Intel Woodcrest Xeon DP 5100 series to 'ship 25 June'

Intel will launch 'Woodcrest', the Xeon DP server processor based on the chip giant's 65nm next-generation architecture, on 19 June and ship the chip almost a week later, on 25 June, Taiwanese motherboard-maker moles have claimed. The new chip will debut as the Xeon 5100 series.

According to a leaked presentation slide posted by Chinese-language site HKEPC, six Woodcrest parts will debut: the 5110, 5120, 5130, 5140, 5150 and 5160, clocked at frequencies ranging from 1.6GHz to 3GHz. Entry-level CPUs operate across a 1066MHz frontside bus, with higher-end parts' FSBs clocked to 1333MHz. Every chip contains 4MB of L2 cache shared by the two cores. The chips will use Intel's LGA-771 interconnect. The site claims the part supports virtualisation and demand-based switching in addition to the anticipated 64-bit addressing and execute-disable bit support.

The site's sources claim Woodcrest consumes no more than 80W, well below the 130W drawn by the current Xeon DP 5000 series. The six chips will priced from $209 to $851, the sources add.

The slide implies Woodcrest will replace the 5000 line-up in Q1 2007, the timeframe for the introduction of 'Clovertown', Intel's upcoming quad-core Xeon DP chip. It also reflects claims Intel has made in the past that by the end of 2006, almost 70 per cent of its Xeon DP sales will be Woodcrest parts. Clovertown is expected to grab ten per cent of Intel's Xeon DP sales in Q1 2007. ®