Intel Corp, the world’s largest semiconductor maker, said Cisco Systems Inc, Dell Inc and IBM Corp are among 70 firms that have begun selling machines based on its new server chip design.
The processors represent the biggest jump in performance for Intel’s Xeon product line since it began making chips for servers about 15 years ago, a statement from the Santa Clara, California-based company on Monday said.
Chips based on the design, called Nehalem, are also debuting in workstations and storage computers this week.
Nehalem is Intel’s first design to combine memory and processing functions in one chip instead of two — a feature that speeds up computers. Servers, which run corporate networks and Internet sites, are often required to process large chunks of data.
The absence of an integrated memory controller in Intel’s chips hampered them in the same way a poor transmission would slow a car even if it had a powerful engine, Patrick Gelsinger, head of Intel’s business-computer chip unit, said in an interview at the company’s headquarters.
“Now we’ve taken that world-class engine and given it the best transmission,” he said. “We’ve just moved out of city driving and onto the race track.”
Demand for servers is “healthier” than for other computers as companies invest in data centers and government economic stimulus packages provide cash for computer spending, Gelsinger said.
The introduction puts more pressure on AMD Inc, the first company to combine memory and processing. AMD used that advantage to steal sales from Intel’s Xeon server line in 2006.
While Intel may “leapfrog” AMD chips’ performance with its new product, AMD has its new chip coming later this year and a complete redesign next year, said spokesman Phil Hughes.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique