Paul, the 450 MHz Pentium II (Deschutes) is going to be the base CPU chip for an 8 way, on one motherboard, SMP node (that's tightly coupled eight way, no clustering), to be available from Intel later this year. Intel bought the 8 way technology from Corollary, a Southern California startup, last year. At least Intel does something with companies it buys, unlike other companies I wouldn't mention, but have initials like...National Semiconductor!
This eight way node is also so small that enough CPU's will be able to be packaged in one frame to build a server that gets close to rivaling a mainframe in processing power. But, it won't do MVS, RAS, I/O or security like mainframes do. Doesn't matter, there is tons of space for both Intel based servers (NT, soon UNIX) and mainframes.
Let the good times roll! Well, I know Intel has some rocks to pulverize, or move, but I sure am enjoying the fact that my favorite investment, and chip company is moving very strongly into products and markets that I really understand. Makes me all the more confident that Intel will rule for as long as I need to worry about.
Tony |
