Intel's quad-core Xeon hits 3GHz

Intel has added two new quad-core Intel Xeon processors to its lineup for general availability. The Xeon X5365 is the industry's first 3.0GHz quad-core processor, and boasts a front-side bus (FSB) speed of 1333MHz, drawing 120 watts. This chip was first made available in Apple's Mac Pro four months ago, but is now available to other manufacturers. The Xeon L5335 is a power conservative sibling running at 2.0GHz and also sporting a 1333MHz FSB but drawing only 50 watts. Both processors are "drop-in" compatible with select existing Intel server platforms. Intel's initial benchmarks for the X5365 show it claiming the new speed throne relative to Xeon predecessors. Using the SPECint_rate_base2006 benchmark, which measures integer throughput, a Fujitsu-Siemens PRIMERGY RX300 S3 server based on the quad-core Intel Xeon Processor X5365 scored 98.9. Using the SPECjbb 2005 benchmark, a Dell PowerEdge 1950 server based on the also based on the X5365 posted a score of 238,472 business operations per second.

New to the processors are Virtualization Technology processor extensions, which Intel claims deliver improved interrupt handling in virtualization of 32-bit Windows Operating Systems -- a potential boon to developers of virtualization platforms, including those for Mac OS X like VMWare and Parallels.

There is also a new system-transparent energy smart technology that reduces idle power usage by up to 50 percent. Intel says it is driving its entire volume server processor line to take advantage of this new lower idle power utilization.

In 1,000 unit quantities the Xeon X5365 running at 3.0GHz is priced at $1172 while the L5335 running at 2.0GHz is priced at $380.