With the moves by IBM, HP and others to use the new chips, Intel is projecting that by the end of this year, 85 percent of all processor shipments from the company will be dual-core, a spokesman said.

The new multicore chips are already a key technology for some users.

For example, Austin Energy has already decided to limit server purchases to multicore systems, said CIO Andres Carvallo.

"Multicore servers are key in n-tier environments," where applications are distributed among separate computers, such as one for a database and another for business logic, Carvallo said. He noted that the Java language and Oracle database are multithreaded environments. "The more cores you have, the better [the] performance," he said.

HP by late June will largely have dual-core capability across its entire set of two- and four-way servers, "from the least expensive all the way to the top end," said John Gromala, director of server product marketing. HP's remaining single-socket systems will be updated later this year with dual-core capabilities, he said.