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Intel has also eagerly anticipated some processor-taxing technologies that have come to fruition, including streaming audio and video, and some that haven’t, such as speech recognition.

Rattner showed statistics that indicated a PC’s processor bumps up to 20 percent utilization while browsing the Web, while its graphics processor doesn’t even break above 1 percent.

Intel CTO Justin Rattner
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)

But running Second Life–even with today’s coarse graphics–pushes those to 70 percent for the main processor and 35 to 70 percent for the graphics processor, he said. The Google Maps Web site and Google Earth software pose intermediate demands.

Running a virtual worlds server is vastly more computationally challenging, though, when compared with 2D Web sites and even massively multiplayer online games such as Eve Online. An Eve Online server can handle 34,420 users at a time, but Second Life maxes a server out with just 160 users. Network capacity also is much more heavily used.

The worlds also demand a ton of mathematical computations, so the companies running the servers will need to make huge investments into their infrastructure. And that is something that Intel is truly excited about.

Intel Chairman, Craig Barrett, attended the ground-breaking ceremony of the plant, which is located in the Dalian Economic and Technological Development Zone in northeast China.

Barrett said at the ceremony that Intel chose Dalian because it is a perfectly suitable location for the plant. “Intel will use its advanced equipment and technology to build an environment-friendly computer chip factory in the city, and promote the semiconductor manufacturing industry in China,” he said.

Steel structures and other framework works have been in place at the factory covering 160,000 square meters.

Kirby Jefferson, general manager of the plant, said they have started recruiting staff from China and overseas, and are concentrating efforts on constructing the new plant.

The plant is Intel’s first major manufacturing plant in Asia and is expected to being production by 2010.

Craig Barrett, Intel’s chairman, said: “The government has been a bit slow in coming out with a semiconductor policy and missed the window on Intel’s manufacturing facility for now. It did not have a well documented plan. The Indian programme for semiconductor manufacturing was not as timely and we had already made prior commitments elsewhere.”

Although Mr Barrett said that when Intel needs more capacity, India would still rate “high on the list of possible investments”.

The news is a blow to India’s credibility at a time when it is actively courting foreign investment in manufacturing, which the government hopes can mirror the success of the country’s flagship services sector

The move is seen as a blow to India’s credibility, although the semi-conductor business there is booming. Siemens, Texas Instruments, and Intel have all been waiting for the Indian government to set up guidelines, which would allow them to build more plants there.

AMD’s woes were underscored earlier this week when it said that lower prices and unit sales meant that first-quarter revenue would be about $1.23 billion, 20 percent below the average Wall Street forecast.

“AMD had superior products a year to two years ago and for the first time was able to have prices above Intel’s, and Intel was having to be competitive on pricing to clear inventories” said Cody Acree, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus.

Things could change in a second. Time will tell what happens next in the great processor war.

Resource: Reuters

There’s no way to ignore the obvious pun: “4 heads are better than one.” Intel is introducing a fast new quad processor that promises to deliver record breaking speeds..

The company said the upgrade from two-core line will give PCs an extra boost in handling media-intensive applications such as high-quality video games or intensive graphic-design and video-editing programs. Intel announced quad-core chips for servers and gaming PCs last year. The latest processors, which are immediately available, are targeted at mainstream computer users.

The average person is about to experience speeds on their home PC that was unimaginable even a few short years ago. These chips won’t be cheap at a cost of $851 each when purchased in bulk.

Montecito’s development effort originally included Hewlett-Packard Co. and has an unusually large amount of built-in memory and will make Itanium more competitive with high-end chips from International Business Machines Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. Intel hasn’t made as huge of an impact as expected into the high end server market.

The chip has been delayed before, but all systems now appear ready to go. Intel has been losing ground in recent years to smaller rival AMD, and advancing the features of their chipsets would be one way to get back in the game.