Intel Delivers More Quad-Core Server and PC Chips

Published: January 11, 2007

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Chip maker Intel is using the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas as the venue to put more quad-core processors into the market for servers and desktops. With Advanced Micro Devices not expected to deliver quad-core Opterons for servers and Athlons for desktops until the middle of 2007, Intel is trying every trick in volume manufacturing to get every performance, price/performance, and performance per watt advantage with its Xeons and Core 2 processors it can get.

Intel was originally expected to launch the Xeon 3200 processors back in October at the semi-annual Intel Developer Forum, but these chips, which are geared for single-socket machines, did not come to market at that time. Intel did launch its "Clovertown" Xeon 5300, which puts two "Woodcrest" Xeon 5100 processors into a single package that plugs into the same socket as the Xeon 5100s, as well as the "Kentsfield" Core 2 Quad chip for desktop machines, which puts two "Conroe" Core 2 Duo chips in a single package.

Neither the Clovertown nor Kentsfield chips are true quad-core chips--meaning, they do not have all four processor cores on a single piece of silicon--but Intel is trying to use its volume manufacturing advantages to trump AMD. As Intel has learned from its own future "Tukwila" quad-core Itanium and ill-fated "Whitefield" quad-core Xeon MP processors, it is difficult to make a quad-core chip work well. Equally importantly, the larger a chip is physically, the lower the yield (speaking generally), which means the chips are expensive to deliver to the market and cannot be delivered in the same volumes as smaller chips. So making so-called quasi-quad chips--meaning putting two real dual-core chips in the same package--is significantly less expensive and delivers higher volumes. That's a double-whammy that Intel has to take to market against AMD. However, for certain kinds of workloads--particularly virtualized server environments--AMD will argue that integrated memory controllers and true quad-core processor designs will yield better results. And when the future "Barcelona" Rev F Opteron processors are delivered in the middle of this year, everyone can argue about this.

The Clovertown and Kentsfield processors that were announced by Intel in October 2006 were aimed at two-socket servers and single-socket desktops, respectively. The Xeon 3200s announced today are essentially rebadged Kentsfield chips that have been designated for single-socket server chipsets, much as the Xeon 3000s were rebadged dual-core Conroe desktop chips that were retrofitted for server chipsets.

There are two Xeon 3200 processors. The X3220 runs at 2.4 GHz and costs $851, while the X3210 runs at 2.13 GHz and costs $690. (Those prices are for 1,000-unit quantities, as usual.) Both Xeon 3200 chips have 8 MB of on-chip L2 cache memory (4 MB on each dual-core side of the Kentsfield chip package) and a 1066 MHz shared front side bus.

The other chip that Intel is rolling out today is a slower Kentsfield chip for desktops and workstations, the Core 2 Quad Q6600, which also runs at 2.4 GHz, has 8 MB of cache, and a 1066 MHz bus. This chip costs $851, just like the server variant, and is a slower version of the Q6700 Kentsfield announced last October, which runs at 2.66 GHz and which costs $999.

All of these Kentsfield chips have a thermal design point of 130 watts, twice that of the Core 2 Duo chips.

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