Intel Sabre stab at SMP misses mark

Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) systems which use the Sabre motherboard lack appeal because of a glitch that forces corporate users to either under-spec or over-spec their systems. According to a reliable source close to Intel's plans, the Sabre chipset still needs tweaking and performance is not as good as it should be for eight-way SMP server performance. Although Sabre boards can be populated with high-end Intel Xeon processors and offer good performance, this solution is too expensive for most corporations, the source said. If low end Xeon processors are used with Sabre motherboards, on the other hand, end users do not get the performance boost they would expect from their SMP systems. Systems which do not use the Sabre board, such as the Compaq ProLiant eight-way box, do not suffer from such performance constraints, according to the source. ®