Intel's Dunnington gets Aussie launch

The Australian arm of global computer chip maker Intel will tomorrow unveil its first six-core processor in the form of its 'Dunnington' line, which is aimed at the server market.

Intel's previous CPUs have contained up to four cores, however the company is increasing the amount of processing power it contains on a single die to keep up with processing demands and software that is increasingly being built to take advantage of multiple cores. The Dunnington line will be marketed under the Xeon 7400 series moniker.

The design will be the last of Intel's Penryn-class processors, and will feature 16MB of level 3 cache memory. In an email to journalists announcing the launch, Intel said the chips would support more virtual machines per server, enabling better performance within the same space and power envelope for administrators.

Later on this year, Intel is reported to be planning to release a markedly new architecture known as Nehalem, which will aim to further increase the number of cores per chip to 16 or more and end provide other features.

An Intel Australia spokesperson could not clarify what date the chips would actually go on sale in Australia.

Look out for further ZDNet.com.au coverage of Intel's launches tomorrow.