Xeon - technical definition

A high-end Intel CPU chip. Designed for servers and fast workstations and pronounced "zee-ahn," Xeons include error checking memory, system management features and fast system buses and L2 caches. The first Xeon was introduced in 1998 when the Pentium II was mainstream. Intel used the Pentium brand with the Xeons with the Pentium II and III (Xeon Pentium II, Xeon Pentium III), but dropped it with the Pentium 4, calling it the Xeon CPU or Xeon MP (multiprocessing) CPU. However, references to Xeon Pentium 4 or Xeon P4 are made in numerous articles.

Xeon introduced the System Management Bus (SMBus) interface, which includes a Processor Information ROM (PIROM) that contains data about the processor and an empty EEPROM that can be used by manufacturers or resellers to track their own information such as usage and service information. Using Intel's Extended Server Memory Architecture, Xeon chips can address 64GB of memory.