First Stop for Dell's Dual-core Server: Small Businesses

— -- Dell says it will start global shipments of its first dual-core server, the PowerEdge SC430, today. An Intel-based machine, it is aimed at small businesses.

Dual-core computing places two CPUs (central processing units) together on a single piece of silicon as a way to cut costs and lower thermal emissions. Since processor-intensive tasks can be handled separately, dual-core chips can also help improve the performance of multithreaded applications. In some cases, using dual-core processors could boost application performance by 10 percent to 42 percent, according to Tim Golden, Dell's director of PowerEdge server marketing.

Dual-core processors are starting to appear in desktops and servers from major players in computers--Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Sun Microsystems--with the chips coming from either Intel or its archrival Advanced Micro Devices.

Dell's PowerEdge SC430 will come in a variety of system configurations including those based on a 3-GHz or 3.2-GHz Intel Pentium D dual-core processor, Golden said. The server will also be available in several single-core configurations featuring a 2.53-GHz Intel Socket-T Celeron chip or a 2.8-GHz or 3-GHz Intel P4 Prescott CPU. The PowerEdge SC430 will come with up to 4 gigabytes of DDR2 SDRAM (double-data-rate-two synchronous dynamic RAM) and will support Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 operating system and Linux operating systems from Red Hat and Novell. Pricing for the server starts at $499.

Dell, Golden said, is positioning the PowerEdge SC430 as an affordable and versatile small-business server, for use primarily in file-and-print environments.

Educating customers about the new dual-core technology may take time, he added, explaining, "It's yet another metric for consumers to consider." He pointed out that neither Intel nor Dell is creating a sub-brand for dual-core systems. "As an industry, we have our work cut out for us. Users need to understand the cases where they won't benefit (from using dual-core systems). If customers aren't running multithreaded applications, it's not worth moving to dual core."

From a first glance at processing speed, dual-core computers may appear slower than their single-core peers. "When you buy a new PC, the first thing you look at is the gigahertz speed," said Joe Clabby, vice president of servers and storage at analyst Summit Strategies. "It's going to be hard to break that mind-set until people start seeing the benchmarks and begin to understand the performance benefits of dual cores."

John Humphreys, research manager for IDC's enterprise computing group, sees the issue as a short-term problem until customers themselves start testing and evaluating the likely performance gains provided by dual-core machines.

"We will be refreshing all our product line to dual core and subsequently to multicore," Dell's Golden said. But he doesn't expect dual-core processors to completely replace single-core chips any time soon.

Summit's Clabby predicts strong growth for dual-core computing. "When I talked to Intel in early May, they said they expect in 2006 that up to 70 percent of their shipments will be dual core," he said. Humphreys points out that there's still a lot of work to be done on updating some applications so they can take advantage of dual-core and multicore processors. The migration toward dual core and away from single core won't be like flicking a light switch, he said.