HP, IBM, Dell launch servers with new Intel chips

The companies are launching new rack, blade and tower servers that incorporate Intel's Xeon 5600 quad-core and six-core processors, as they battle for a larger slice of the server market.

Analysts said the servers will benefit from the new processors, which Intel claims are up to 60 percent faster than the predecessor Xeon 5500 chips introduced last year. The new chips will also offer better performance while consuming less power, which should help reduce electricity bills and facility costs, analysts said.

"It's not a revolution on the server side, it's more of an evolution and the sharpening up of the server vendors aiming at what they believe is the most important things to potential customers," said Dan Olds , principal analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group.

The performance and power benefits could also help improve server sales, which have been falling since the start of 2009, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research. The server upgrade cycle has taken a back seat due to the poor economy but there are signs of an uptick in enterprise spending, McCarron said.

Worldwide server shipments totaled 2.2 million [M] during the fourth quarter of 2009, growing 4.5 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2008, according to IDC. However server revenue dropped by 3.2 percent due to falling prices but revenue from x86 servers -- the type of machine introduced on Tuesday -- rose 14.3 percent to $7.6 billion [B].