Planet Lowyat

Intel is set to release its first six-core processor within the next fortnight.

Codenamed Dunnington, it will include all six cores on the same piece of silicon. That’s in contrast to Intel’s quad-core processors, which are split across two separate dies.

The Xeon 7400 Series, to give Dunnington its official title, will sport 16MB of shared level 3 cache and will be backwards compatible with the Xeon 7300 socket.

Intel is pitching the Xeon 7400 as the “virtualisation platform of choice”. It’s expected to give Intel the performance edge over AMD’s “Barcelona” Opteron processors, which have four cores on the same die.

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The chip maker - Intel is adding a pair of 50-watt quad-core Xeons to its 45-nanometer Penryn line.

Intel is expanding its lineup of 45-nanometer processors with a pair of quad-core Xeon chips that run at 50 watts, announced March 25.

The two new Xeons, the L5410 and the L5420, now give the company more than 35 different microprocessors within its Penryn family of 45-nm chips. Intel first introduced this line of processors in November.

In a meeting earlier this month, CEO Paul Otellini said Intel has already shipped 4 million Penryn processors and will have 72 different models for servers and PCs by year’s end.

These Xeons give Intel’s customers, especially those in the financial sector, a choice of low-watt processors for two-socket servers and workstations within the Penryn family. Previously, Intel offered a range of 45-nm processors with thermal envelopes that ran between 80 and 150 watts.

In addition to the lower-watt Xeons, Intel will roll out a 40-watt, dual-core Penryn processor in April with a clock speed of 3GHz, 6MB of L2 cache and a 1333MHz front side bus (FSB).

The Xeon L5410 has a clock speed of 2.33 GHz and the L5420 has a clock speed of 2.5GHz. Both chips offer 12MB of L2 cache and a 1333MHz FSB. The Xeon L5410 will sell for $320 per 1,000 units shipped, while the L5420 will sell for $380, according to Intel.

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