Itanium targets 800MHz

Intel has confirmed that its next-generation Itanium processor will be introduced later this year running at 800MHz.

At 800MHz the 64-bit chip will be slower than Pentium IIIs when it comes out. But Intel officials attributed this to Itanium "being developed on a relatively new process and the architecture is not tuned yet for critical speed paths."

Though not destined to debut as the fastest Intel chip available, the design will offer some unique benefits. For instance, a 4-processor Itanium server using a standard Intel chipset will be able to handle 64GB of memory. In addition, the system bus used with the chip will perform at about 266MHz - double the current bus rate.

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