New Processors Drive Lower Cost, Entry-Level Intel® Itanium® 2-Based Systems

INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, TAIPEI, Taiwan, April 13, 2004 - Intel Corporation today announced two Intel® Itanium® 2 processors. Servers based on the new processors are approximately 28 percent lower in price** and up to 25 percent higher performing than previous dual processor Itanium 2-based servers.

The new processors broaden the Itanium processor family support of lower-cost server solutions for front-end applications and complement existing Itanium 2-based systems in large scale deployments. A wide range of Itanium 2-based dual processor servers are offered by more than 50 system manufacturers worldwide. Entry level systems start at $2,100***, while fully configured systems with the new processors will be available for approximately $8,000.

"As Itanium 2-based servers push further into enterprise infrastructures we are able to reduce the overall system cost while increasing the performance," said Richard Dracott, general manager of Enterprise Marketing and Planning at Intel. "End users will benefit from the flexibility and choice that Intel-based solutions bring to their organizations."

The price/performance improvements of these new processors are the next step toward achieving Intel's goal of delivering Itanium 2-based systems with up to twice the performance as Intel® Xeon™ processor based systems for the same system cost in 2007.

Intel has two server architectures, which makes up approximately 85 percent of the server market segment share.**** The Itanium 2 processor family is targeted at business critical enterprise servers and technical computing clusters while the Intel Xeon processor family is broadly used for general purpose IT infrastructure.

"In the next few years, system manufacturers will be able to design an Itanium 2 processor and Intel Xeon processor-based system using the same low cost components," Dracott.said. "Every product and technology we roll out moves us one step closer to a common system with common infrastructure costs."

Audi AG, the international high-quality car manufacturer, recently switched from RISC-based servers to HP Integrity dual processor servers running Itanium 2 processors.

"Audi is a pioneer in the innovation of exquisite automobiles that are attractive, sophisticated and technically perfect," said Hans-Ulrik von Bülow, senior CAE systems and methods analyst, AUDI AG. "We rely on the technology we use to create designs so that when the car leaves our warehouse, we know that it will deliver on the Audi brand promise to our customers. That is why we switched from RISC-based systems to Itanium 2-based DP systems to help design car ventilation systems. We get better price/performance and increase our ability to perform a wide range of what-if scenarios to discover more innovative designs and possibilities."

The Itanium 2 processor at 1.40 GHz with 3 MB level three (L3) cache is available worldwide today and the Itanium 2 processor at 1.6 GHz with 3 MB L3 cache is expected to be available worldwide in May. Both processors enable systems for technical computing clusters and entry-level, front-end enterprise systems. In addition, Intel offers to manufacturers a rack-optimized, dual processor Intel server platform for both of these new Itanium 2 processors.

The Itanium 2 processor at 1.40 GHz with 3MB of cache improves the performance up to 25 percent over the Itanium 2 processor at 1.40 GHz with 1.5 MB of cache. Furthermore it delivers up to twice the price/performance of comparable RISC-based systems.***** The increased performance will enhance the speed and efficiency of technical computing applications such as computer aided engineering (CAE), which enables faster product design and more accurate simulations.

The Itanium 2 processor at 1.60 GHz with 3MB of cache delivers outstanding floating point performance per compute node, resulting in an industry-leading DP performance based on Linpack measurements (or floating point operations per second).******

New dual processor systems are available from a variety of system manufacturers including Bull, Dell, Fujitsu Siemens, HCL, IBM, Kraftway, Lenovo, Maxdata, NEC, Samsung, and Transtec AG.

The Intel Itanium 2 processor at 1.40 GHz with 3 MB of cache is available for $1,172 in 1,000-unit quantities. The Intel Itanium 2 processor at 1.60 GHz with 3 MB of cache will be available for $2,408 in 1,000-unit quantities.

About IDF
The Intel Developer Forum is the technology industry's premier event for hardware and software developers. Held worldwide throughout the year, IDF brings together key industry players to discuss cutting-edge technology and products for PCs, servers, communications equipment, and handheld clients. For more information on IDF and Intel technology, visit http://developer.intel.com.

Intel, Itanium and Intel Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

** Price reductions of 28 percent estimated from change in system price with two Itanium® 2 processors 1.4 GHz with 3 MB L3 and 4GB of memory from www.terian.com.

*** HP Integrity rx1600 1.00 GHz/1.5MB bundle: Intel® Itanium® 2 Processor 1.00 GHz with 1.5 MB L3 cache, 512 MB Base Memory (2x256MB), Core I/O, Single power supply, 1-Year Next Day Limited Warranty, www.hp.com, April 2, 2004

**** International Data Corp., (IDC), Quarterly Server Tracker, Q4, 2003.

***** Itanium 2 processor at 1.4 GHz and 3 MB cache improves the performance up to 25 percent Itanium 2 processor at 1.4GHz and 1.5 MB cache as measured by Dell and submitted to www.spec.org. Itanium 2 processor at 1.4 GHz and 3 MB cache is twice the price/performance of RISC-based systems: Itanium 2 processor at 1.4 GHz and 3 MB cache is twice the price/performance of RISC-based systems:
1. Based on SPECint 2000 and SPECfp2000 data submitted to or posted at www.spec.org and systems as sourced from: Ion Computers I2X2, (2) Intel® Itanium® 2 Processor 1.4 GHz with 1.5MB L3 cache, 4GB Memory (8x512 MB), (2) 36GB SCSI Disk, www.ioncomputer.com, April 2nd 2004, ~$11K price assumes $2400 incremental CPU cost + 20% OEM adder on CPUs. pSeries 615 Model 6C3 rack-mount server with one 2-way POWER4+ 1.45GHz processor, 4GB of memory, 2 x 36.4GB hot-swappable hard drives, two integrated Ethernet adapters, www.ibm.com, April 2, 2004. Sun Fire 240R Server w/ 2 1.28 GHz UltraSPARC III Cu Processors 1 MB External Cache, 4-GB Memory, 2 36-GB 10000 RPM FC-AL Disk Drives, Solaris 8 & 9 Operating Systems Pre-Installed, www.sun.com, April 2, 2004.

2. Based on Linpack HPC benchmark. Sources: Intel estimates based on Intel measurements for two Intel Itanium 2 processors 1.4 GHz with 3MB cache, performance of 10.35GFLOPs on 2P, estimated pricing of ~$5940 for Intel SR870BH2 server with 2P 1.4GHz with 3 MB cache, 2GB RAM, 2x36GB HDD.IBM Power4+ 1.45GHz - 7.693 GFLOPs reported on www.ibm.com using same processors on Intellistation 275, pricing of $9985 from www.ibm.com on P615 using 2P 1.45GHz, 2 GB memory, 2x36GB HDD. Intel estimates for Sun UltraSPARC IIIi 1.28GHz maximum theoretical performance of 5.12GFLOPs for 2P, pricing of $6695 for Sun V240 with 2P 1.28GHz, 2GB memory, 2x36GB HDD from www.sun.com.

****** Based on Intel measurements on the Itanium 2 processor at 1.6GHz and 3MB cache.