Intel Doubles Down on Cores With Itanium 9500 Processor

Intel-Itanium-Processor-950

Containing 3.1 billion transistors, the Intel Itanium processor 9500 series is Intel's most sophisticated general purpose processor to date. (Photo: Intel Corp.)

Intel (INTC) announced the Itanium processor 9500 series Thursday, based on its new microarchitecture. With twice the number of cores, Intel said the 9500 series will provide vastly improved performance scaling and faster I/O speed over its previous generation of processors.

The Itanium 9500 features 8 cores, 54MB of on-die memory, and enables up to 2 TB of low voltage DIMMs in four-socket configuration. Processors range from 1.73 GHz using 130 watts, to 2.53 GHz using 170 watts. For the next-generation Intel Itanium product family, code-named "Kittson," Intel will employ an innovative model for Intel Itanium and Intel Xeon development called "Modular Development Model." This will extend the common platform strategy by sharing silicon-level design elements and socket compatibility, resulting in an even more sustainable path to bring future Itanium processors to market. In addition, OEMs will be able to develop one single motherboard platform for both architectures.

"In a world where businesses are increasingly dependent on IT for their competitive advantage, more and more business applications are rightfully called "mission critical"; they must be always available, highly responsive and extremely reliable," said Diane Bryant, vice president and general manager of Intel's Datacenter and Connected Systems Group. "It's for precisely these computing workloads that we've developed the Intel Itanium 9500 processor. Built on a new microarchitecture and providing breakthrough performance, the Intel Itanium 9500 processor family signals Intel's ongoing commitment to deliver unparalleled reliability, availability and scalability to meet the critical application demands across all industries."

The Intel architecture used powers this high-availability processor, where hardware and software are married, and leading capabilities and economics favor Itanium over the competition.  Intel has committed to the Itanium roadmap, ensuring value in a long-term investment, and a mission-critical portfolio for comprehensive coverage of needs.

Industry Support

While Intel touted success stories from Chinese customer Inspur and French supercomputer maker Bull, it was HP that announced mission-critical updates in its Integrity and HP-UX portfolio.

"A mission-critical IT infrastructure with resiliency, scalability and high availability is critical to the success of enterprises," said Ric Lewis, vice president and interim general manager, Business Critical Systems, HP. "The addition of the Intel Itanium processor 9500 series to our newly enhanced HP Integrity and HP-UX portfolio provides breakthrough performance, increased productivity and delivers on HP's commitment to provide our customers with investment protection."

HP (HPQ) announced its commitment to the Integrity platform with new solutions offering scalability, continuous availability and efficiency. A new HP Superdome 2 features faster, more robust blades and advancements to HP's flagship server that provide high availability to mission-critical workloads. Three new HP Integrity server blades for the HP BladeSystem c-Class enclosure  provide workload flexibility with the industry's only electrically isolated hard-partitioning capabilities. A new entry-class HP Integrity server for branch offices is ENERGY STAR certified for reduced energy use. HP-UX advancements deliver advanced security and management to speed threat detection and optimize resource utilization.

“Our mission-critical clients face ever-increasing demands for uptime, performance and security with their most critical applications,” said Ric Lewis, vice president and interim general manager, Business Critical Systems and Converged Application Systems, HP. “Today’s announcement demonstrates HP’s continued commitment to transform the server landscape with innovations to the Integrity portfolio—offered within a mission-critical Converged Infrastructure that will endure into the future.”