Intel ships first quad-core Itanium
updated 04:25 pm EST, Mon February 8, 2010
Quad-core Intel Itanium 9300 CPUs announced
Chipmaker Intel on Monday introduced its latest processor, the Itanium 9300-series, which is said to more than double the performance of the chip it replaces. Meant for use in enterprise servers, the 9300-series chips have two billion transistors and four cores, doubling that of the previous chips. This and other changes mean the new chip has eight times the interconnect bandwidth, five times the memory bandwidth and seven times the memory capacity with DDR3 components than the outgoing processors.
There are also now eight threads per processor thanks to Intel's enhanced Hyperthreading Technology. Also improved are the reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) features. Recovery from potentially fatal errors is ensured by the use of new, advanced machine-check architecture for the hardware, firmware and OS. Performance is otherwise improved with a newer generation of in-hardware virtualization.
OEM systems using the Itanium 9300 CPUs will ship within the next three months. Prices in 1,000-chip batches range from $946 to $3,838.
