If you are among those users whose high-end desktop computer systems are based on one of Intel's quad-core processors, then you should know that your high-performance CPU will soon pale in comparison to what Intel is about to release, namely the 6-core Dunnington processors. Moreover, the new CPUs are expected to arrive no later than September.

While most of today's consumer processors are probably designed with two cores, Intel's next generation Xeon CPUs will sport a maximum of six cores. They will be part of the company's Xeon 7400 family and are designed to provide the required performance levels for server systems, running on Intel's CPU.

"The big cache and six cores will give customers a nice bump in performance," Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel Corp.'s digital enterprise group said. "We're quite excited about it."

The new 6-core CPU should be officially announced on the 14th of September, according to the company roadmap. The lineup will include three new models, the Xeon X7460, E7450 and low-wattage L7455. As a matter of fact, each of these new CPUs is part of the company's extreme and mainstream segments, respectively. The highest performance model will sport a maximum core speed of 2.67GHz, 130W TDP (Thermal Design Power) and 16MB of L3 cache, while the mainstream E7450 model will provide a core frequency of 2.4GHz and 90W for the TDP. The L7455 has been designed to provide a much lower TDP of 65W and a clock speed of 2.13GHz.

Regarding pricing, the Xeon X7460 and the Xeon L7455 will be priced at $2729, while the E7450 model will have a price point of $2301. Due to the fact that Intel will be the first to release the six-core processors, it will most certainly gain an important market segment, as AMD is expected to drop its 6-core Istanbul server processors no sooner than the second half of 2009.