[Info-vax] Itanium Poulson a game changer

[Keith Parris]

On 2/23/2013 5:05 AM, Neil Rieck wrote:
> This article says Poulson is an 8-core chip while I seem to recall
> previous publications saying 4-8 cores (never knew what that meant
 > other than the chip might be available in two versions but that
 > was just speculation on my part). Does anyone know the correct answer?

It is correct to say that Poulson is an 8-core chip. You can buy Itanium 
9560 or 9540 chips which have 8 cores. Yet you can buy an Itanium 9550 
or 9520 which are quad-core and yet are still Poulson chips. That may be 
where the "4-8 cores" came from.

Similarly, Tukwila is a 4-core chip. You can buy quad-core Itanium 9350, 
9340, 9330, and 9320 chips. Yet you can buy dual-core Tukwila Itanium 
9310 chips.

See 
http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/datasheets/itanium-9300-9500-datasheet.pdf

I presume this is probably a way to increase yields by using chips which 
fail qualification tests on one or more cores, by permanently disabling 
the defective cores and selling the chip at a reduced price with a 
reduced number of cores.