Intel's Itanium approaching release
'Real Soon Now' is apparently 'Really Soon Now, Honest' for Intel's first IA64 architecture chip, the
Itanium. ZDNet News is reporting that Itanium-based servers and workstations will be released at the end
of May by major computer manufacturers such as Dell, HP and IBM. The chips are due to debut at 733
MHz and 800 MHz, with a choice of either 2 or 4 MBs of cache. The chip prices are expected to fall
somewhere between $1000 and $2000 for the 733Mhz, 2 MB cache version, which is in the same range
as Intel's current Xeon server chips. Two-, four-, and sixteen-way machines are expected to be available.
The industry buzz on the Itanium doesn't appear to be particularly enthusiastic, but people appear to have
higher hopes for Itanium's successor, code-named 'McKinley', which is supposed to start appearing at the
end of the year.
