New dual-core Intel Itanium 2 processor doubles performance, reduces power consumption

Intel Corporation has unveiled five new products in the Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2 Processor 9000 series. Previously codenamed "Montecito", the new processors are designed for the most sophisticated high-end computing platforms in the world.

They double the performance and lower energy requirements, improving performance per watt by 2.5 times compared to existing, single-core versions. All server-maker members of the Itanium Solutions Alliance (ISA) will launch new Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2 Processor 9000 series-based products.

The flagship 9050 model features two complete processing cores and nearly triples the cache or memory reservoir versus Intel`s previous generation. It also can execute four instructions or threads per processor enhanced by Intel`s Hyper-Threading technology.

The new Dual-Core Itanium 2 processors represent the world`s most intricate product design to date with more than 1.7 billion transistors. This allows Intel designers to deliver new features to the Itanium processor family that create robust virtualisation capabilities, enhanced cache reliability and other mainframe-like capabilities.

[TABLE]Unlike products from the remaining RISC vendors, the Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2 Processor 9000 series offers end-user freedom through a broad choice of software with more than 8 000 applications in production. Itanium processor-based servers and high-performance computing (HPC) systems are unique in the industry. They provide mission-critical support for Windows*, Linux*, Unix* and other operating systems as well as new migration tools off of proprietary servers and mainframes - delivering unbeatable flexibility and a confident adoption path for IT managers to migrate to a standards-based architecture.

The Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2 processor 9000 series delivers performance at a system scale unmatched by competing RISC architectures. It set world record results in several key server benchmarks including a score of 4230 SPEC_int_rate_base_20001, nearly triple the previous record.

"Intel remains focused on removing the proprietary shackles that remain in the high-end of the server market segment, and with Dual-Core Itanium 2 processors we are delivering unprecedented IT freedom with a product that excels in performance, reliability and improved energy efficiency," said Pat Gelsinger, senior vice-president and general manager, Intel`s Digital Enterprise Group.

"The broad system and software support for Itanium 2 processors enables CIOs to move away from aging and expensive legacy systems and instead direct those funds toward standard-based computing and business innovation.

"In virtually all areas, momentum for Itanium-based systems is growing. More applications were added during the first half this year than were available in 2003 and more than 70% of the top Global 100 companies are choosing Itanium technology. In addition, the Itanium Solutions Alliance has committed $10 billion of hardware support through 2010 to the architecture."

Dual-core Itanium 2-based systems target the most compute intensive areas, such as business analytics, large data warehouses and HPC areas. This is increasingly important as companies continue to strive for real-time decision-making based on increasingly large amounts of data; and scientists, engineers and researchers seek to solve medical, climatic and other challenges through the use of computing power. The Itanium 2 processor`s EPIC architecture design provides high levels of parallelism and computational capabilities, driving greater efficiency into analytics applications and business intelligence software.

"Microsoft Windows Server 2003* and Microsoft SQL Server 2005* on the new dual-core, multi-threaded Itanium 2 processor will provide exceptional performance, scalability and reliability to enterprise customers with database workloads and line of business applications," said Bob Muglia, senior vice-president of the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft. "Microsoft is resolute in its support of the Itanium architecture, today and in the future."

Intel Virtualisation Technology (VT) is built into Itanium 2 processors to enhance support for OEM and industry virtual machine monitors (VMMs). The built-in scalability, performance and industry leading reliability capabilities of Itanium 2-based servers provide an outstanding platform for consolidating proprietary solutions onto industry standards-based servers. Virtualisation can help lower the total cost of ownership by assisting with the migration and consolidation of different software applications from proprietary platforms to industry standard hardware and operating systems.

Supporting the Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2 processor 9000 series are two rack-optimised Intel server systems: SR870BH2 and SR870BN4. These server systems provide the optimum performance, reliability and expandability that scalable business solutions and mission-critical applications demand and are available today to OEMs and systems integrators for enterprise and high-performance computing.

Intel dual- and single-core Itanium 2 processors are shipping today with systems coming available in late August and growing throughout the year.

1: result published on www.spec.org
Performance tests and ratings are measured using specific computer systems and/or components and reflect the approximate performance of Intel products as measured by those tests. Any difference in system hardware or software design or configuration may affect actual performance. Buyers should consult other sources of information to evaluate the performance of systems or components they are considering purchasing. For more information on performance tests and on the performance of Intel products, visit http://www.intel.com/performance/resources/limits.htm or call (U.S.) 1-800-628-8686 or 1-916-356-3104. Copyright (c) 2006, Intel Corporation. * Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

Configuration details: Performance Claim: Based on SPEC publication (SPECint_rate_base_2000

Source www.spec.org: Itanium 2 processor results of 4230 on SGI Altix 4700 system, using 128 Itanium 2 processors (128 processors, 256 Cores), 1.6GHz with 24MB L3 cache, 512GB memory, SGI ProPACK 4 SP3 OS, published on 18th July`2006. IBM Corporation has published highest result of 1063 on IBM eServer p5 595 (1900 MHz, 64 CPU), 64 cores, 32 chips, 2 cores/chip (SMT on), 256GB memory and on OS AIX 5L V5.3, published in October 2004. Sun Microsystems has published a result of 1213 on Sun Fire E25K (72 processor), 144 cores, 72 chips, 2 cores/chip, UltraSPARC IV+, 1.5Ghz, 288GB memory, on Solaris 10 and result published in December 2005.