The new Prestonia microprocessors, which will be marketed under the Xeon brand name, are dual-processor, 0.13-micron chips that come in 1.8-, 2-, and 2.2-GHz speed grades.

The Plumas chip set, dubbed the E7500, is optimized to support the new Xeon processors. Compaq, Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hewlett Packard, IBM, NEC and others are expected to ship platforms based on the new Xeon and Plumas devices, according to Intel.

In addition to the two products, Intel is expected to announce a slew of other chips at IDF, including 64-bit processors, Pentium 4-based mobile processors, and network processors (see Feb. 13 story ). Intel is expecting about 4,000 attendees at IDF, which runs from Feb. 25-28 in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, based on Intel's Pentium 4 microprocessor and Netburst architectures, the new Xeon products are the first chips that support the company "Hyper-Threading Technology." Introduced last year, "Hyper-Threading Technology" allows multithreaded operating systems and applications to view a single microprocessor as if it were two logical processors, thereby enabling a 30% performance boost in systems (see Aug. 28 story ).

Earlier this month, Intel rolled out the so-called "Early Access Program" (EAP), which will give developers the ability to quickly devise software products, based on this technology (see Feb. 6 story ).

The new Xeon processors enable systems to run 30-to-80% faster, as compared to platforms based on the company's Pentium III processors, said Lisa Hambrick, director of enterprise product marketing for Intel of Santa Clara, Calif.

In addition, Intel rolled out its Plumas chip set, dubbed the E7500. The first in a family of Intel-based volume server chip sets, the E7500 enables twice the memory bandwidth over legacy SDRAM platforms, Hambrick told SBN.

The E7500 chip set supports double-data-rate (DDR) SDRAM memory and is optimized for the Intel Xeon processor. It also features a 400-MHz system bus, which provides bandwidth of up to 3.2-gigabytes-per second.

The Intel Xeon processor, with 512-kilobits of L2 cache, is priced at $615 in 1,000-unit quantities for the 2.2-GHz version, $417 for 2-GHz chip, and $251 for 1.8-GHz device. The Intel E7500 chip set is priced at $92 in 1,000-unit quantities in minimum configuration and $132 in 1,000 unit quantities in maximum configuration.