Intel rolls out Pentium D, new chipsets with partners

SAN FRANCISCO - The two most visible pieces of Intel's revamped product design strategy, the Pentium D and accompanying 945 chipset, were finally released Thursday at an event here. PC users in offices and living rooms can now purchase systems with dual-core processors as well as chipsets that incorporate a number of new technologies designed to boost performance.

Technically, the Pentium D is Intel's second dual-core processor, following the introduction of the Pentium Extreme Edition in April. But the new Pentium D 840, 830 and 820 chips are much less expensive than the Pentium Extreme Edition, and will introduce dual-core technology to far more users than the Extreme Edition chip.

"This is the first dual-core that will make a real impact on the market place," said Gerald Holzhammer, vice president of Intel's Digital Home Group and general manager of the consumer client group, during the event.

The launch of the 945G chipset also brings several new technologies, such as virtualization, system management and high-definition audio to both consumer and business users. Intel on Thursday launched the Professional Business Platform with its Pentium 4 600 series processors, the 945G and 945P chipsets, and the Intel Pro/1000 Network Adapter as its first desktop platform modeled on the success of its Centrino notebook PC platform. The 945G chipset features integrated graphics, while the 945P chipset is designed for use with a third-party graphics card.

2004 was a turning point in Intel's recent history. The company made two crucial decisions about its product design strategies, opting to accelerate the development of dual-core processors and focus on integrating technology that boosts overall system performance without relying on increases to clock speed or cache size.

A four-year ride up the clock speed ladder allowed Intel to reach new performance heights, but as the Pentium 4 surged past 3GHz, it became harder and harder to reach the next speed grade due to overheating. Likewise, there's only so much cache memory a chip maker can add before the processor becomes too large to be manufactured efficiently. Building two processor cores on to a single chip will allow Intel to increase performance without having to worry about melting the inside of a PC chassis.

But the company also wants to improve the user experience without having to rely solely on processor performance. This is Intel's "platform" strategy, or its plans for building new technologies into its chipsets. The company started doing this with its hyperthreading technology several years ago, and introduced 64-bit extensions to the desktop earlier this year through chipsets.

Now IT managers will be able to remotely manage PCs even if they are shut down through Intel Active Management Technology (AMT), one component of the 945G chipset. AMT allows administrators to download software updates to a PC or take inventory of their network through a protected part of the chipset and processor that is transparent to the user.

"AMT provides a significant step forward in managing a PC," said Gregory Bryant, general manager of Intel's Digital Office Platform Division.

Business users can also take advantage of virtualization technology in the 945G chipset to run multiple operating systems on a single PC, or create partitions on a system. These capabilities are available on servers with software, but the performance of that software is dramatically enhanced by hardware dedicated to virtualization.