Features of new Intel server chip:
Speed: 2.2 GHz
Memory capacity: 16GB
Memory type: DDR RAM
Input-output: Six PCI-X buses
Source: Intel Prestonia inside
Prestonia enhances the Xeon line in three ways, according to Lisa Hambrick, director of enterprise processor marketing at Intel. First, by switching to the Pentium 4 architecture, Intel can drastically boost the clock speed. The old server Xeon topped out at 1.4GHz. The new one debuts at 1.8GHz, 2GHz and 2.2GHz, and will eventually pass 10GHz, she said. "You can't reach that with a Pentium III," Hambrick said. "You start to flatten out. You can only go so high in frequency." Second, the chip, in conjunction with chipsets and other components, will feature wider and faster buses -- data pathways between the processor and everything else in the computer. Greater aggregate bandwidth means greater performance. Prestonia, for instance, comes with a 400MHz main bus between the processor and memory, faster than the 133MHz bus on Pentium III Xeons. The chips will also be capable of accessing data from 16GB of memory vs. just 12GB before. Prestonia will also work with chipsets featuring PCI-X, an input-output channel between the chipset and storage devices or networks that runs at 133MHz, twice as fast as the older PCI standard. Plumas, which features six PCI-X channels, can handle 3.2GB of data per second. Third, the chips will come with hyper-threading, a new technology from Intel that lets a single chip execute two applications or processes at the same time. In a hypothetical example, if one of the processor's integer units is churning graphics calculations, hyper-threading will allow the floating-point unit to tackle another problem. It's similar to having two processors, but not as powerful. "They may be glamourising it a little bit, but the claims are valid," said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research. "There will be ample opportunity to exploit the hardware resources." One benefit of hyper-threading is that most current applications that have been designed (or multi-threaded) to run on two processor servers can get some advantage out of it, Hambrick said. Some companies are also further fine-tuning their applications specifically for wringing out performance from hyper-threaded chips. The chip also features 512KB of secondary cache, a reservoir of memory located near the processor for rapid data access, more than most Pentium III-based Xeons. The commercial picture
So who will buy Prestonia systems? Computer executives and customers have generally spoken positively about the prospects for servers incorporating the Pentium 4 Xeons. Historically, Xeon-based servers have been relatively inexpensive compared with RISC-Unix servers. The 2.2GHz chip sells for $615 (£430), while the 2GHz sells for $417 and the 1.8GHz goes for $251. To some degree, the Xeon line has also slightly dimmed the appeal of Itanium-based servers, which have commercially made only a marginal impact so far. "You've got really good Xeon-class products," McCarron said. "If they weren't there, Intel would probably sell more Itaniums." While Intel will continue to upgrade the Xeon line, new chips won't be introduced as fast as desktop chips. The server market doesn't require as rapid an upgrade cycle. Intel will release a new Xeon for one- and two-processor servers every three to six months, Hambrick said, while processors for servers with four or more processors will come out every nine to 12 months.
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