Itanium 9500 series from Intel, Specifications and benchmark revealed

Intel today introduced a new era of computing technology a new series of Intel Itanium in parallel with Intel Xeon products, the Intel Itanium 9500 series including Itanium 9520, 9540, 9550 and Itanium 9560, the new processor got 3.1 billion transistors resulting and a new micro-architecture resulting in a boosted performance over the previous generation of Intel's processor targeting enterprise uses.

The new Itanium 9500 chip is way better than the previous 9300 series according to Intel's leaked document, with a totally new micro-architecture using 32nm process, with eight cores twice the number of previous generation, and twice instruction throughput, frequency clock up to 2.53Ghz and 8% lower TDP and 80% in Idle compared with previous generation(up to 170 watts), 33 percent faster I/O speed, faster multi-threading and up to 54 MB of on-die memory.

Intel Itanium 9500 series specifications table:

click to enlarge

Check out the press release high-lights for more details:

Enterprise Performance with World-Class Availability
Containing 3.1 billion transistors, the Intel Itanium processor 9500 series is Intel's most sophisticated general purpose processors to date. It supports up to twice as many cores (8 instead of 4) than the previous-generation processor, packs up to 54 MB of on-die memory, and enables up to 2 TB of low voltage DIMMs in a four-socket configuration. The speed of the processor increased 40 percent over the previous generation in lower power configurations. The new frequencies range from 1.73 GHz and a power level of 130 watts, to 2.53 GHz at a power level of 170 watts.

Delivering the highest levels of Intel Itanium performance, the new processors enable highly scalable deployments with world-class availability for data-intensive applications where downtime is not an option. These include ERP, supply chain management and customer relationship management (CRM) software.

Modular Development Model Provides More Flexibility
In 2010, Intel introduced its common platform strategy that allows Intel Itanium and Intel® Xeon® processors to utilize common platform ingredients including chipsets, interconnects and memory. This strategy gives Intel the ability to cascade the strength of Intel Itanium RAS features to benefit the Intel Xeon processor E7 family, and allows Intel Itanium to further extract the efficiencies and value of higher volume economics. For the next-generation Intel Itanium product family, code-named "Kittson," Intel will employ an innovative model for Intel Itanium and Intel Xeon development called "Modular Development Model." The model will extend the common platform strategy by sharing silicon-level design elements and socket compatibility. The result for Intel is an even more sustainable path to bring future Itanium processors to market. In addition, OEMs will be able to develop one single motherboard platform for both architectures.

Industry Support
Intel Itanium processors continue to maintain strong industry support among systems makers such as Bull*, Hitachi*, HP*, Inspur* and NEC*. Enterprise applications are widely available from multiple vendors, such as, Oracle*, SAP*, SAS*, Sybase* and Temenos*, among other vendors that underscore the ISV community's efforts to ensure the success of the Intel Itanium mission-critical ecosystem.

"A mission-critical IT infrastructure with resiliency, scalability and high availability is critical to the success of enterprises," said Ric Lewis, vice president and interim general manager, Business Critical Systems, HP. "The addition of the Intel® Itanium® processor 9500 series to our newly enhanced HP Integrity and HP-UX portfolio provides breakthrough performance, increased productivity and delivers on HP's commitment to provide our customers with investment protection."

The price of the Itanium 9500 products is from $1,350 to $4,650 in quantities of 1,000 units.