Quad Core Servers, Workstations from Dell

Dell has announced its first quad-core server and workstation products, featuring Intel Xeon processors.

Computer maker Dell wants to be the first out the door with server and workstation products based on Intel’s Quad-Core Xeon processors, and today the company introduced new PowerEdge servers and Precision workstations designed to satisfy the most processor-hungry applications&hellp;and users.

“Dell prides itself not only on being first to market with technology, but first to deliver exceptional value to the customer while helping to reduce costly complexity in their environment,” said Brad Anderson, Dell Product Group’ senior VP. “The introduction of quad-core processing enables us to guide customers more easily than ever to the benefits of a scale-out architecture, migrating from higher cost systems with four or more sockets used for enterprise applications to two socket systems with better price/performance and lower power consumption, and accelerating their ability to take advantage of this new technology for better business results now and in future growth.”

Dell’s new Precision 690 and 490 desktop workstations offer two-socket Quad-Core Xeon CPUs (for a total of either processor cores), while the Precision 390 supports a single-socket Core 2 Extreme quad-core processor; according to Dell, heavily multithreaded applications (like modeling and rendering systems) can see performance boosts of up to 54 percent on the Xeon-based systems. The Precision line also offers SAS disk storage, space for three, four, or five hard drives, and Nvidia and ATI graphics options—including support for quad-monitor configurations. The 690 supports up to 64 GB of memory in 16 DIMM slots, while the 490 can handle up to 32 GB of RAM in four slots. Prices start at $2,213 for the Core 2 Extreme-equipped Precision 390, with the 490 and 690 starting at $2,399 and $2,199 respectively.

Dell has also dropped Xeon processors into its PowerEdge 1900, 1950, 2950, 2900, SC1430, and 1955 blade servers at prices ranging from $1,049 to $1,699. Dell says the Xeon processors offer up to 63 percent greater performance, and the 1950, 1955, 2900, and 2950 are certified or VMWare VI 3 virtualization software. The units also feature PCI Express, a TCP/IP offload engine to improve network performance, SAS hard drives, fully buffered inline DIMMs, programmable LCD displays, individually-labeled hard drives, and standardized color-coding and cabling. The new PowerEdge units are available now.