Intel Looks To Montecito For Next-Generation 64-Bit Processors

Intel

The new server CPU, code-named Montecito, will be platform and software-compatible with current 64-bit chips, said Michael Fister, vice president and general manager of Intel's Enterprise Platforms Group.

Intel plans to use the redesigned core to pack additional features into the CPU, Fister said.

"We are going to evolve the microarchitecture of the device and put in amazing things on the die that I won't tell you about now," Fister said during the keynote presentation.

Montecito marks the first time Intel will redesign its architecture since the 64-bit McKinley CPU, which is expected to ship this summer. Montecito will follow Madison, Intel's 1.3-micron 64-bit processor that will support up to 6 Mbytes of cache, and will be pin-compatible with McKinley. That chip and it's dual-processor sister, code-named Deerfield, will ship next year.

Nathan Brockwood, an analyst at Insight64, said Montecito is significant for the industry because it will be the first CPU to be based on a redesigned core since McKinley.

"It's also the first time we will see the influence of the Compaq/Alpha designers on the Itanium [64-bit core," he added. Those engineers are behind simultaneous multithreading, or what Intel today calls Hyper Threading, one key feature Brockwood said he expects to see in the next-generation Montecito processor.

Hyper Threading, also included in the new Xeon server processors, increases the number of instructions a processor can handle by adding a second pipeline for instructions. Enterprise customers should see as much as a 30 percent boost in application performance by utilizing Hyper Threading, Fister said.

"For IT [managers, it means support for more users, faster response times or a higher number of transactions," he said.

At the show, Intel announced its new Xeon server processor, a 1.3-micron CPU starting at speeds of 1.8GHz. In addition to including Hyper-Threading technology, the chip adds a 512-Kbytes of Level 2 cache, larger than available on the older Pentium II server CPUs. The new chip also is supported by a platform that increases the system bus to 400MHz and provides I/O bandwidth of up to 3.2 Gbytes of data per second.

IBM, Compaq, Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens and Hewlett Packard are expected to ship new Xeon servers in the next few months, Intel executives said.

During the keynote, IBM demonstrated Xeon and McKinley servers working in tandem to support an e-commerce site. In IBM's set-up, the 32-bit Xeon-based server handled front-end inquiries while the more powerful 64-bit machine maintained a DB2 database for faster transaction processing.

The Xeon processor with 512 Kbytes of Level 2 cache is priced at $615 in 1,000-unit quantities for 2.20GHz, $417 for 2GHz and $251 for 1.80GHz. The corresponding E7500 chipset is priced between $92 to $132 in 1,000 unit quantities, depending on the configuration.