HP Introduces Dual Itanium 2-Based Processor Module and Super-Scalable Chipset; Innovations Provide Customers Lower Costs, Increased Performance and Investment Protection.

SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb 18, 2003 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- HP (NYSE:HPQ) today continued to drive technology leadership in Itanium 2-based servers by announcing the HP super-scalable processor chipset sx1000 and the HP mx2 dual processor module using Intel(R) Itanium(R) 2 processors. These products enable enterprise customers to keep IT costs down by easily scaling performance in existing servers.

In addition, the chipset and module provide customers greater system performance by further scaling the size of HP servers using Itanium 2 processors as well as doubling the number of future Itanium 2 processors that can be used in an HP server.

"The ability to scale performance while keeping costs down is a critical factor for enterprises today," said Scott Stallard, senior vice president and general manager, HP Business Critical Systems. "Innovations like the sx1000 chipset and mx2 dual processor module deliver increased performance, lower cost and enhanced investment protection for customers while providing unique differentiation for HP."

The HP sx1000 chipset enables high-speed interaction between processors, input/output, and memory and supports both the upcoming Intel Itanium 2 and HP PA-8800 processors. In addition, the chipset provides investment protection for PA-RISC customers by enabling them to transition to Itanium-based systems through a simple cell board swap.

With the chipset, HP plans to deliver Itanium 2-based systems that offer the broadest choice in the industry of the HP-UX, Linux and much anticipated Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Server 2003 operating environments and their related applications. Additionally the OpenVMS environment is expected to be available for early adopters this year.

The HP mx2 dual processor module is designed to combine two future Itanium 2 processors and a 32-MB L4 cache onto a single daughter card module that is pin-compatible with existing Madison Itanium 2 processor sockets. By doubling the number of processors that can be installed in an Itanium 2-based HP server, customers can achieve greater system performance for workloads that scale with an increasing number of processors. The module is planned to be available across a wide range of Itanium 2-based HP servers -- from entry-level to high-end -- in the first half of 2004 while delivering scalability up to 128 processors.

"Performance, choice and value are three key demands from corporations and institutions, and more and more why customers are deploying Itanium 2-based systems every day for their enterprise and technical computing needs," said Mike Fister, senior vice president and general manager, Intel Enterprise Platforms Group. "HP's announcement today delivers on all of these needs, with an innovative processor module and multi-OS functionality at excellent price points."

In recent TPC-C benchmarks measuring commercial performance, HP demonstrated with the Itanium 2-based HP Server rx5670 the industry's best four-processor performance versus Sparc, Power4 and every other architecture across UNIX(R), Windows and Linux environments.(1) In addition, the HP Server rx5670 has posted record performance for technical applications with a SPECfp_base2000 result of 1,431 as well as the leading one-processor and two-processor SPECfp_rate_base2000 results.(2)

During the keynote address on Thursday at the Intel Developer Forum, Stallard and Fister will be demonstrating an Itanium 2-based HP Superdome server with an sx1000 chipset running HP-UX, Windows and Linux operating systems simultaneously. The demo highlights the HP server's multi-operating system functionality on the industry-standard Itanium architecture to meet the diverse customer workload requirements of today's enterprise computing capabilities.

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