As we have already mentioned in our news (see this news story), the engineering samples of the new 0.18micron McKinley are already available and their mass production should begin in Q2 2002. At first, there will be three models launched: working at 1GHz core clock and featuring 3MB L3 cache (take note how much of the processor die this cache occupies!), working at 1GHz core clock and featuring 1.5MB L3 cache and working at 900MHz and featuring 1.5MB L3 cache. These processors will cost $4220, $2240 and $1330 in 1,000-unit quantities respectively.

Later on Intel is going to move its Itanium to finer 0.13micron manufacturing technology, which will let these CPUs reach 5GHz core frequency, as The Inquirer claims. To tell the truth, this is too fantastic to believe...