The company said the new chip for server computers, called Woodcrest, would offer an 80 percent performance improvement and require 35 percent less power; the Conroe chip for desktop computers, which will be released later in the year, will offer 40 percent performance improvement and require 40 percent less power. The foundation for the chips is derived from the company's popular Pentium M chip for notebook computers, the company said.

Justin Rattner, Intel's chief technology officer, said chips based on the new design, referred to as the Intel Core Microarchitecture, would begin shipping in the second half of this year.

Intel is fighting hard to regain its largest market share in the server computer segment which it lost last year when AMD began offering a dual-core server processor last year called the Opteron, which essentially places two microprocessors on one piece of silicon.

Source: IHT

Murphy's law is back in town.