Intel has begun shipping its latest 64-bit Xeon DP chip, 'Irwindale', the chip maker said today. It also pledged to ship an updated 64-bit Xeon MP part, 'Potomac', "within 90 days".

The new Xeon DPs contain 2MB of on-die L2 cache, up from the 1MB built into the previous version, and are clocked at 3.0, 3.2, 3.4 and 3.6GHz. The chips are priced at $316, $455, $690 and $851, respectively.

Both generations support Intel's AMD64-like EM64T 64-addressing system, as do the upcoming Pentium 4 6xx desktops chips, due to be announced this week too.

The new Xeons debut as Intel said it had shipped 2m 64-bit Xeons since their arrival in August 2004. The first 1m shipped in the first six months, the rest since then, it said.

The upcoming Xeon MPs will sport 8MB of on-die L3 cache. An modified version, codenamed 'Cranford', with no L3 cache but 1MB of L2, for vendors who want to offer four-way systems but at a more comparable price point to two-way Xeon DP-based machines.

Potomac will utilise Intel's 8500 chipset, aka 'Twin Castle', which incorporates support for 400MHz ECC DDR 2 SDRAM, PCI Express and twin asymmetric frontside buses the better to support future dual-core processors. ®

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