xeon

At Unisys, Intel's Itanium chip is dead

Unisys may have written Itanium's epitaph on Wednesday--at least for some of the largest server vendors.

Colin Lacey, vice president of Systems and Storage at Unisys, discussed in a phone interview why Unisys--one of the top 10 U.S. server vendors--doesn't see a future for Itanium, including the long-delayed quad-core Itanium "Tukwila" processor.

Lacey said Itanium's appeal has almost vanished for many vendors in server industry. "It's appeal has certainly narrowed down. It's almost exclusively down to a single vendor," he said, referring to Hewlett-Packard. "The current shipping platform is … Read more

Intel at chip conference: More cores, less power

Intel will have a lot to say at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference, spanning the spectrum of silicon from mobile to server processors. Here are a few of the highlights from abstracts of Intel sessions at the ISSCC, which kicks off Sunday in San Francisco.

Nehalem, currently marketed as the Core i7, will scale down to sub-10-watt chips--that's ultraportable notebook (think MacBook Air) territory:

"A family of next-generation IA processors...The family has a coherent point-to-point link and integrates memory controller, power-management microcontroller and power-gate transistors and scales from sub-10 to 130W in mobile, desktop and server applications.&… Read more

Intel, DreamWorks take 3D graphics to Super Bowl

Intel and DreamWorks plan to show off the fruits of their 3D collaboration in a Super Bowl 3D extravaganza this Sunday as DreamWorks prepares to tap into future Intel Larrabee graphics silicon.

The Super Bowl ad sponsored by DreamWorks Animation, Intel, and NBC will feature a 3D trailer of the animated movie Monsters vs. Aliens, coming out in March. A second spot will be a 3D commercial for PepsiCo's SoBe LifeWater energy drinks. Viewers--as they will in the movie theater--will need special 3D glasses to see the effects. (Intel has made 125 million of the InTru3D glasses, which are … Read more

Intel price cuts coming

Intel is planning price cuts to its lower-end mainstream quad-core processors on January 18.

Barron's Tech Trader Daily first reported the news, citing Pacific Crest analyst Michael McConnell.

These cuts are happening because of the recent introduction of Advanced Micro Devices' 45-nanometer Phenom II and "Shanghai" Opteron processors.

AMD's quad-core Phenom II "Dragon" processor platform has been garnering solid reviews and its Shanghai server chip has been adopted by top-tier server suppliers including Hewlett-Packard, Sun, Dell, IBM, and Fujitsu.

Cuts are expected mainly on quad-core processors, though other processors may also receive cuts.

Tilera adds a 36-core chip

Small start-up Tilera still beats chip giants like Intel handily on core counts. Tilera updated its line of many-core processors Monday, adding a 36-core version to the mix.

Tilera, which made a splash last year when it introduced its first 64-core processor, announced a scaled-down 36-core Tile processor on Monday, in order to broaden its market reach.

The TilePro36 "is giving us a midrange product. This type of device would be used in a high-end video conferencing (system)," said Bob Doud, who is the director of marketing at Tilera. The TilePro36 chip is also targeted at applications such … Read more

Intel unveils 6-core chip, as Unisys touts 96 cores

As Intel officially unveiled its six-core "Dunnington" Xeon 7400 processor Monday, Unisys rolled out servers boasting up to 96 cores--with a catch.

As expected, Intel launched the Dunnington chip for high-end servers, the company's first six-core processor and last of its Penryn-class chips. Penryn will be followed by the Nehalem microarchitecture, due to appear initially as the Core i7 processor in the fourth quarter.

The Xeon 7400 boasts significantly better performance due to its 16MB cache memory and half-dozen cores.

The Xeon 7400 is also one of the first Intel chips to have a monolithic design. In … Read more

Intel to provide Facebook with hardware, Jedi secrets

Recent rumors of Intel employees signing up for Facebook accounts en masse might not have been totally unfounded: Facebook has chosen to use Intel's Xeon 5400 processor-based servers to deal with its hardware and software demands. Additionally, the two companies have signed an agreement so that Intel can continue to assess how Facebook can stay stable and improve performance.

Facebook will have "thousands" of Xeon servers, a release said.

It's not an earth-shattering announcement by any means, but Intel's pretty psyched. "Intel is excited to engage with Facebook as they are a dynamic force … Read more

DreamWorks executive on why it switched from AMD to Intel

Intel has upstaged Advanced Micro Devices at DreamWorks Animation. The movie studio has decided to drop AMD and go with processors from Intel, citing better performance and a more promising roadmap.

DreamWorks specifically mentioned Intel's upcoming Nehalem processor and Larrabee graphics chip as reasons for the switch.

Intel and DreamWorks announced Tuesday that they had formed a strategic alliance for 3D filmmaking technology. DreamWorks plans to produce all its feature films in stereoscopic 3D--which requires the viewer to wear special glasses for enhanced 3D--beginning next year. Intel will provide DreamWorks with "the latest high-performance processing technologies, including future … Read more

Intel 'Harpertown' chip rules supercomputer list

Intel Xeon processors--particularly the "Harpertown" variety--dominated the top 500 supercomputer list. But IBM's Power chips made a strong showing as usual at the very top of the list. AMD's Opteron processor landed in the No. 1 and No. 4 ranked systems.

The Top500 List--updated twice a year--of supercomputers was released Wednesday. Intel's Xeon, AMD's Opteron, and IBM's Power chips vied for most of the spots in the list.

The most dominant chip was the Intel Xeon E54xx series "Harpertown" processor. Appearing in 116 systems for 23.2 percent of the … Read more

Intel's power-guzzling V8

Intel is getting ready to launch the full-sized SUV of desktop motherboards. Expected later this quarter, the Skulltrail board packs two quad-core 130-watt QX9775 processors--which Legit Reviews said sucked up to a whopping 351 watts. In short, this is not the MacBook Air. The tiny processor in that power-stingy computer sips a mere 20 watts.

Skulltrail pulls out all the stops. It has dual 1600-MHz front side-buses connected to dual Xeon sockets and four full PCIe x16 slots, with planned support for up to four high-end graphics boards. And Xeon processors running on Skulltrail boards have been demonstrated by Intel … Read more