Itanium's 460GX chipset supports SDRAM and may support Rambus RDRAM.
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Intel Hails Its Fast Itanium
Chipmaker previews powerhouse CPU; will appear in servers later this year.
by Dan Neel, Infoworld
February 8, 2000, 5:09 p.m. PT
Intel considers its upcoming Itanium processor the "most significant processor development since the 486," ready for hard-working Web servers and other heavy jobs.
That's the assessment of Gadi Singer, vice president and general manager of Intel's IA-64 processor division. Singer previewed the processor and its IA-64 architecture Monday at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.
The Itanium's combination of hardware and software, including its 800-MHz production frequency, makes it ideal for raw scientific performance as well as e-business applications, Singer says.
Improved software and hardware synergy gives the Itanium processor greater parallel execution through "instruction loop hints" that keep the chip's rapid clock cycle "fed," Singer says.
"Memory hints" that identify data or calculations being cycled repeatedly through the processor also increase performance by routing the information in the simplest, fastest manner, he says.
Intel estimates the Itanium processor can perform more than 1000 decryptions per second on prototype engineering systems, speeding encrypted business transactions while ensuring security.
While the base chip set will vary depending on the manufacturer, Intel's 460 GX chip set--designed for the Itanium--will support Synchronous Dynamic access memory and possibly Rambus, according to Intel officials.
The company has successfully booted the IA-64 operating environment on 64-bit Windows, Unix/Linux, and Novell, Singer says. It will be ready for server and workstation solutions by the second half of 2000.
Compaq, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Data General have already made commitments to Itanium, he says. With the industry's support, Intel expects the IA-64 architecture to be "the solution for the next 25 years," Singer says.
Expect more Itanium revelations at the Intel Developer Forum next week in Palm Springs, California.
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