At a June 30 product launch conference in Taipei, Intel announced the release of 64-bit 1.4GHz and 1.5GHz Itanium 2 processors, targeting the high-priced, back-end server market. The 1.4Ghz version is based on the Gallatin core, while the 1.5Ghz features Intel’s latest Madison core with 6MB of L3 cache.
In addition, Intel plans to challenge Opteron processors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in the workstation and front-end server market by introducing a line of low-voltage, 64-bit Itanium 2 processors sometime in the second half of this year. The low-voltage processors will be supported by Intel’s E8870 chipset.
Intel has been promoting 64-bit Itanium processors to target the RISC-based server market.
Intel estimates more than 10 OEMs will begin selling Intel servers containing eight to 128 Itanium processors in their product lines this year, up from only five OEMs in 2002. For servers with four to eight Itanium 2 processors, the number will increase to 40 OEMs selling Intel servers from 20 last year.
Processors using 64-bit architecture will become the wave of the future in the server market, said Intel Asia Pacific’s director of marketing Stanley Huang, but it may take until 2005 for Itanium 2 servers to become mainstream in the market. However, Intel will continue to introduce better 32-bit Xeon processors to satisfy customers’ needs for lower cost servers, said Huang.
Intel’s product launch press conference, June 30 in Taipei.
Article translated by Jack Lu and edited by Isaac Chang
