Apple today has accidentally confirmed plans of its own to launch Xserve rackmount servers based on Xeon processors using Intel's Nehalem architecture. A Hong Kong product page (still active as of this writing) has a broken image link that asks users to "pre-order the new Xserve using Intel Xeon (Nehalem)" but doesn't take visitors to a relevant page. No specifications or other details have surfaced with the link itself.

The posting virtually confirms anonymous leaks from earlier this week and would give the server its first update since January 2008, when Apple updated to the now obsolete Harpertown-based Xeon. Nehalem is more efficient per clock than its predecessor thanks to a design that integrates the memory controller and creates a point-to-point link between the processor, its memory and peripherals. It also supports twice as many program threads courtesy of Hyperthreading and speeds up software that only uses a limited number of cores by ramping up clock speeds on certain cores while switching off others. [via PCWorld]