In a move that could offer a glimpse into whatis in store for Apple when it begins moving its computers away from IBM chips, Intel on Monday announced that it will make its upcoming dual-core, hyper-threaded Xeon and Xeon MP available sooner than expected. Codenamed Paxville, the Xeon MP is aimed at servers with four or more processors, while Paxville DP will be followed by a broader family of dual-core processors designed for servers and desktop computers.
Both processors will ship later this year. Intel said that the new dual-core chips for servers and desktops, codenamed Bensley and Glidewell, respectively, will be available in the first quarter of 2006, marking the completion of the transition to dual-core processors across Intelis product offerings.
Intel also noted that Paxville and Paxville DP will offer over 60% and up to 50% better performance than their predecessors. Theyire both 64-bit chips whose hyper-threading abilities enable them to run four threads simultaneously on a single dual-core processor.