While introducing an update to its Itanium line with the first two processors in the chip family to features a 667 MHz front side bus (FSB), Chip Giant, Intel touted the expected performance boosts for its next generation, the forthcoming dual-core Itanium processor, code-named Montecito.

The dual-core Montecito line will feature the same bus as the Itaniums announced today.

"The preliminary performance results we are seeing on Montecito-based systems will further expand Itanium's leadership in its targeted market segments," said Kirk Skaugen, general manager of Intel's server platforms group.

Intel said platforms using Montecito are expected to deliver up to twice the performance, up to three times the system bandwidth, and more than 2 1/2 times as much on-die cache as the current generation of Itanium processors. While boosting performance, Montecito is expected to also deliver more than 20 percent lower power than previous generations of Itanium processors due to new technologies for power management reports Internet News.

Montecito will also utilize Intel Hyper-Threading technology, enabling four times the threads as the current generation.