16 August 2005
Intel To Deliver Dual-Core, Hyper-Threaded Server
Platforms Earlier Than Expected
With development ahead of schedule, Intel Corporation today announced it is accelerating the availability of dual-core,
hyper-threaded Intel® Xeon™ processors and Intel Xeon processors MP. The new processors will help improve server
responsiveness, speed and multi-tasking by allowing software to manage information from up to four ‘brains’ per Intel
processor. In addition, Intel has begun a broad evaluation programme of thousands of dual-core platforms for software
developers and enterprise customers.
“As they did with dual-core PC processors earlier this year, Intel engineers have executed exquisitely, and because of
that we’ll bring our dual-core Intel Xeon processor platforms to the marketplace well ahead of schedule,” said Kirk
Skaugen, general manager of Intel’s Server Platforms Group.
Originally due in 2006, Intel plans to introduce the dual-core Intel Xeon processor MP, codenamed ‘Paxville,’ for
servers with four or more processors later in 2005. Paxville will provide more than 60 percent better performance over
previous generations and will use the Intel E8500 chipset, which has been architected for dual-core performance and was
introduced earlier this year.*
For dual processor servers, Intel plans to ship a premium dual-core Intel Xeon processor, codenamed ‘Paxville DP’ in
2005. Paxville DP will deliver up to
50 percent improved performance over previous generations and will use the Intel E7520 chipset.** Paxville DP is
targeted at early adopters and evaluators of dual-core technology and is to be followed by a broader family of dual-core
Intel Xeon processor-based platforms, codenamed ‘Bensley’ for servers and ‘Glidewell’ for workstations, in the first
quarter of 2006. Bensley and Glidewell are targeted to complete an extremely aggressive transition to dual-core top to
bottom in Intel’s entire server and workstation line-up.
Both 64-bit Paxville and Paxville DP processors will utilise Intel Hyper-Threading Technology, allowing a single
dual-core processor to run four threads simultaneously. The platforms will also include enhanced security features such
as Execute Disable Bit and improved power management with Demand Based Switching.
Intel has 17 multi-core projects under development and expects more than 85 percent of its server volume exiting 2006 to
be multi-core processors. In addition to the Intel Xeon processors due in 2005, Intel began shipping the dual-core Intel
Pentium® D processor for uni-processor servers in July 2005 and remains on track to begin shipping dual-core Intel
Itanium® processors by the end of the year.
Intel’s evaluation programme, which began today, will ultimately deliver thousands of dual-core platforms based on Intel
Pentium D processors, Intel Xeon processors, Intel Xeon processors MP and Intel Itanium processors to early adopter
customers and software developers through 2005 and into 2006.
IT evaluation cycles often take six to nine months, and evaluation systems are critical for IT managers to begin testing
new technologies as early as possible. Having access to pre-production and production systems will allow IT managers to
evaluate performance, test compatibility with in-house applications and determine future deployment plans.
To help software developers tune their applications to take full advantage of a multi-threaded processing environment,
the evaluation systems also ship with a full suite of Intel Software Development Products consisting of threading tools,
compilers, performance analysers and performance libraries. Additional information is available at
www.intel.com/software.
Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications
products. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom.
Intel, Intel Itanium, Intel Pentium D, and Intel Xeon, trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its
subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
* Baseline Intel Server platform contains four 64-bit Intel Xeon processors MP 3.33GHz with 8M L3 cache, Intel E8500
chipset, Intel Hyper-Threading on. New Intel Server pre-production platform contains four dual core Intel Xeon
processors with Intel Hyper-Threading on.
** Baseline Intel Server platform contains two 64-bit Intel Xeon processors 3.6GHz with 2M L2 cache, Intel E7520
Chipset, Intel Hyper-Threading on. New Intel Server pre-production platform contains the two dual core Paxville
processors with Intel E7520 Chipset and Intel Hyper-Threading on.
ENDS