Intel to Unveil Chips Amid Gains by AMD
Intel Corp. said Tuesday that it would introduce powerful new processors for desktop, laptop and server computers this year, as the world’s largest computer chip maker tries to head off gains from its much smaller archrival.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel dominates the global computer processor market but has lost share and technological edge to Advanced Micro Devices Inc. The announcement of the new chips puts some shine back on Intel products and lifts the company’s image after last week’s bad news for investors that revenue this quarter will fall short of previous expectations.
The new processors represent “a huge improvement in performance and major improvement in power,” Pat Gelsinger, vice president of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group, said at an Intel technical conference in San Francisco. “Particularly in consumer applications, the quietness and small form factor become more important.”
The dual-core chips -- with two processing engines per chip -- will be based on a design called Core microarchitecture, adopting the Core name from Intel’s newest line of PC processors launched in January that replaced Intel’s Pentium chips.
Core microarchitecture combines energy efficiency with state-of-the-art features such as quicker access to and faster sharing of data, virtualization and 64-bit computing, which crunches data at twice the rate of more common 32-bit systems.
The chips, known now only by code names, will appear first in laptops, then in desktops and servers by the end of the year.
The laptop processor will boast a more than 20% performance gain using the same power, the desktop version will show a 40% performance increase while using 40% less power, and the server will boast an 80% performance boost while using 35% less power, said Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner.
The dual-core chips should push Intel past AMD, whose processors currently provide more power for the energy consumed, said David Wu, a semiconductor analyst with Global Crown Capital.
“The billions of dollars of Intel’s [research and development] spending is showing some results,” Wu said. “They’re going to be better than AMD in the second half of the year in performance per watt.”
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD has been gaining share against Intel, especially in servers and retail desktop computers. AMD plans to introduce a 64-bit dual-core processor for laptops in the second quarter, ahead of Intel.
“In any head-to-head comparison, hands down, we win,” said Teresa de Onis, a desktop product manager with AMD’s Microprocessor Solutions Group. “Our dual core has been outperforming theirs for almost a year.”
