Intel kills 2GHz server-oriented Xeon

Updated Intel has pulled the plug on its dual-processor server-oriented 2GHz Xeon chip, after last month delaying its release for what the company described at the time as extra validation work.

Instead, the chip giant will focus its efforts on the chip's successor, the 0.13 micron die-shrink part, codenamed Prestonia but which will be marketed as a Xeon processor. Prestonia is expected to launch early next year at 2.2GHz.

"After consulting with our customers, we decided to forgo the introduction of the current dual-processor server processor," an Intel US spokesman told EE Times. "It didn't make sense for our customers to validate and qualify two platforms at the same time."

The decision to pull the processor and the motive behind it were confirmed today by an Intel UK representative. He stressed that the move is a positive one, allowing the company effectively to offer a faster chip with more cache despite effectively delaying the part by a quarter.

The two-way Prestonia will be released early on during Q1 2002, he added, which matches the schedule laid down in the most recent server roadmaps we've seen. He also confirmed that Prestonia will get a new chipset, codenamed Plumas.

And his US counterpart said that the four- and eight-way Xeon, codenamed Galatin, will ship toward the end of Q2 2002 - again as per our roadmap.

Four- and eight-way versions of Foster are scheduled to ship during Q4. Both parts add between 512KB and 1MB of on-die L3 cache to the 256KB of on-die L2. As yet, it's not clear whether these chips have been canned too, but since the spokesman cited by EE Times made such a point of discussing Galatin, these chips' successor, we suspect they have. ®

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