Industry's First Quad-Core Processors Deliver Highest Performance Ever While Using Less Power; Enable Customers to Consolidate, Scale and Reduce Complexity

Dubai, UAE, 18 November 2006 -- Dell has enhanced its ninth-generation PowerEdge servers and Dell Precision workstations with the industry's first standards-based quad-core processors.

The addition of Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors to the two-socket Dell PowerEdge 1900, 1950, 2950, 2900, SC1430 and 1955 blade models support the company's strategy to drive more complete and cost-effective enterprise technologies across a variety of customer environments.

Equipped with new Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors, these servers can rival the performance of dual-core, four-socket systems and deliver up to 63 percent greater performance[i] with up to 40 percent enhanced performance per watt[ii] while continuing to reduce complexity in the enterprise.

The addition of quad-core processors across the Dell Precision desktop portfolio underscores Dell's commitment to deliver the highest performance and scalability in standards-based professional workstations. Quad-core processors combined with Dell's faster and more scalable memory architecture and latest OpenGL graphics means professional workstation customers can handle the most demanding applications faster and more easily than ever.

Customers can now configure the two-socket Dell Precision 690 and Dell Precision 490 with new Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors, while the single-socket Dell Precision 390 supports the Intel Core 2 Extreme quad-core processor. Performance of heavily multi-threaded applications, like Autodesk 3D Studio Max rendering component, can scale dramatically with the addition of processor cores. When configured with Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors, the Dell Precision 690 and 490 workstations can deliver performance gains of up to 54 percent on multi-threaded applications.[iii]

"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 Eric Velfre, Director Enterprise Marketing, Dell EMEA. "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."

Compelling Platform for Data Centre Consolidation, Virtualisation

With the addition of quad-core processors to Dell's award-winning server line-up, the company is accelerating its vision of scale-out computing in the enterprise. Overall performance and performance-per-watt improvements -- combined with the value, expandability, availability and density of quad-core processors -- deliver a compelling platform for enterprise computing.

The platform offers an ideal choice to capitalise on consolidation and virtualisation projects by better balancing capacity demand within the same physical space and price range.  In a virtualised environment, the new processors on Dell hardware have shown up to a 69 percent performance improvement.[iv] In addition, the Dell PowerEdge 1950, 1955, 2900 and 2950 with quad-core processors are certified for VMware VI 3 virtualisation software. 

 Dell has made major investments in many areas of its partnership with VMware to deliver complete virtualisation solutions that include products, customer tools, joint engineering efforts and services to simplify the deployment of virtualised infrastructures. As a leading reseller of VMware software, Dell offers tested and supported virtualisation configurations on Dell servers and Dell | EMC storage helping customers realise the benefits of virtualisation while minimising complexity, risk and cost. Dell and VMware's partnership ensures the highest quality delivery of professional services to help customers take full advantage of VMWare's product suite.  

Dell enables customers to make informed decisions on how to simplify and consolidate their environment through virtualisation. Dell provides services in EMEA around virtualisation that involve assessing customer needs, designing the right solutions and then implementing and supporting them. Virtualisation is a key component of Dell's Scalable Enterprise Strategy that holds the promise of helping its customers cost-effectively scale their data centre environments, improve utilisation and simplify operations.

Higher Performance, Lower Power Demands, Improved Design and Management

Dell's server portfolio delivers customer-driven industrial design enhancements for improved manageability such as an industry-first programmable LCD, individually labelled hard drives and standardised colour coding and cabling. Dell ImageWatch is a unique service that helps customers proactively manage the number of changes to system images, available in a block-release format further reducing the number of image changes to manage.

Dell PowerEdge servers deliver improved performance and reliability with the latest standards-based technologies such as:

  • Fully buffered dual in-line memory modules (DIMMs) that provide a new memory interface for faster data transmission, plus improved signal integrity and error detection

  • Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) hard drives for faster, more reliable data transmission and  reduced thermal output

  • TCP/IP Offload Engine, which helps reduce traffic on a host processor to enhance system performance

  • Enhanced virtualisation technology for improved performance, management and utilisation in virtualised workloads such as VMware ESX, Microsoft Virtual Server or Xen

  • PCI-Express I/O, which delivers high-performance Ethernet, RAID, InfiniBand and Fibre Channel interconnect while providing investment protection for future technologies

The Dell Precision 690 and Dell Precision 490 were designed from the ground up to enable customers who work with massive data sets to more easily manipulate and manage workloads and images.  

The Dell Precision 390 delivers an optimal balance of advanced performance, scalability and price to workstation professionals who run business critical threaded and rendering applications.  The Dell Precision 390 and 490 provide excellent flexibility for deployment or redeployment, allowing customers to easily convert between a tower and desktop configuration and, because the chassis are rack-mountable, they are ideal for larger, networked deployments. 

All Dell Precision workstations offer SAS disk storage that delivers up to 50 percent higher performance than SATA 10K[v] and a range of SATA and SAS hard drives up to 750GB[vi] including RAID functionality.  The Dell Precision 690 is configurable with up to five hard drives, the Dell Precision 490 up to three, and the Dell Precision 390 up to four.  Additionally, each offers a choice of NVIDIA and ATI graphics options for excellent graphics performance.

