"As IBM continued to show price/performance leadership in the Unix server space with its dual-core Power4 processors, and HP and Sun Microsystems readied their own dual-core RISC processors, Intel had a conversion of sorts, it killed off Chivano and pushed out the "Montecito" kickers to the Madisons to 2005, but decided to make them a dual-core chip, thereby getting dual-core processors to market almost a year earlier than planned."
From further down the article, "In late 2002, when Chivano was still on the roadmaps and Intel was not understanding the situation, HP decided to engineer what amounted to a dual-core Madison for its own server line. Of course, by changing the Itanium roadmap, Intel has shortened the useful life of the mx2 modules made by HP. That statement is only true if you believe that Intel can get Montecito out the door on time, of course."
So the design was in the works in 2002. Tape out in late 2002/early 2003 and 12-18 months of testing gets HP to put out "dual core Madison" in 2004. Just as the Geek article stated. Montecito was successor to Madison. Lets push the original design plan from the inception. Intel started by designing Merced, HP designed McKinley, Intel designed Madison and thus HP designs Montecito. Result Montecito was dual core from the start. Only Intel took over the design from HP, which didn't want to design CPUs anymore. Intel Marketing's clout got these writers to put in some face saving spin on not making the tape out/sampling dates. And of course you bought the revisionist history hook, line and sinker.
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