After announcing its intentions in February, Intel Monday shipped an x86-microprocessor that runs both 32- and 64-bit applications. Unlike rival AMD, however, Intel is first rolling out a 32/64-bit chip for workstations, with the server chipset to follow by the end of the summer.
“We will be launching servers based on this new microprocessor, as well as a new server chipset targeted at the two-way server market, within 60 days,” said Abhi Talwalkar, vice president and general manager of the enterprise platforms group at Intel, during a teleconference to unveil the updated Xeon, code-named Nocona.
Nocona is geared for workstations and up to two-way servers and includes Intel’s Extended Memory 64 Technology (EM64T), which gives enterprise users an alternative to systems based on AMD’s Opteron chip. Until now, Opteron has been the only chip available that can run both 32- and 64-bit applications simultaneously.
Talwalkar says multi-processor Xeon chips with EM64T would be available by early 2005.
“Servers take a little bit longer, and we’re working closely with the major OEMs in the industry, completing final validation as well as the final production pilots,” Talwakar says.
HP and Dell both have announced workstations based on the new chipset, code-named Tumwater. IBM, which has been shipping an Opteron-based workstation since the spring, has not yet announced a Nocona-based workstation, but IBM expects to follow the Intel roadmap, a spokesperson says.
HP’s xw6200 and xw8200 workstations, announced Monday, start at $1,400 and $1,800, respectively. Dell lists two workstations using the updated Xeon chip on its Web site. The high-end Dell Precision Workstation 670 is starts at about $1,900 and the Dell Precision Workstation 470 is priced starting at about $1,600.
The new Xeon processor runs at speeds up to 3.6 GHz and includes other advanced features, such as Demand Based Switching and Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology, which are designed to automatically dial up and dial down power as needed. The chip also incorporates an 800-MHz front side bus and is the first to support PCI-Express, a bus technology that moves Intel-based systems from a parallel to a serial design, enabling faster server processing.
With Monday’s release of EM64T Intel takes aim at AMD, which has seen great success since it introduced its 32/64-bit Opteron chip a little more than a year ago. Since then HP, IBM and Sun have all introduced Opteron-based systems.
Analysts say the rapid adoption of Opteron – some 35,000 Opteron-based systems shipped in 2003 after AMD introduced the chip at the end of April, according to IDC – helped spur Intel to play its 32/64-bit hand. Until February, Intel had been mum on any plans for such a processor. Part of the reason, analysts say, is because of its efforts to promote its 64-bit Itanium chip, which has been slow to take off. In 2003, for example, the number of Itanium servers that shipped was about half the number of Opteron-based systems, at 19,000.
Analysts and Intel, however, argue that Itanium is targeted at a different market than Opteron and Intel’s new EM64T-enabled chips. Itanium provides a standard-based alternative to RISC-based servers, Talwalkar says.
Users seem to agree.
Joe Weisboard, CIO for The Bank of New York’s G-Trade service, says Intel Xeon-based systems are used as the “workhorse” of his infrastructure, while Itanium-based servers run mission-critical applications. He says that won’t change when the Xeon servers are updated with 64-bit extension technology.
Marc West, CIO at Electronic Arts in Redwood City, Calif., also agrees. “Itanium is purpose-built for the back end,” he says.
The 64-bit extension technology, however, will allow him to bring Itanium-type performance into areas where cost is also an issue. In addition, applications can run on the EM64T-enabled chips without having to be recompiled since they are based on the familiar x86 architecture. Itanium, on the other hand, runs on a completely different architecture so applications must be rewritten for the platform.
“We see [Itanium and EM64T] as being related, but still distinct enough where we would retain them in isolated environments,” West says.