Dell Precision 690 Features:

  • Dual CPU socket and dual front side buses provide up to eight high-performance processor cores with Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors

  • Double the number of memory channels to four supporting fully buffered DIMMs and a unique, scalable advanced memory design - up to 16 DIMMs via optional memory risers - for up to 64GB of memory.[vii]

  • Enhanced graphics capabilities, with an optional dual- graphics riser card (on the 1KW system) that combine two NVIDIA SLI graphics cards for increased performance and visual quality and support for quad monitor configurations

Dell Precision 490 Features:

  • Dual CPU socket and dual front side busses provide up to eight high-performance processor cores with Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors in a compact chassis

  • Double the number of memory channels to four supporting  fully buffered DIMMs  for up to 32 GB of memory

Dell Precision 390 Features:

Investment protection and scalable compute performance from single to dual- and Intel Core 2 Extreme quad-core processors. 

Availability

The Dell PowerEdge 1950, 2900, 2950, SC1430, 1900 and 1955 blade servers featuring Intel 5300 series quad-core Xeon processors are available today worldwide. Additional product information is available at www.dell.com/poweredge.

The Dell Precision 690, 490 and 390, featuring new Intel quad-core processors and certified on some of the workstation industry's most demanding CAD, CAE, DCC, GIS and other applications, are available today worldwide. For more information, visit www.dell.com/precision. Product photography is available at www.dell.com/photos

-Ends-

About Dell
Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services they trust and value.  Uniquely enabled by its direct business model, Dell sells more systems globally than any computer company, placing it No. 25 on the Fortune 500.  Company revenue for the past four quarters was $57.4 billion. For more information, visit http://www.dell.com. To get Dell news direct, visit http://www.dell.com/RSS.

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Karim Hodroj
Headline Public Relations
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karim@headlinepr.com

2006 Dell Corporation Limited. Dell, PowerEdge, Precision and ImageWatch are registered trademarks of Dell Inc.

Dell disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others.

[i] Based on the SPECint_rate2000 benchmark test performed by Dell Labs in May and October 2006 on a PE2950 with two quad core Intel Xeon X5355 (2.66Ghz Clovertown) processors, 8GB 667Mhz FBD memory, 1x SATA 80GB/7.2K rpm HDD, and Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition OS as compared to a similarly configured PE2950 with two dual core Intel Xeon 5160 (3.0Ghz Woodcrest) processors.  Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.

[ii] Based on testing performed by Dell Labs in October 2006 using the SPECjbb2005 benchmark on a PE2950 with two quad core Intel Xeon E5345 (2.33Ghz Clovertown) processors, 4GB 667Mhz FBD memory, 2x SAS 73GB/15k rpm HDDs, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition OS as compared to a similarly configured PE2950 with two dual core Intel Xeon 5160 (3.0Ghz Woodcrest) processors.  Actual performance and power consumption will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.

[iii] Based on the SPECapc 3D Studio Max (Rendering) benchmark test performed by Dell Labs in October 2006 on a Dell Precision 690 configured with two 2.66GHz Intel Xeon X5355quad-core (Clovertown) CPUs (8 cores), 4GB DDR2 667MHz dual channel memory, 80GB SATA HDD, NVIDIA Quadro FX3500 graphics solution, and Windows XP SP2 as compared to the same system configured with two dual-core 2.66GHz Intel Xeon 5150 (Woodcrest) CPUs.  Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.

[iv] Based on test in Dell lab in Oct. 2006 using NetBench benchmark suite. The comparison platforms included a Dell PowerEdge 2950 with two dual-core Intel Xeon 5160 processors at 3.0 GHz, 16 GB of 667MHz fully buffered DIMMs, two SAS 146 GB 15,000 RPM drives, PERC 5/I disk controller and One QLogic 2463 PCI Express HBA.  The other Dell PowerEdge 2950 had the same configuration except that the system included two quad-core Intel Xeon X5355 processors at 2.66 GHz. The NetBench client driver systems were two Dell PowerEdge 6650 servers with four Intel Xeon processors at 2.8 GHz, 8 GB of RAM, Intel Gigabit Ethernet adapters, and Windows Server 2003. The NetBench client driver systems and ESX Server hosts were connected to a Dell PowerConnect 5224 Gigabit Ethernet switch. The NetBench controller ran Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition. Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.

[v] SAS performs up to 50% faster than SATA 10K and up to 11% faster than SCSI 15K : Based on the PCMark hard drive benchmark tests performed by Dell Labs in January 2006 on the Dell Precision 690 with two Intel Xeon 5150 2.66GHz processors with dual-core, 4MB L2 cache and 1333MHz FSB (No HT available), 8GB DDR2 533 ECC FBD memory, Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2. Tests were performed comparing the performance of a 73GB 15K SAS drive vs. the 80GB SATA 10K drive and the 73GB SCSI 15K drive. Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability.

[vi] For hard drives, GB = 1 billion bytes and TB = 1 trillion bytes; actual capacity varies with preloaded material and operating environment and will be less.

[vii] The total amount of usable memory available will be less, depending on the actual system configuration. To utilise more than 4GB of memory requires a 64-bit OS. To expand memory to more than 32GB requires a Dell Precision 690 1KW system with memory risers.

© Press Release 2006