Intel has confirmed plans to release a new 15-core server chip code-named Ivytown targeted at high-end servers. Speaking to Computerworld, Intel confirmed Thursday plans to ship the 15-core server Ivytown chip in the third quarter of this year.

Based on Intel's Ivy Bridge architecture, the chip will likely go into four- to eight-socket servers. It is manufactured using the 22-nanometer process, and will be part of a Xeon E7-v2 server chip line, which is code-named Ivy Bridge-EX.

Intel's current Xeon E5 v2 chips feature 12 cores and 24 threads (Xeon E5-2697 v2 and Xeon E5-2695 v2).

Intel has already plugged 16 cores into its latest Opteron 6300 chips (Interlagos).

Adding CPU cores is a power-efficient way to increase processing power.