In January, the company debuted its Altix 3000 system with 64 Intel Itanium 2 processors that runs Linux. SGI has unveiled its Origin 350 Unix server, a descendant of the two-year-old Origin 300 that has more new processors, additional memory...
Its xSeries servers use Intel's Xeon and Itanium processors, its pSeries and iSeries use the Power4 processor and its predecessors, while its zSeries mainframe line uses a different IBM-designed processor.
In addition, it expects to release systems with 128 HP PA-RISC 8800 processors or 128 Intel Itanium processors in coming months. However, because IBM's system uses 32 processors compared to 64 for the Superdome, owners of machines with the IBM...
However, the software support for the Itanium 2 processor is still limited and IT managers have to be aware of transition and certification costs in moving to the new chip platform, according to Meta Group analyst Brian Richardson.
Microsoft already has a version of Windows for Intel's high-end 64-bit Itanium chip, which uses a completely distinct instructions set. Microsoft's announcement is welcome news, particularly for chipmaker AMD, which has had 64-bit server chips on...
Though Dell remains the largest seller of Intel processors, the decision to drop Itanium has not caused widespread panic at Intel. That chip, code-named Montecito, will more than double performance over the current "Madison" generation of Itanium...