Official reports have confirmed that Intel has now launched as many as four new eight-core server processors, which the company hopes will pack sufficient boost to try and coax establishments away from servers which are based on the competing RISC design.

The newly introduced chips are a part of Intel's Xeon 7500 series, which was unveiled on Tuesday, a mere day after the launch of rival Advance Micro Devices' 8 and 12 core server processors as part of the company's latest Opteron 6000 series.

The newest Xeon series, manufactured under the code name Nehalem-EX, is also inclusive of six and four-core processor chips.

The eight-core processors of Intel have as many as 16 threads and manage to clock in speeds of 1.86 GHz, 2 GHz or 2.26 GHz. The thermal design power is of 95 watts or 130 watts.

The chips have been built on the company's 45-nanometer manufacturing process and the cost in quantities of 1,000 fall between the range of $2,461 to $3.692 each.

"The Xeon 7500 brings mission critical capabilities to the mainstream by delivering the most significant leap in performance, scalability and reliability ever seen from Intel", said Kirk Skaugen, VP of the Intel Architecture group and General Manager of the Data Center Group.