Intel has also started shipping test units of its Xeon E5 and E7 chips based on Ivy Bridge and made using the 22-nanometer manufacturing process, Bryant said during a separate presentation at IDF. Intel continues to load Itanium-type RAS (reliability serviceability and availability) features in Xeon.

The new Ivy Bridge server chips brings tremendous gains in performance at lower power consumption due to the latest 22-nm process. Current E5 and E7 chips are made using the 32-nm process.

The new Xeon E5 and E7 chips also have a new virtualization feature called APICv, Bryant said. The APICv feature is baked into the hardware and reduces the number of steps involved in deploying and clearing virtual machines.

Intel also said that the new low-power Atom S chip code-named Centerton was due for release in the coming months. HP and Quanta QCT have said they will release servers based on Centerton in the future.

The new server chips will be available next year. Intel usually releases new server chips on a yearly basis toward the end of the first quarter or the second quarter of each quarter. The previous-generation E5 and E7 chips based on the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture were released in March this year.