Intel Preparing Six-Core Chips for Desktops, Servers

From PC World: Intel is preparing six-core chips for high-end desktops and servers for release in the first half of this year, the company said Wednesday.

The six-core chips will be based on the company's latest Westmere architecture and deliver faster performance and more power savings compared to earlier quad-core chips, Intel said on a conference call. The chips will contain 1.17 billion transistors and include 12MB of cache, a company spokesman said.

The new chips are made using the 32-nanometer process, which is also used to make the company's latest Core processors introduced in January. The base architecture of both the chips are the same, however, the six-core chips will not include integrated graphics capabilities. Users will need to buy a discrete graphics card to work with the chips.

Intel officials declined to provide further details such as clock speed.

Intel is targeting desktop six-core processors, code-named Gulftown, at enthusiasts like gamers. The processor will fit into the same socket as the older quad-core Core i7 chips targeted at enthusiasts, a company spokesman said. The Gulftown processor will come under the Core i7 brand name and be able to run 12 threads at the same time to boost application performance.

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