Intel's Montecito Itanium chipset coming

Intel is preparing to launch its Montecito dual-core Itanium chipset on July 18th. The chip is designed to counter AMD, which has made inroads in the server processor market following the introduction of its 64-bit Opteron chip. Intel recently unveiled the "Woodcrest" family of processors, which some industry watchers suspect may power Apple's next Xserve systems. Intel's new chips feature lower power consumption technology and virtualization capability, which result in cooler running temperatures ideal for notebooks as well as small form-factor systems.

Skeptical

Pund-IT research analyst Charles King believes that Itanium could fail due to it's architectural differences.

"The tough thing about Itanium is, of the four largest server vendors out there, three of them either have no Itanium products or any real products in their plans [...] Itanium at this point is basically HP's game," King said.

Companies in the Itanium Solutions Alliance are looking to this new dual-core chip to inspire market growth.

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