Intel Corp. has debuted its first desktop processors with what the chipmaker calls Intel Virtualization Technology, providing an optmized platform for segregating different operating systems and applications in different partitions or independent containers. The 3.6GHz Pentium 4 662 and 3.8GHz Pentium 4 672 are single-core, Hyper-Threading, 64-bit-capable processors with 2MB apiece of Level 2 cache. Intel says they're intended for business PCs that can benefit from improved manageability and security, whether for testing new operating environments without rebooting or crashing the entire system or for performing upgrades or virus treatment in a background partition without affecting a user's work environment.

Intel says software vendors including VMware, Microsoft, and Xen are working to support Virtualization Technology, which recently premiered in four dual-core Xeon MP server CPUs and will come to Intel's Centrino notebook and Itanium enterprise processors next year. Both virtualization support and Intel's Active Management Technology will be featured in the Professional Business Platform dual-core CPU/chipset combo that Intel will introduce later in 2006.