Intel promises quad server chips for Q1 2007

CHIP FIRM Intel has alerted its OEM (original equipment manufacturer) customers that it will add a quad core "Clovertown" CPU in the first quarter of next year.

"Clovertown" will be implemented not only in "Bensley" server systems but as part of Intel's "Glidewell" workstation line.

That news comes as Intel prepares its long awaited plans to take the war to AMD in the next nine months.

The firm said that it will introduce "Woodcrest" 5100 server processors in the third quarter, as we expected. But it will also add Conroe processors to its uniprocessor road map as well. And around the middle of this year, Intel will introduce an "ultra dense" Itanium 9000 "Montecito" line.

Intel is deploying the Itanium 2s as RISC or mainframe replacements, and as HPC (high performance computing) microprocessors. As it introduces the 9050, the 9040 and the 8020, it will begin to phase out the previous "Madison" family, apart from 1.60GHz 3MB CPUs, which will live on for quite a few quarters.

For the enterprise MP market it will deploy the "Tulsa" microprocessor with 16MB of L3 cache and a choice of 667 and 800MHz system buses - it hopes towards the end of the third quarter or the beginning of the fourth quarter. µ