Intel Revamps Itanium Processor Line

Intel is doubling the processing power of its Itanium platform with the introduction of the Itanium 9300 series. Previously code-named “Tukwila,” the latest upgrade to Itanium doubles the number of cores from two to four in the hopes of competing more effectively against high-end IBM Power and Oracle Sparc processors.

In addition, Itanium 9300 features 2 billion transistors, eight threads per processor, up to 800 percent interconnect bandwidth improvement, up to 500 percent memory bandwidth improvement, and up to 700 percent memory capacity improvement using industry-standard DDR3 components. The Itanium 9300 processor employs the second generation of Intel Virtualization Technology to improve performance and robustness, and its Intel 7500 chipset can directly assign I/O devices to virtual machines, further boosting efficiency.

An enhanced form of Demand-Based Switching (DBS) lowers power consumption when utilization is low. Intel Turbo Boost Technology automatically senses and adapts to boost performance when needed, and to conserve power when it is not.

Beyond just releasing a stronger processor with more bells and whistles, Intel is positioning the Itanium 9300 as a platform to support “mission-critical computing for the next decade.” Intel is already hyping "Poulson," code name for the next Itanium processor, which it says will add an advanced multi-core architecture, instruction-level and hyper-threading enhancements, and new reliability features.

Intel further says that future Itanium processors in development today are being designed for socket and binary compatibility with Intel Itanium 9300 processor-based systems and software. According to Intel, they are designed to scale in performance and capacity through component upgrades, without software recompilation, so customers can continue to develop “mission-critical” computing systems.

To add value to Itanium 9300, Intel has it share several components with Intel Xeon processors, including QuickPath Interconnect, Scalable Memory Interconnect, Intel 7500 Scalable Memory Buffer the Intel 7500 chipset. Intel is also working on a next-generation version of Xeon, code named “Nehalem EX.”

Enterprises with heavy, quickly changing workloads may benefit from the features and functionality of Itanium 9300. The Intel Itanium processor 9300 series ranges in price from $946 to $3,838 in quantities of 1,000.