800/4800/2800 Product Families processor implements a
methodology for managing processor temperatures which is intended to support
acoustic noise reduction through fan speed control and to ensure processor reliability.
Selection of the appropriate fan speed is based on the relative temperature data
reported by the processor’s Platform Environment Control Interface (PECI) bus as
described in Section 6.3. The temperature reported over PECI is always a negative
value and represents a delta below the onset of thermal control circuit (TCC) activation,
as indicated by PROCHOT_N (see Section 6.2, “Processor Thermal Features” on
page 118). Systems that implement fan speed control must be designed to use this
data. Systems that do not alter the fan speed only need to guarantee that the case
temperature meets the thermal profile specifications.
Intel has developed a thermal profile that can be implemented with 130W TDP Intel
Xeon Processor E7-8800/4800/2800 Product Families processor to ensure adherence to
Intel reliability requirements. The 130W TDP Intel Xeon Processor E7-8800/4800/2800
Product Families processor Thermal Profile (see Figure 6-1; Table 6-2) is representative
of a volumetrically unconstrained thermal solution (that is, industry enabled 4U
heatsink). In this scenario, it is expected that the Thermal Control Circuit (TCC) would
only be activated for very brief periods of time when running the most power intensive
Datasheet Volume 1 of 2
111
INTEL [ INTEL ]
