The benefits are not on the hardware side alone -- the chips will be able to execute more tasks than earlier Xeon processors while drawing less power, which could help cut energy costs. A larger number of cores should help consolidate servers into a smaller space in data centers.

Despite the new features, the chip may struggle to find buyers immediately as organizations cut back on IT spending during the recession.

"In the current economic environment, people will not go out and upgrade because it's a cool new thing," Olds said.

However, the new chips will generate a good margin for Intel and perhaps push the company into new markets like high-performance computing, analysts said.

The eight-core chip, code-named Nehalem-EX, will be able to run data-intensive applications like scientific and technical workloads, In-Stat's McGregor said. The chips have enough bandwidth and processing power to execute a larger number of tasks in parallel than typical quad-core Xeon chips, which are designed to tackle less-demanding applications like databases.