Intel puts more vroom, vroom in the server room...

Intel is in the midst of beefing up its processor lines for workstations and servers.

Next week at the Intel Developer Forum, the company will announce 2.8GHz and 2.6GHz Xeons for single- and dual-processor workstations and servers and reveal more details on chips coming in the near future.

The new chips will boost the performance of workstations, high-end desktops and servers.

Continually improving its Xeon chips is an important mission for Intel, according to analysts, because of the higher prices Xeons command. Intel also sells far more server chips than anyone else and has managed to take increasing amounts of market share from traditional RISC/Unix manufacturers, especially in the one-, two- and four-processor market.

Rival AMD meanwhile has only recently begun to make an appreciable mark in servers.

Intel typically sells the chips for $50 to $100 more than Pentium 4 running at a corresponding clock speed. This helps boost profits, even though the company doesn't sell as many Xeons as Pentium 4s.

Currently, its fastest Xeon chip for single- and dual-processor workstations and servers runs at 2.4GHz.

Along with announcing the new chips at the conference, Intel will disclose more details on future chips, such as Gallatin, a forthcoming version of its Xeon MP processor for large servers with four or more chips, according to sources.

silicon.com will be covering the Intel Developer Forum from San Jose next week, with our man Tony Hallett out and about bringing you all the news, as it happens.

John G Spooner writes for News.com