Xeon

Xeon (; ) is a brand of x86 microprocessors designed, manufactured, and marketed by Intel, targeted at the non-consumer workstation, server, and embedded markets. It was introduced on June 29, 1998. Xeon processors are based on the same architecture as regular desktop-grade CPUs, but have advanced features such as support for error correction code (ECC) memory, higher core counts, more PCI Express (PCIe) lanes, support for larger amounts of RAM, larger cache memory and extra provision for enterprise-grade reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) features responsible for handling hardware exceptions through the Machine Check Architecture (MCA). They are often capable of safely continuing execution where a normal processor cannot due to these extra RAS features, depending on the type and severity of the machine-check exception (MCE). Some also support multi-socket systems with two, four, or eight sockets through use of the Ultra Path Interconnect (UPI) bus, which replaced the older QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) bus. thumb|upright=1.2|center|Intel Xeon E5-1620's front and back

== Branding == The Xeon brand has been maintained over several generations of IA-32 and x86-64 processors. The P6-based models added the Xeon moniker to the end of the name of their corresponding desktop processor, but all models since 2001 used the name Xeon on its own. The Xeon CPUs generally have more cache and cores than their desktop counterparts in addition to multiprocessing capabilities.