Intel set to ratchet up server chip speeds

WHILE INTEL will move its Xeon server range to a 90 nanometer process at the same time as it moves its desktop CPUs, there appear to be no plans for the chip giant to switch front side bus processor speeds for these producs.

Instead, Intel will move the 533MHz bus speed for Xeons to 667MHz, but that won't happen until the first quarter of next year.

Until the 667MHz bus speed comes, Intel will maintain its approach of supporting 400Mz and 533MHz front side buses for the Xeon family of chips.

But when the "Nocona" 90 nanometer Xeons start to appear, they'll come with 1MB of level three cache.

The biggest speed change for Xeons will come during the fourth quarter of this year, when Intel releases these products at clock speeds of 3.46GHz and 3.20GHz. That will be followed in the first quarter of next year by 533/667 Xeons at clock speeds of more than 3.60GHz and 3.50GHz. And those clock speeds for the Nocona Xeons will stay at that level until the second quarter of 2004.

The first half of 2004 is an important period for Intel server products, however. In addition to the 667MHz bus, PCI Express will be implemented in the products along with direct connect LAN and storage features.

The Lindenhurst chipset is introduced in the second quarter of 2004.

For its blade strategy, Intel intends to push the low voltage Pentium III-but will also start including "Northway" and "Capilano" to aid network and switching features for the machines.

The second half of 2004, as we said a few days ago, are reserved for Potomac using "Twin Castle" chipsets, while Intel is also promising Madison 9M for the 64-bit platforms.

The Nocona processors will need a different chassis design, currently codenamed Riggins, and motherboards designed for two way Noconas include Alief, using the Lindenhurst chipset, Brandon (Lindenhurst) and Sun Prairie, which supports two way Nocona and Lindenhurst VS.

On the workstation side, Intel will release its Winter Park motherboards which support uniprocessor 875P Canterwood chipsets and based on the Pilot Point and Hudson chassis. When the uniprocessor Prescott is released, this will be sold as the Torry Pines motherboard, using Canterwood-ES and the poetic Whiskey Rock chassis.

Other future mobo designs include Bar Harbor for two way Itanium 2s, based on the E8870 chipset, and the Gifford chassis, and later the Jarrell boards, which support two way Nocona chips and the Driskill chassis.

The next change on prices for Xeons comes on the 20th of April, when a 3.06GHz will cost $690. When the 1MB Xeon 3.06GHz processor is released later this year, that will cost the same, and trigger a whole cascade of pricing cuts on the server microprocessors.

Gallatin, large cache Xeons are expected to reach 4MB towards the end of this year, but when Intel intros its multiprocessing 2.8GHz/2MB Xeon Gallatin later this year, that will cost a whacking $3,700.

When the Itanium 2 1.5GHz/6MB Madison is launched, that will cost $4,200, the 1.4GHz/4MB Madison wil cost $2,250, and the 1.3GHz/3MB (Deerfield) will kick off at $1,350.

Lastly, the low voltage Itanium 2 which we mentioned earlier this week and which will kick off at 1GHz and with 1.5MB of cache, will cost $850. This last chip is obviously intended to spur a heap of interest in the blade marketplace. µ

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