They could be engineering samples.

Can't really read it says from the picture.

Maybe, but unlikely - I got those from retired sysadmin, not hardware engineer. He did not remember where he got those from.
On the IHSes there are only serial numbers, different from each other, but close enough to be same batch.

They certainly seem to be Itanium in size and layout, even down to the contact points and dark solder mask markings on the edge of the substrate.

Like you, I’ve never seen an Itanium heatspreader without Itanium engraved on it (and never seen an Intel ES of any family that doesn’t contain “Intel Confidential” markings).

Very odd.

I am leaning toward a Itanium CPU as well. The pinout and count is similar to what would have been on a Itanium Cartridge... but they look like they were lapped....so I'm not sure.

https://old.hotchips.org/wp-content/uploads/h … m-cartridge.PDF

I was looking on it through a microscope ane I discovered that it has "746933 01 IC2" written on the silkscreen of CPU's PCB.
Besides, all Itanium 2 CPUs I saw had green silkscreen - this has brown.

Edit: it looks the hell like Xeon MP 1,4 or 1,6 GHz, bottom marking has same number of characers and is engraved using the same font.