New high-end Intel systems coming your way

Through the mists of time comes swimming a whole bunch of new Intel codenames for Xeon, Foster and Merced systems. For low end servers in late Q3, expect to see the single processor Mimosa and dual CPU Pine and Hemlock boards using 133MHz FSB and the 820 chipset. Higher up the scale come the Willow 2-way and the Koa 4-way, both using the 840 chipset. Moving into the second half of 2000 we should see the Tumbleweed uniprocessor board and the Juniper 2-way, while at the high end, the Lion quad Merced board should appear in systems costing up to $20K. In early 2001, two boards for Foster (the IA32 successor to Coppermine) are scheduled – the 2-way Hickory and the 4-way Shasta. Meanwhile, workstation users have a choice of new motherboards too. The dual processor Pentium III Outrigger and the Dual Xeon Brigantine will both use the 840 chipset, while the first 2-way Merced board, codenamed Big Sur, should sample sometime in Q2 2000, with the 460GX chipset, PCI 64/66, 16Gb memory, AGP 4X and AGP Pro. Further out it gets a bit more hazy, with boards scheduled for Coppermine dubbed Lewis and Clark appearing towards the end of 2000. Nice to see Chipzilla is moving away from volcanoes and rivers for its product names and using comedy duos instead. Lewis and Clark? Don’t they mean Martin and Lewis? Tom and Jerry, anyone? ®