Intel's latest energy-saving CPUs: 'As revolutionary as Pentium Pro'

In practical simultaneity this afternoon, AMAX, Cray, NEC, HP, and Dell all announced brand new products. The common link? They're all based upon the newly available Intel Xeon 5500 processors.

In fact, Intel says more than 70 companies will be announcing new products based on the Xeon 5500 processor, based on the company's energy-saving branch of its Nehalem architecture. Intel introduced the 5500 series today, touting it as its most revolutionary server processor since the Pentium Pro nearly 15 years ago. (Those who remember the Pentium Pro may be scratching their heads at that.)

Besides touting the obvious increase in speed and power that come with a generational update, trendy computing paradigms like boosted energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness, strong virtualization technology, and cloud computing capability are all highlighted as major reasons for small and medium-sized businesses to consider hardware built upon the Xeon 5500.