Intel readies Xeon launch for early January

CHIP GIANT Intel is ready to launch a couple of UP Xeons on the seventh of January, each with 8MB of cache and in line with desktop announcements to come.

And after the introduction of these components, Intel will drop the prices in the second quarter of the year.

According to recent roadmaps seen by the INQ, its Clovertown server tech will reach 40 per cent of DP volume by the second quarter of next year, while Woodcrest will reach 65 per cent of DP volume by the end of this year.

According to Intel, the Xeon 7000 series codenamed Tulsa will represent 85 per cent compared to Paxville and Cranford by the end of the first quarter of next year.

Intel predicts Montvale will dominate the enterprise MP CPU arena in the fourth quarter of next year, while quad core Tigerton will start to appear in Q3 of next year.

The numbering system Intel adopts for its Xeon chips has some logic to it, but it tires the brain exceedingly to figure that out. The mix of clock speed, bus speed, cache size and features such as DBS, quad core, VT and the rest make for a heady but not necessarily intoxicating brew.

Chip	No.	GHz	Bus	Cache	Dec06	Jan07	Q207
XeonUP	X3220	2.40GHz	1066	8MB	-	$850	$530
ditto	X3210	2.13GHz	1066	8MB	-	$690	$423
ditto	3070	2.66GHz	1066	4MB	$530	-	$316
ditto	3060	2.40GHz	1066	4MB	$316	-	$224
ditto	3050	2.13GHz	1066	2MB	$224	-	$183
ditto	3040	1.86GHz	1066	2MB	$183	-	$163

Intel will launch a low voltage DP Xeon processor in the first quarter of next year, dubbed the L5320, with 8MB of cache, a 1066MHz bus, and clocking at 1.86GHz. The Clovertown quad core strategy has been speeded up since the 10th of December, Intel told its partners.

In the first quarter of next year Intel will introduce a 7150N MP Xeon, clocking 3.5GHz, with 16MB of L3 cache, and 2MB of L2 cache, a 667MHz bus, at a price of over $2,600. µ