HP to debut new Opteron servers Monday

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Intel's won't reach high-volume production until 2006.

However, some customers, computer makers and software companies won't have to wait until 2006 for dual-core Xeons. Intel is expected to announce Monday that it will send thousands of systems with the new chips to those business partners and premium customers in the second half of 2005.

HP is expected to offer two dual-Opteron blades, the BL25p with the 2.6GHz Opteron 252 and the BL35p with the 2.4GHz Opteron 250. The BL25p is larger than the BL35p, but offers more storage capacity.

The BL25p is expected to cost $3,499 with one processor and 1GB of memory and $5,209 with two processors and 2GB memory. The corresponding BL35p prices are $2,899 and $4,209.

According to an HP Web site that was removed after this story was published, the workstation can accommodate dual Opteron processors and up to 16GB of memory. It uses dual nVidia graphics cards employing the graphics chipmaker's Scalable Link Interface, or SLI, technology, which connects the two into a single, more powerful graphics subsystem.