Xeon To Goose App Speed, But Itanium Adoption DragsXeon To Goose App Speed, But Itanium Adoption Drags

Intel last week gave software developers a look at new Xeon processor technology that it says will significantly speed up the performance of applications designed to take advantage of the latest innovation, called hyperthreading. Intel needs to continually improve its 32-bit Xeon chips, because many users have thus far been lukewarm to its 64-bit Itanium offering.

The new Xeon chips are the first processors based on Intel's Pentium 4 design built for use in servers. They will ship to computer makers by the end of March. Intel plans to first launch a dual-processor version, followed shortly after by a multiprocessor edition.

Hyperthreading makes a single processor appear as two to software that supports the technology, leading to faster performance. Two processors would appear as four. Hyperthreading lets a chip more effectively manage in-coming data from different applications, continuously switching from one set of instructions to the other. Intel says a number of software developers, including Microsoft, have pledged support for hyperthreading.

Under a program launched last week, Intel is charging developers $500 for early access to the Xeon chip, hoping there will be full application support by the time it hits the market.

Intel last week also provided more details on its next 64-bit chip, code-named McKinley, which is due by June. It will feature 3 Mbytes of on-die Level 3 cache, 256 Kbytes of Level 2 cache, and 96 Kbytes of Level 1 cache, giving it significantly more cache--which speeds performance--than Itanium, which hasn't been widely embraced by businesses. "It's been a slow adoption because many users are waiting for the next generation," says Manoj Nadkarni, a principal analyst at ChipInvestor.com. Intel declined to say whether McKinley chips will use hyperthreading.

Perhaps more than most vendors, would-be merger partners Compaq and Hewlett-Packard are counting on Intel to continually enhance the performance of its server chips. Both companies have said they will cease manufacturing their proprietary chips to run Unix systems and will instead use Intel chips.