Intel has launched its new line of quad-core Xeon products for the multiprocessor server market.
Code-named Caneland, its much-awaited Xeon multiprocessor 7300 server platform comprises the new Tigerton quad-core Xeon 7300 series chip, as well as the Clarksboro 7300 chipset.
Adesh Gupta, regional platform architecture manager for the Server Platform Group at Intel Asia-Pacific, said in an interview that the new products are designed for multiprocessor servers — systems with between four and 32 CPUs — that run software such as ERP, and applications in virtualised environments for server consolidation.
Caneland completes the chipmaker's transition to the Core microarchitecture, its latest chip design adopted across its PC and server processors.
Available in six iterations, the 65nm (nanometre) Tigerton chip is said to deliver more than double the performance and more than triple the performance per watt ratio over Intel's previous generation dual-core products.
Comparing Tigerton to the existing Xeon 7100 processor series, Gupta said: "This new Xeon 7300 processor has got some significant innovations…[such as] data traffic optimisations which help accelerate the data in the server itself, to such an extent that we're seeing performance gain of over two times and performance gain under virtualisation of 2.5 times."
Other new features include a four-fold increase in memory footprint on the platforms compared to existing platforms, Gupta said. "We are supporting 256GB memory on a single four-CPU platform, compared to the 64GB of memory before," he noted.
The Xeon 7300 series line of products includes frequencies of up to 2.93GHz at 130 watts, several 80-watt processors and a 50-watt version optimised for four socket blades and high-density rack form factors with a frequency of 1.86GHz, Intel said.
The new Caneland platform is compatible with the next generation of multicore processors that Intel plans to introduce in 2008, based on the 45nm processor technology code-named Dunnington, Gupta noted.
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Server manufacturers including HP are expected to announce product offerings based on the new Caneland platform this week.
Intel launched its first quad-core processors in November last year, and has claimed to have shipped over one million units worldwide within three quarters of its introduction.
Rumour has it that Intel will announce its second generation of quad-core chips, code-named "Penryn", in November, while rival AMD's first 65nm quad-core server chip, the much-delayed Barcelona, is expected to arrive next week.
According to Intel, the Penryn processors — based on its 45nm manufacturing process with high-k metal gate transistors — will have up to 820 million transistors and a die size of 107mm squared. The company plans to have four 45nm chip plants up and running by the middle of 2008.
The chipmaker also revealed that it will ship its Nehalem family of processors in 2008 and plans to introduce its 32nm manufacturing process in 2009.
