Intel Talks About Nehalem Xeon Processors

In a bid to take on AMD's new “Istanbul” Opteron six-shooter processor, Intel on Tuesday announced that it will come up with a new a server chip that includes up to eight processor cores by the end of this year. 

Intel's new high-end processor, dubbed as “Nehalem-EX”, will be offering two key improvements, including increase in the number of cores within a single chip from six to eight, and the ability of each core to handle two threads of software rather than just one. 

In addition to it, the new Nehalem-EX will include 24-Mbytes of shared cache, support for 16 DIMMs per socket, four high-speed QPI links, as well as Intel's signature “Turbo Boost” and hyperthreading technologies.  

Touting the features of its new chip, the chip giant said in a statement, “Nehalem-EX will provide tremendous scalability, from large-memory two-socket systems through eight-socket systems capable of processing 128 threads simultaneously without the need for third-party chips to “glue” the platform together”. 

The new chip, which will succeed Intel's existing Xeon 7400 processor, is expected to be shipped in high-end server systems by the first quarter of 2010. However, the company didn't share anything about pricing details and clock speed of the processor. 

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