Intel today announced plans to discontinue the first Itanium 2 CPUs based on the 0.18 micron McKinley core. Intel Itanium 2 processors at 1.0GHz with 3MB cache, 1.0GHz with 1.5MB cache and 900MHz with 1.5MB cache will be no longer available after the dates set by the CPU maker.

The last corporate commit product hot list date is the 6^th of April 2004, while the last shipment date of the mentioned chips is the 13^th of October 2006.

The discontinued chips can no longer provide enough cost-efficiency given their performance. Currently Intel offers 1.50GHz Itanium 2 processor with 6MB cache at $4227; 1.40GHz Itanium 2 processor with 4MB cache at $2247; 1.30GHz chip with 3MB cache at $1338; Itanium 2 CPUs at 1.40GHz and 1.0GHz with 1.5MB of cache for DP configurations at $1172 and $744.

All Intel Itanium 2 chips are now produced using 0.13 micron technology with copper interconnections and are based on Madison or Deerfield cores.