Intel and Dell this week showed off servers using the chipmaker's forthcoming high-end "Tulsa" Xeon, a chip that Intel has begun shipping but not formally announced.
The chips were used in an unlabeled Intel server and a Dell PowerEdge 6850 on display here at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo. Linux is popular chiefly on servers, so Intel, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Advanced Micro Devices and others with server products are prime sponsors of the show.
Tulsa, a dual-core processor, is the last of the ill-fated NetBurst lineage of x86 chips from Intel. The NetBurst design in recent years was more notable for increases in power consumption than in performance, but it's now been largely replaced by the Core microarchitecture that performs better and uses less electricity.
Intel released a Core-based Xeon called Woodcrest in June, but that processor is used only in dual-processor servers. Tulsa is for more powerful four-processor machines.
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