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Intel unveils first-ever dual-core Xeon chip

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CIOL Bureau
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SAN FRANCISCO: Intel Corp. on Monday unveiled its first microprocessors for server computers that put two cores, or processors, on a single chip, aiming to close a gap with smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

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The world's largest semiconductor maker said the dual-core Xeon processor, code-named Paxville, runs at 2.80 gigahertz and will cost $1,043 each in bulk quantities.

Originally, Intel, of Santa Clara, California, had not planned to introduce a dual-core Xeon until 2006. But in August, it said development of the chip was ahead of schedule and that the debut would be in the second half of this year.

Over the next few months, servers and workstations -- souped-up personal computers used for advanced engineering and other tasks -- using the chips will be available from major vendors, including Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., International Business Machines Corp. and others. Servers are the machines that run computer networks.

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AMD, Intel's cross-county rival in Sunnyvale, California, beat Intel to the market with its own dual-core Opteron processor that it unveiled in April. Dell is the only major computer maker that does not use AMD chips.

Dual-core processors, combined with Intel's hyper-threading technology, multiply the amount of work a processor can do in the same time as a processor with one core, Intel said.

The new dual-core 64-bit processors are expected to improve the performance of today's dual-processor 64-bit servers by up to 50 percent while using less power, Intel said.

So-called 64-bit servers use chips that crunch data in 64-bit chunks compared to the 32-bit chunks handled by prevailing microprocessors.

The Opteron is also a 64-bit chip. Intel had held off on introducing a version of its 32-bit Xeon chips with 64-bit extensions in favor of its Itanium 64-bit chip. It changed course after AMD began making in-roads with Opteron among server computer makers, analysts said.

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