Intel slips details of Poulson-based Itanium 9500 in advance, teases a big boost to 64-bit servers

Intel slips out Poulsonbased Itanium 9500 details in advance, tease a big boost to 64bit servers

If you think Intel took awhile to roll out the Xeon E5, imagine the mindset of Itanium server operators -- they haven't had any kind of update to the IA-64 chip design since February 2010, and they're still waiting. Much to their relief, Intel just dropped a big hint that the next-generation, Poulson-based Itanium is getting close. Both a reference manual and a Product Change Notification have signaled that the new, 32-nanometer part will get the Itanium 9500 name as well as a heap of extra improvements that haven't been detailed until now. We knew of the eight processing cores, but the inadvertent revelation also confirms about a 50 percent hike in the interconnect speed and a matching increase in the cache size to 32MB. Clock speeds also start where current Tukwila-running Itaniums stop, with four processors between 1.73GHz and 2.53GHz giving the line a much-needed shot of adrenaline. Few of us end users will ever directly benefit when Poulson ships to company server farms later this year; after these increases, though, don't be shocked when the database at work is suddenly much quicker on its toes.

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Intel slips details of Poulson-based Itanium 9500 in advance, teases a big boost to 64-bit servers originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Jul 2012 01:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rumors give 2012 iPhone shiny new chip, 1GB of RAM, mystery iOS app

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We've potentially seen a lot of the next iPhone's exterior; it may be the interior's time for a shakedown, as an unusually detailed rumor out of 9to5 Mac has claimed scads more about the processor and iOS 6. Going by the tips, the 2012 design would use an S5L8950X, a processor with unknown specs but likely a step ahead of what we've seen in the iPhone 4S (8940X) and new iPad (8945X). There would likewise be a new spin on the PowerVR SGX543 graphics from the iPad as well as 1GB of RAM -- which doesn't sound like much next to a 2GB Galaxy S III, but stands to produce a similar speed boost for a lightweight platform like iOS. As for iOS 6 itself, the software is supposedly using underlying code newer than recent OS X Mountain Lion builds and is dumping Google Maps, as some have claimed ever since iPhoto for iOS made that step in the spring. The new Maps app (possibly pictured here) is said to be rough, but the OS as a whole could be coming along so swimmingly that Apple might have no trouble shipping on time.

As always, we're skeptical when so much detail is in flux. The rumor still jives with much more tangible behavior from Apple, such as its experimentation with 32-nanometer processors and a tendency for Apple to refine the chip from the current year's iPad for the iPhone months later. We may know the accuracy soon enough: more leaks are promised in the next two weeks, including an "entirely new iOS app."

Rumors give 2012 iPhone shiny new chip, 1GB of RAM, mystery iOS app originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 May 2012 17:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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