Intel to release Itanium 2 at two speeds
C|Net | at | by Mike
Intel's upcoming Itanium 2 processor will come out at 900MHz and 1GHz, according to sources, and cost about the same as existing Itanium chips. In all, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker will release three versions of the 64-bit chip for high-end servers next week: a 1GHz version containing 3MB of level three cache memory, a 1GHz version containing 1.5MB of cache, and a 900MHz version containing 1.5MB of cache. The cache-speed variations will allow Intel to sell the chip at different prices, depending on performance. Increasing the clock frequency, measured by megahertz, generally increases performance. As does increasing the size of the cache, a reservoir of memory for rapid data access. Itanium 2, formerly code-named McKinley, is designed to run in workstations and high-end servers containing four to 64 processors. Servers that contain the chip will compete against machines from Sun Microsystems and IBM.