Intel's Dempsey dual core CPU to Glidewell down Greencreek

ALTHOUGH INTEL will get its dual core Smithfield 8XXX chips out this year, it won't be until early next year that we see the Glidewell "platform", a combination of a dual core Dempsey processor, the Greencreek ESB-2 chipset, and supporting Vanderpool, FB-DIMMs and Intel's iAMT (active management).

That's emerged from roadmaps seen by the INQUIRER earlier this week, which also contained pricing for the 8MB Potomac processors Intel is readying for launch not long from now.

The "Glidewell" family promises better performance, reliability, power, memory and IO for the server family, as well as support for PCI Express using the Greencreek chipset.

The firm's "Cedar Mill" CPU forms part of the gorgeous "Gallaway" entry level workstation and server platform, and that's slated for Q1 next year too.

The Bensley family includes the Dempsey CPU and the Blackford/Blackford VS chipsets.

Potomac, a 64-bit enabled MP Xeon with 8MB of cache along with the four way Cranford Xeon, form part of Intel's Truland family, which will be succeeded in Q1 of next year.

Intel hasn't decided what speeds Paxville and Dempsey will clock at yet, but it has a 3.33GHz 8MB Potomac with a 667MHz front side bus ready to launch. There will also be a 3GHz Potomac, and a 2.83GHz Potomac with only 4MB of cache.

Potomac, Cranford and Paxille will support DDR266, DDR333, and DDR2-400, with the E8500 chipset supporting 128GB of memory, Serial ATA, and PCI Express.

At launch, the 3.33GHz Xeon MP with 1MB of L2 cache and the 8MB of L3 cache will cost $3,700. The 3GHz will cost nearly $2,000, while the 4MB 2.83GHz Xeon MP will be priced at just over $1,000.

We'll write about Intel's Itanium plans a little bit later. µ