Intel Corp. is adding to its current Itanium 2 processor line with six new processors that the company says deliver performance increases of 15 percent for database transaction processing and up to 35 percent for overall integer and floating point performance.

The new processors offer multi, dual and low voltage versions of the processors, the company said, and are part of Intel's strategy to grab more market share from the $20 billion proprietary RISC market. 

Among the processors introduced this week is Intel's last single core processor in the product family.  In the future, all new Itanium 2 processors will be dual or multicore, according to Abhi Talwalkar, VP and general manager of the enterprise platform group at Intel.

In a conference call with media to discuss the news, Intel reaffirmed its roadmap for next-generation Itanium processors, codenamed Montecito, saying they are due to ship in the second half of 2005 with volume production in 2006.  These processors will offer a performance gain of between 1.5 to 2 times the current performance, Talwalkar said.

With dual or more cores, Montecito will at least double the number of threads per processor. And Intel is making it easy for OEMs to move from one generation to the next.

"What's really nice about Montecito is that it will drop into platforms that are shipping today," Talwalkar said

By: DocMemory
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