Server platforms powered by 64-bit dual-core Xeon and Xeon MP hyper-threaded processors will hit the market earlier than planned.
They're too good to keep in Santa Clara. Intel has been letting everyone know via a press release that the dual-core platforms originally scheduled for later in 2005 will be arriving early.
"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, in the statement.
The Xeon processor MP, dubbed "Paxville" by the company, will be introduced later this year on servers with four or more processors. Intel has high hopes for dual-core; the company expects to see more than 85 percent of chips destined for servers by the end of 2006 to be dual-core systems.
Hyper-threading will allow each core to run two programming threads. On a dual-core platform, that permits four threads to run simultaneously. Intel plans to make its dual-core Xeon processor available for dual processor servers this year as well.
That debut will lead in to what Intel characterizes as an "extremely aggressive transition to dual-core top to bottom" in its products. After it makes the initial dual-core Xeon and Xeon MP systems available, new dual-core products for servers and workstations will arrive in 2006.
