Intel has launched a new Itanium processor 9300 series, which it claims to deliver more than double the performance of its predecessor, boosts scalability and adds reliability features to the Itanium platform.
The company said that the two-billion transistor Itanium processor 9300 series has twice as many cores as its predecessor, eight threads per processor through enhanced hyper-threading technology, more cache, up to 800% the interconnect bandwidth, up to 500% the memory bandwidth and up to 700% the memory capacity using-industry standard DDR3 components.
Previously codenamed Tukwila, the new Itanium processor 9300 series adds to the architecture’s resiliency with new reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) features that extend across the processor, its Intel QuickPath Interconnect technology and the memory subsystem, Intel said.
According to Intel, the new processor’s machine-check architecture coordinates error handling across the hardware, firmware and operating system and improves system availability by enabling recovery from otherwise fatal errors. The Itanium 9300 processor employs the second generation of Intel virtualisation technology and the Intel 7500 chipset can directly assign I/O devices to virtual machines.
The company said that the OEM systems based on the Intel Itanium processor 9300 series will be binary-compatible with existing software and can provide performance improvements without the need for additional software optimisation. Poulson, codename for the next Itanium processor, will add an advanced multi-core architecture, instruction-level and hyper-threading enhancements, new reliability features and more.
The Itanium 9300 processor series and the future Intel Xeon processor codenamed Nehalem EX, share several platform ingredients, including the Intel QuickPath Interconnect, the Intel Scalable Memory Interconnect, the Intel 7500 Scalable Memory Buffer and I/O hub, Intel said.
The Intel Itanium processor 9300 series ranges in price from $946 to $3,838 in quantities of 1,000. OEM systems are expected to ship within 90 days.
