NEC tees up six-core Intel Dunnington server

NEC on Tuesday will announce one of the first servers built from the ground up to take advantage of Intel's six-core Dunnington chip.

NEC, which is looking to make a splash in the U.S. market, is focusing its efforts on a new server line designed for Intel's Dunnington 4-core to 6-core Xeon chips. The server, dubbed the NEC Express5800/A1160, is designed for Windows and Linux. There is no Unix version at launch.

The company had previously focused on Intel Itanium based systems in the x86 server market, but the move to Dunnington is designed to boost share. "Dunnington makes us a player in the space," said Michael Nixon, director of NEC's server division. "Engaging with Intel on the first release on the Dunnington processor sets us uniquely apart." NEC's latest server is the product of an alliance between the company and Unisys. The duo co-develops high-end Intel servers.

Also see: Intel's roadmap comes into focus: Can rivals respond?

Nixon argues that other server makers will cram Dunnington into existing server models and neglect to take advantage of the processors power management and other features. NEC is also aiming for mainframe-like reliability in a Windows Server 2008 system. NEC's server is targeted for virtual server applications, SQL database consolidation and database transaction performance. It's also designed to be modular so IT managers can expand easily.

For the base models of the A1160 the prices will run you $29,849 to $36,399. Early adopters will install the NEC Dunnington server in October with production in November.

Here's a look at the specs:

The components that can be extracted without removing the server from the rack:

And how NEC sees itself stacking up against the competition.