How does AMD's Server RoadMap hold up to Intel's?
Intel's Server RoadMap - as per the Inquirer
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Chipzilla preps for server onslaught - Proliferate in every segment
By Mike Magee, 21/07/01 16:39:32 BST
INTEL'S FOSTER XEON at 2GHz will be introduced in September as the chip giant plays a cautious game by flooding new sectors of the market with Pentium III-S 'Tualatins" with 512K of cache in both single and dual processor configurations.
The 64-bit McKinley processor will go into pilot in the last quarter of the year, with the platform being ready Q2/Q3 next year, rather like the Itanium-Merced this year.
The firm now has a complex workstation roadmap which seeks to unite its 64-bit Itanium processor family, its Xeon Foster using the 860 chipset, its Pentium 4 using the 850 chipset and other contenders including dual Tualatin Pentium III-S processors.
The Itanium family is now described as "broadening the value proposition over time", the Xeon Fosters as offering configuration and price flexibility as well as performance, differentiation on the dual processor front, and such things as the number of memory slots.
The IA-32 "Family Entry" Pentium 4s will also be positioned in some cases as "uniprocessor workstations" using high bandwidth Rambus.
It appears that Intel will introduce its 2GHz Pentium 4 for workstations on the Nortwhood platform as early as this quarter, according to the most recent roadmaps we've seen.
Dual Pentium III-S/512K systems will be aimed at the small and medium business market. In the second half of next year, Intel wants to wave goodbye to these Pentium III-S and move everyone to "Netburst" (Pentium 4/Foster core) processors using Prestonia and Plumas LE.
The UD (uktra dense) Pentium III-S/512 processors are aimed at static and dynamic web hosting, telecomms, VOIP gateways, and media-server gateways.
For the front end server market, these babies will use third party chipsets from Serverworks (Broadcom, cough) and Micron Copperhead. Clock speeds will vart between 700MHz and 1.4GHz, but, as stated here before some time ago, they will be low voltage 1.10V babies, some of which will use the 100MHz FSB and will only be available for big OEMs, unusually.
These ultra dense chips occupy both dual processor and uniprocessor segments right through until the end of next year, it appears. People, we expect, will stack em in racks.
There is no early date yet for the Xeon Foster 4-way and 8-way processors. Q1 of next year is the earliest we'll see these processors.
As stated earlier in this piece, Xeon Foster processor price changes will sync with the Pentium 4 price changes. The 2GHz Xeon will cost $615 at launch at the end of August, and will then drop to $444 on the 28th of October.
Itanic prices will stay the same. Cashcade 900MHz and 700MHz processors will stay the same.
The 1GHz Coppermine-T Pentium III will drop to $181 at the end of October, and the 933CuT to $154, spelling the end of the 866 Coppermine T processor. |
