News

HP Upgrades Quad ProLiant Servers to 'Truland' – Cuts 8-Way Line

• By Stuart J. Johnston
• 03/31/2005

HP is shipping two redesigned ProLiant servers that use Intel’s new 64-bit Xeon four-processor architected “Truland” processors. At the same time, the company disclosed it is discontinuing its eight-processor, Xeon-based ProLiant servers.

The redesigned ProLiant DL580 G3 and ML570 G3 are both built around four of the new top-of-the-line 64-bit Intel Xeon processors MP running at 3.33 GHz and featuring 8 MB of Level 3 cache, announced earlier this week. The servers are available immediately.

Intel announced Tuesday that it is shipping the new processors – formerly code-named “Truland” – as well as a complementary chipset which was previously known as “Twincastle” but now renamed the E8500 chipset. (See Intel Debuts Key Parts of Its 64-bit Xeon Strategy.) The two new HP systems use both technologies, which Intel has designed as a systems “platform.”

One of the advantages touted by Intel at this week’s announcement is that upcoming dual-core, four-way capable processors will be plug-compatible with the new E8500 chipset. “You’ll be able to drop the dual-cores into those same slots,” says Intel CTO Pat Gelsinger, referring to the Truland platform as “future proof.”

The DL580 G3 features so-called hot-plug RAID Memory and a redesigned chassis, as well as 667MHz dual independent front-side bus, 400MHz DDR2 memory, up to 16 DIMM sockets which can hold up to 32GB using 2GB DIMMs. The DL580 G3 starts at $6,849.

The ML570 G3 also sports the dual independent front-side bus and 400MHz DDR2 memory, but can accommodate up to 48 GBs of memory and up to ten 1-inch hot-plug Ultra 320 SCSI hard drives, and up to 10 PCI I/O slots. The ML570 G3 starts at $5,249.

One of the key marketing pitches for the two redesigned servers is that they are inexpensive enough for a four-way system to compete favorably with two-processor machines. Meanwhile, Intel’s first dual-core Xeon processor MP, codenamed "Paxville," is scheduled for availability in the first quarter of 2006, the company said at its developers confab in early March.

That price-performance equation is what helped trigger HP’s decision to get out of the eight-way server business for the time being – at least for ProLiant servers. “With the emergence of dual core processors in the four-processor x86 market in 2005, HP will satisfy the vast majority of current eight-way performance requirements with four-processor, eight-core ProLiant servers,” said Colin Lacey, director of platform marketing for Industry Standard Servers at HP in a prepared statement.

However, that doesn’t mean HP is exiting the eight-way marketplace altogether. Instead, HP plans to continue to serve the market for bigger iron with its Itanium-based Integrity line of servers. “[The] currently shipping eight-way ProLiant DL740 and DL760 servers will continue to be available until mid-2006,” Lacey added.