Intel Corp. has started shipping sample quantities of its next-generation Prestonia server chip made on its 0.13-micron process, a spokesman confirmed Friday.
The server version with 512-kilobyte on-chip cache is the first quad-pumped architecture slated for the server market.
The Intel spokesman said a workstation version of Prestonia is now in full production and will be introduced by OEM customers next week. The server version will be unveiled officially later this quarter.
Prestonia server version will use either the Plumas server chipset designed by Intel or a third party chipset made by ServerWorks, Santa Clara, Calif., both supporting DDR memory. The workstation version will use Intel's 860 chipset supporting Direct Rambus memory.
Attention has been focused on the Prestonia server debut ever since Intel last year canceled its 0.18-micron process Foster chip. At the time Intel said Prestonia's server introduction had been accelerated so it didn't make sense to bring out two new server chips so close together.
Some analysts also believed the benchmark tests of the Foster server chip weren't that much better than achieved by the 0.13-micron version of Pentium III Tualatin chips for servers. The 0.13-micron Prestonia with double the amount of on-chip cache at 512-Kbytes and higher speed is expected to show a wide enough performance increase to justify the higher price over the Pentium III Tualatin server chip.
