Seen this at Silicon Strategies
Getting an early jump on the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) event here this week, Intel Corp. today announced its long-awaited Prestonia microprocessor line and Plumas chip set for use in dual-processor servers and other products.
The new Prestonia microprocessors, which will be marketed under the Xeon brand name, are dual-processor, 0.13-micron chips that come in 1.8-, 2-, and 2.2-GHz speed grades.
The Plumas chip set, dubbed the E7500, is optimized to support the new Xeon processors. Compaq, Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hewlett Packard, IBM, NEC and others are expected to ship platforms based on the new Xeon and Plumas devices, according to Intel.
In addition to the two products, Intel is expected to announce a slew of other chips at IDF, including 64-bit processors, Pentium 4-based mobile processors, and network processors. Intel is expecting about 4,000 attendees at IDF, which runs from Feb. 25-28 in San Francisco.
Meanwhile, based on Intel"s Pentium 4 microprocessor and Netburst architectures, the new Xeon products are the first chips that support the company "Hyper-Threading Technology." Introduced last year, "Hyper-Threading Technology" allows multithreaded operating systems and applications to view a single microprocessor as if it were two logical processors, thereby enabling a 30% performance boost in systems.
Earlier this month, Intel rolled out the so-called "Early Access Program" (EAP), which will give developers the ability to quickly devise software products, based on this technology.