| Intel unveils improved
Itanium processor line
20 July, 2006
By Liam Lahey
Intel Corp.'s release of five new products in the dual-core
Intel Itanium 2 processor 9000 series are said to be a vast
improvement on the previous generation in terms of performance
and power consumption compared to existing, single-core Itanium
chips
To that end, 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 via hyper-threading
technology.
The Intel dual-core Itanium 2 processors boast more than
1.7 billion transistors that offer new features to the Itanium
processor line for virtualization capabilities, enhanced cache
reliability, and other mainframe- like capabilities, officials
said.
The problem with Itanium is that it's largely viewed as a
dead end technology supported largely by old big iron companies,
explained Rob Enderle, principal analyst for The Enderle Group
in San Jose, Calif.
The latest version looks good, he said, but once Dell abandoned
the platform and AMD stepped in with a strong transition platform,
which Intel responded to, Itanium appeared to be off in a
design cul-de-sac that didn't appear to have a long term future.
"Itanium servers haven't been a big hit with the enterprise
client base, they are being sold and implemented at the very
high end but mainframes are still being sold and installed
as well," he said. "In the end, the platform lacks
momentum and while this is by far the best Itanium offering
to date, unless they can show a real future for this platform
it is likely that momentum will continue to be elusive."
For specialized channel partners this doesn't mean there
isn't some opportunity, because there is, Enderle reasoned.
"Itanium products carry good margins but sales cycles
are relatively long and the work is generally very custom,"
he said. " If you aren't already in this market this
probably still isn't a time to enter. If you are here, the
improvements are real, so exiting would be premature as well."
According to Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general
manager, Intel's Digital Enterprise Group in Santa Ana, Calif.
the broad system and software support for Itanium 2 processors
enables CIOs to move away from aging and expensive legacy
systems toward standard-based computing and business innovation.
"In virtually all areas, momentum for Itanium-based
systems is growing," he said. "More applications
were added during the first half this year than were available
in 2003 and more than 70 per cent of the top Global 100 companies
are choosing Itanium technology. In addition, the Itanium
Solutions Alliance has committed $10 billion (U.S.) of hardware
support through 2010 to the architecture."
Dual-core Itanium 2-based systems targets business analytics,
large data warehouses, and HPC (high performance computing).
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, Intel said.
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2005 run on
the new dual- core, multi-threaded Itanium 2 processor, with
Microsoft officials stating, "Microsoft is resolute in
its support of the Itanium architecture, today and in the
future."
Intel's virtualization technology (VT) is built into Itanium
2 processors to enhance support for OEM and industry virtual
machine monitors to provide a platform for consolidating proprietary
solutions onto industry standards- based servers. In general,
virtualization 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.
"It is wise to remember that processor announcements
aim to inform three general audiences: OEM partners, ISV partners,
and end customers. If along the way one can scrape the scales
from the eyes of non-customers and non- partners or bloody
the noses of competitors then all the better, but it is not
required," said Charles King, president and principal
analyst for Pund-IT Inc. "The primary goal of such announcements
is to assure people who buy or sell your products that everything
is peachy."
For Intel in general and the Itanium 2 9000 in particular,
that is no easy task, King said. The company is currently
in a slump resulting in missed earnings, faltering efforts,
sold-off business units, layoffs in the thousands, and more
layoffs planned. Moreover, these latest Itanium chips are
late being released by about a year and the platform's prospects
have been complicated by the continuing rise of 64-bit x86
computing solutions.
"The new chips provide a significant performance boost
over previous generation Itanium solutions, always a plus
in the cycles-happy enterprise server market, and they also
highlight Intel's ongoing power-efficiency strategy,"
King said. "These points should give the company's oft-
beleaguered OEM partners and their patient customers a smile
or two.
"However, while the new performance specs are notably
better than earlier Itanium iterations, they are not likely
to attract many customers from competitors or to stand up
to IBM's next update of its POWER 5+ machines."
Itanium will enjoy a gradual rise in market position largely
as a result of continuing efforts by HP and its partners,
he added.
"That is a better result than many have assumed, but
it falls far short of the success Intel and its IA-64 partners
continue to claim," he said.
Intel dual- and single-core Itanium 2 processors are shipping
with systems coming available in late August and growing throughout
the year. Intel's pricing for each is as follows (in U.S.
currency):
Dual-Core Itanium 2 processor 9050 1.6GHz 24M 533/400 MHz
-- $3,692
Dual-Core Itanium 2 processor 9040 1.6GHz 18M 533/400 MHz
-- $1,980
Dual-Core Itanium 2 processor 9030 1.6GHz 8M 533/400 MHz
-- $1,552
Dual-Core Itanium 2 processor 9020 1.42GHz 12M 533/400 MHz
-- $910
Dual-Core Itanium 2 processor 9015 1.4GHz 12M 400 MHz --
$749
Itanium 2 processor (single core) 9010 1.6GHz 6M 533/400
MHz -- $696
|
