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Sun to introduce Panther and Niagara chip

This article notes new dual-core chips being introduced this year.  Oracle has priced dual-sore chips at 1.75, a pricing structure that makes dual core processors more attractive to IT managers.  Dual core chips also have super-fast RAM access and a smaller footprint that single core chips:

http://news.com.com/Sun+revamps+Unix+servers+with+UltraSparc+IV/2100-1010_3-5874506.html?tag=nl

“Sun last year had said it expected the dual-core chip to arrive at 1.8GHz. That clock speed still is expected, but now not until the first half of 2006, said Fred Kohout, vice president of marketing for Sun's Scalable Systems Group, which sells Sun's UltraSparc-based servers.

Competitors are arriving soon, though. IBM's Power5+ and Intel's dual-core "Montecito" version of Itanium both are expected this year, though Kohout dismissed the latter chip family as "going nowhere."”

We also see Niagara processors coming, an eight-core CPU:

“Also in coming months, Sun expects to introduce its first servers using "Niagara," a processor whose eight cores can run a total of 32 instruction sequences, or threads.”