Intel To Preview Quad-Core Xeon MP

Intel is planning to preview on Friday its ultra-high-end, quad-core Xeon MP processor. The chip, code-named Tigerton, is scheduled to ship in the second half of 2007, an Intel spokesman confirmed.

Intel will show off the processor at a media briefing to be held in San Francisco. The Tigerton device will officially ship under the Xeon MP 7000 Series moniker. The MP designation stands for multiprocessor. This means that the 7000-Series parts are intended for use in servers with multiple sockets; thus, a two-socket system with dual Series-7000 MP chips would in fact have eight physical CPU cores.

When it ships, Tigerton will be Intel's second quad-core server CPU. Its first quad-core Xeon is code-named "Clovertown" and will carry a 5300-series part number. Clovertown is a mainstream server chip, for use in single-core (i.e, four-core) systems. It's expected to ship in November.

On the quad-core desktop front, Intel appears on track for an early November launch of the Core 2 Extreme QX6700.

As for AMD, it plans to ship a four-core Opteron server processor in the middle of 2007. Separately, AMD will soon ship its 4 x 4 platform, which packs two dual-core Athlon 64 X2 processors in side-by-side sockets to achieve four-way computing. The 4 x 4 platform is seen as a something of a placeholder until AMD releases a true desktop quad core in late 2007