Intel tops 1M mark on quad-core processors

IDG News Service -

Intel Corp. says that it has shipped more than 1 million of its quad-core Xeon 5300 microprocessors since introducing them last November, meeting a goal announced by company executives earlier this year.

Danny Cheung, an Intel spokesman in Singapore, said that the millionth quad-core Xeon chip was shipped this month.

The Xeon 5300 series, which was code-named Clovertown, has aided Intel's recovery in the server processor market by helping the company to take back business that previously was going to Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and its Opteron chips.

Intel has priced the Xeon 5300s aggressively in an effort to win more orders for the quad-core devices. The prices it is charging overlap those of its dual-core Xeon 5100 series, which was code-named Woodcrest.

For example, Intel's Xeon E5345, which is the second-fastest Clovertown chip and includes four 2.33-GHz processor cores and an 8MB cache, is priced at $851 in 1,000-unit quantities. That's the same price as the Xeon 5160, which has two 3-GHz cores and a 4MB cache and is the fastest Woodcrest chip.

According to Intel's latest processor price list (download PDF), pricing for the full Xeon 5300 line ranges from $455 to $1,172 in quantities of 1,000 chips, while Xeon 5100 pricing ranges from $209 to $851.