Intel has unboxed its Itanium processor 9300 series which was earlier codenamed Tukwila. Delivering more than twice the performance compared to its predecessor, the series enhances scalability and reliability. The Itanium platform currently runs mission-critical applications for about 80 percent of the Global 100 corporations.
As the Gartner Group predicts about 650 percent growth in IT data in the next five years, businesses would require powerful and scalable enterprise servers. The two-billion transistor Itanium processor 9300 series claims to meet this need with two times the cores as its predecessor, eight threads per processor, more cache, up to 800 percent interconnect bandwidth, up to 500 percent memory bandwidth, and up to 700 percent memory capacity with industry standard DDR3 components.
“Intel is committed to delivering a new era of mission-critical computing, and we are delighted 80 percent of Global 100 companies have chosen Itanium-based servers for their most demanding workloads,” said Kirk Skaugen, vice president Intel Architecture Group and general manager Data Center Group. “Intel is continuing to drive the economics of Moore’s Law into mission-critical computing with today’s Itanium 9300 processor announcement, more than doubling performance for our customers once again.”
The processor shows off advanced machine-check architecture that offers error handling across the hardware, firmware and operating system, ensuring recovery from fatal errors. The Itanium 9300 also employs second generation of Intel Virtualization Technology for improved performance and ruggedness.
“Customers need a flexible technology infrastructure that can efficiently and quickly meet changing mission-critical demands,” said Martin Fink, senior vice president and general manager, Business Critical Systems, HP. “Intel’s Itanium processor 9300 series, combined with HP Integrity servers, helps customers achieve new levels of scalability and resiliency with advanced virtualization capabilities to meet those needs.”
Intel Itanium processor 9300 series enabled OEM systems are said to be binary-compatible with existing software and can also offer several performance improvements, negating the requirement for additional software optimization. The next Itanium processor codenamed Poulson adds to the advanced multi-core architecture, instruction-level, improved reliability features and more.
The future Intel Itanium processors in development have been designed to scale in performance and capacity. The Itanium 9300 processor series as well as the future Intel Xeon processor (codenamed Nehalem EX) have several features in common such as Intel QuickPath Interconnect, the Intel Scalable Memory Interconnect, the Intel 7500 Scalable Memory Buffer (to take advantage of industry standard DDR3 memory), etc.
The enhanced Demand-Based Switching (DBS) minimizes power consumption during low utilization while the Intel Turbo Boost Technology automatically adapts to offer the right performance boost and also conserves power when not required. The Intel Itanium processor 9300 series are available at a price ranging from $946 to $3,838 (approx Rs. 44,135 to Rs. 1,79,061) in quantities of 1,000. OEM systems are said to ship within 90 days.
