Intel Investors - More specifics on Intel's Pentium III Xeon launch.
Even the obligatory swipe at last year's 4-way Pentium II Xeon "debacle" .
Take note of the Gateway offering for the real Power Desktop User !
Paul
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Intel takes the wraps off 550-MHz Xeon
By Stephen Shankland and Brooke Crothers Staff Writers, CNET News.com March 17, 1999, 9:30 a.m. PT URL: news.com
update Intel is taking the wraps off its new Pentium III Xeon chip today, another step in the manufacturer's plan to elbow in on the turf of high-performance processor companies.
Intel boasts that the performance enhancements of the new chip, which will run at 500 MHz and 550 MHz and contain up to 2MB of performance-enhancing cache memory, put it in the same class as Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) chips, the powerful processors that run many high-end corporate servers and workstations. With this chip, Intel and the PC powers aim to take market share from companies that sell multiprocessor RISC and Unix operating system-based products, such as Sun Microsystems.
Xeon costs hundreds, and even thousands of dollars, more than Pentium III chips, so its introduction is an important event in Intel's financial life. Last year a glitch prevented Intel from shipping enough Xeons for so-called four-processor systems, and the culmination of the eight-processor dream has in fact slipped a number of times.
The eight-processor systems that will be shown today will go on sale next quarter.
But PC makers, like Gateway, may be offering some of the most compelling systems--in this case for consumers, not information system departments or engineers.
Many companies are singing from Intel's songbook. Among today's announcements:
Gateway is probably offering the best deal so far with a new consumer desktop. The Gateway Performance 550XL includes a single Intel Pentium III Xeon 550-MHz processor, 128MB of memory, a fast 18GB hard drive, Nvidia AGP NV4 graphics chip, a 19-inch monitor, DVD-ROM drive, modem, TV/FM tuner card, and Windows 98 and Microsoft Office 97 for $3,999.
Hewlett Packard (HP) today introduced the HP Kayak XU PC workstation, targeted at software developers, design engineers, financial analysts, and multimedia authoring professionals. A Kayak XU PC featuring a 500-MHz Pentium III Xeon processor, Matrox Millennium G200 AGP graphics, 128MB of memory, and a fast 9.1GB hard drive is expected to be available immediately for an estimated U.S. street price of about $4,350. Models based on the 550MHz Pentium III processor are expected to be available in April.
Compaq announced the Professional Workstation SP700 and the addition of the new PowerStorm 600 high-end 3D graphics chip. The new so-called "SIMD" instructions--one of the selling points of the Pentium III--"provide significant performance improvements on many graphics-intensive and multimedia applications," Compaq said. The Professional Workstation SP700 with Pentium III Xeon 500 MHz processors is available immediately starting at $4,023. This system includes 128 MB memory, a 9.1 GB hard drive, an ELSA graphics circuit board. A Pentium III Xeon 500 MHz processor-based system with PowerStorm 600 3D graphics technology, and 256 MB of memory starts at $8,140. Pentium III Xeon 550-MHz processors will be available in the Professional Workstation SP700 in the second quarter of this year.
Intergraph Computer Systems, which has been wrangling with Intel over antitrust issues, today announced the availability of its InterServe 9000 server product line. Prices start at $10,000--also available in a non-RAID configuration beginning at $7,678. Intergraph also cites the new SIMD instructions as useful : "By leveraging the new Streaming SIMD extensions of the Intel Pentium III Xeon processor, the InterServe 9000 is ideal for Internet applications such as web hosting, security, and e-commerce."
IBM will begin selling its high-end Netfinity 7000M10 server with the 500-MHz Xeons. The four-processor systems, which start at $9,900, support up to 8 gigabytes of memory and come with IBM's "chip kill" technology, which can correct for communication errors from a computer's memory. And at the lower end, IBM will a four-processor 5500M20 system beginning at $8,000, a spokesperson said.
IBM also will offer eight-processor systems using the Profusion chipset in the second quarter of 1999.
In workstations, IBM is offering the new Xeon in its high-end Xeon-based IntelliStation Z Pro systems in single- and dual-processor configurations, the company said. In addition, the company will offer the system with Big Blue's new Fire GL 1 video system, designed by IBM and produced in partnership with Diamond Multimedia. The Fire GL 1, migrated down from IBM's Unix-based RS/6000 workstation division, can take advantage of the new Pentium III instructions.
Toshiba will start offering Magnia 5100 servers using the 500-MHz and 550-MHz Xeons beginning in June. These two-processor systems will be available with all the configurations of the new Xeon chips.
Dell's server lineup will be updated with the new Xeons today. In addition, Dell put the new 550-MHz Xeon chip into its high-end Precision Workstation 610, available immediately and with prices starting at $3,000, not including a monitor.
SGI will show a version of its high-end Xeon-based Visual Workstation 540. The machine won't actually begin shipping until the second quarter of 1999.
While SGI is working on adding servers based on Intel chips to its product line, the company hasn't yet announced any systems.
Sequent, which specializes in higher-end systems than most Intel system vendors, will bring the Xeon chip to its lineup by the end of June. Today the company will show a system that combines four Pentium Pro chips, four Pentium II Xeons, and four Pentium III Xeons in one box.
Data General is showing the processor in its Aviion servers today.
"The Intel architecture products have moved from last place to essentially first place," said Paul Otellini, executive vice president and general manager of the Intel Architecture Business Group, who is presiding over today's rollout.
Cache memory differentiates the new chips, formerly code-named Tanner, from their more ordinary Pentium brethren. Xeon chips have larger amounts of the high-speed cache to satisfy the information appetite of ever-faster processors, and that cache runs just as fast as the chip itself. In ordinary Pentium III chips, the cache runs at half the speed of the CPU.
The 550-MHz version will come only with a 512K cache, but the 500-MHz version will come with 512K, 1MB, and 2MB cache.
Additionally, for the upcoming eight-processor systems, Intel is offering a new chipset called "Profusion" that will allow server manufacturers to build eight-processor servers under a standard architecture. Standardizing the architecture generally lowers the manufacturing cost, and hence is expected to bring more pressure onto RISC server vendors.
Among those showing new servers and workstations are Compaq, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Gateway, Toshiba, Silicon Graphics, Sequent, and Data General, all of which will show new systems at a debut taking place in San Francisco and New York. |
