Intel will trump AMD with six-core chip next month

Code-named Dunnington, the X7460 Xeon chip is built with Intel's 45-nanometer Penryn technology

By Sharon Gaudin, Framingham | Tuesday, 26 August 2008
The quad-core chips that have sat atop the microprocessor heap for the past two years are about to start being replaced by bigger, burlier six-core processor technology.

In a keynote address at Intel Corp.'s annual developer forum last week in San Francisco, Patrick Gelsinger , senior vice president and general manager of the chip maker's digital enterprise group, announced that a six-core Xeon server processor will ship in September.

Code-named Dunnington, the X7460 Xeon chip is built with Intel's 45-nanometer Penryn technology.

Moving beyond quad-core processors is a major step -- and one that keeps Intel well ahead of rival Advanced Micro Devices , said Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group.

"This is a big deal," said Olds. "What we don';t know is how much power the chips consume and how much heat they will dissipate, and those are key concerns."

AMD isn't slated to release its first six-core chip, code-named Istanbul, until the second half of 2009.

Intel executives last week also disclosed that the first offering in the new Nehalem processor family, a quad-core server chip, is expected to ship this fall. The other members of the Nehalem family -- desktop, dual-core, eight-core and additional quad-core chips -- are slated to ship over the next year.