Intel Flexes Its Quad Core

"The capabilities of quad-core microprocessors will bring new possibilities for science, entertainment and business," Intel CEO Paul Otellini said in a statement.

Intel says it is not pricing the new quad-cores at a premium compared with its recently released dual-core chips. But premium or not, the initial versions of its quad-core chips are clearly aimed at the high end of the market.

The Core 2 Extreme quad-core, with its $999 price tag, is aimed at gamers who don't mind paying more for the latest and the greatest, and people who use workstations for jobs such as video-editing.

Similarly, Intel's first batch of Xeon 5300 quad-core chips will initially appeal to a certain class of corporate buyers, running multithreaded applications for specific tasks.

And licensing issues with certain software, which can result in higher fees for computers packing multiple processors, might lead some customers to hold off on quad-core servers.

Nor-Tech, which sells branded and "white-box" computers to system resellers, says it doesn't expect to offer Intel's quad core in its servers and PCs until the first quarter of 2007 when the chips become more mainstream in terms of pricing and any reliability kinks have been ironed out.

"Our customer base is going to take a little bit of a wait-and-see approach," says Nor-Tech Director of Marketing Todd Swank.