800MHz Processor Bus in Xeon CPUs Receives Green Light

by Anna Filatova
06/09/2003 | 11:32 AM

At first Intel was not going to speed up the processor bus to 800MHz of its server Xeon processor family like they did with the Pentium 4. According to the earlier roadmaps of the company, Intel was planning to move Xeon processor family to 667MHz Quad Pumped Bus only. However, the success of the Pentium 4 processors with faster 800MHz bus pushed Intel to revise their plans. In the end of last month Intel informed their partners that 800MHz bus will be also introduced for Xeon processors instead of the previously planned 667MHz bus.

First Xeon processors intended for 800MHz bus are due in the beginning of next year. These CPUs will be based on 90nm Nocona core (which is the server analogue of the desktop Prescott) and will work at core frequencies starting from 3.6GHz. By the way, the first Nocona based processors will still feature the old 533MHz bus. They will appear in the end of this year already and will support 3.47GHz core clock frequency and 1MB L2 cache.

The introduction of 800MHz bus in server Xeon processors will definitely require new chipsets for them. The currently used Intel E7501 will be replaced with a chipset known as Lindenhurst. This core logic set will boast the following key features: 800 MHz system bus and DDR2-400 memory, TTM PCI Express, direct-connect LAN and storage components. For workstations with Xeon processor and 800MHz bus Intel will also introduce one more new chipset aka Tumwater, with the features set very similar to that of the above mentioned Lindenhurst.