Don't expect the Pentium 4-derived Xeon server chips to ship until the fourth quarter, Intel warned yesterday. The chip's launch has been put back three months because it's taking more time to validate than the company originally expected it would.

So attendees at the Intel Developers Forum were told this week. At issue is the part aimed at two-way and four-way multi-processor systems. The 2GHz part was originally due to ship this quarter, but will now not appear until October at the earliest.

Q4 is also expected to see 1.6GHz Xeons equipped with 512KB and 1MB of on-die L3 cache, designed for four- and eight-way systems.

Then, in early 2002, Intel is scheduled to ship Prestonia, its 0.13 micron Xeon die-shrink, which will run on the Intel's i860 and Plumas chipsets. It's not yet clear whether Intel will put these parts back three months, following the Xeon delay. ®