Intel Dempsey ready for Blackford, Greencreek punch-up

INTEL IS pretty committed to dual core technology across all of its microprocessor range but it won't be until 2006 that we'll see the Dempsey chip and the Blackford Greencreek chipsets to support it.

And in 2006 we'll also see the Paxville and Ylsa tech, with Intel hoping to provide Twin Castle compatibility in the third quarter of 2006 - these will use 65 nanometre technology. Tulsa is slated to come in the second half of 2006, a fair way away and certainly more than 24 hours.

Blackford/Greencreek support dual cores, better power management, better storage controllers and a dual independent bus. This is a way away.

But in the meantime, there's a lot more changes on the way, according to industry sources close to the company's plans.

Intel will push the 2MB Irwindale platform and launch Potomac and Cranford in the first half of next year. Its clear plan now is to drive RISC chips out of the market with its Itanium 2, but 2005 will we believe be the key to the future of this microprocesor.

Intel has dropped its own strategy of using Itanium 2s for the workstation - it's been forced into doing this by customers who don't want it - such as Hewlett Packard as a for instance. That market is now being targeted by Xeons, much cheaper and cheerful and EM64T ready.

Intel's server plans are complex because of its position in the marketplace, so we'll be as gentle as we can here.

The Itanium 2 1.6GHz with 9MB of cache will cost over $4,000 when it's launched in early November, while the 1.6GHz 6MB Itanium 2 will cost nearly $2,000 and the 1.5GHz Itanium 2 a little more than $900. The 1.6GHz DP with a 533MHz system bus and 3MB of cache will cost $1,100 while a low voltage 1.3GHz with 3MB of cache will cost around half of that.

When Intel launches its Xeon MP 3.66GHz 667MHz EM64T processor iwth 1MB of cache, it will cost not far short of $1000, while the 3.16GHz 667 chip will be three quarters of that price.

Twin Castle is still being promised for the first half of next year, and if Intel gets it out of the door it will include dual FSBs, DDR2-400, PCI Express, the NX bit, direct connect storage and more. In the second quarter of next year, the Potomac will have 8MB of L3 and 1MB of L2 cache.

The Montecito dual core is still being slated for the fourth quarter of next year. Cranford comes out in the first quarter with 1MB of L2 cache and speeds of 3.66GHz. µ