Intel Corp., the world's largest semiconductor company, announced on Monday the release of four new Xeon "Harpertown" processors. The announcement came just as the Santa Clara, California-based microchip manufacturer prepares to launch the "Dunnington" processor for servers in a few weeks.

One of the four chips, the dual-core Xeon X5270, is the chip with the highest clock frequency of Intel’s “Core” family.  Xeon X5270 has 3.5 gigahertz - the clock frequency is the chip’s “pulse” and one of the main factors with a big impact when it comes to the chip’s speed.  

Intel also launched three quad-core Xeon processors: the Xeon L5430, the X5470 and the X5492. The four-core chips run at 2.66 GHz to 3.4 GHz and can be purchased at prices ranging from $562 to $1493 in lots of 1,000.

All four processors released on Monday are made using the company’s 45-nanometer chip manufacturing.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the four chips released today are the first of the Xeon line that use halogens-free packaging materials. The American chip maker has been working to replace materials used in processors manufacturing because they are hard to recycle and not that environment-friendly when burnt.

However, the launch of the four processors is just an overture before Intel’s big announcement set to come later this month. The announcement will center on Dunnington, a processor with six cores designed for the multisocket server space.