AMD has taken the wraps off its first quad-core processors, a week after Intel filled out its own quad-core server line-up.
The nine new processors, formerly known as Barcelona, will be branded the Quad-Core AMD Opteron and is touted as the first native x86 quad-core microprocessor. The first quad-core processors are all targeted at the server environment, with AMD delaying the introduction of quad-core consumer chips, codenamed Phenom, until December.
AMD is banking a lot on the performance-per-watt capabilities of the processors, claiming businesses are now placing an increasing emphasis on running costs. AMD argued that the processors offer a 50 per cent boost in integer and floating point performance while being significantly more power efficient. The processors should also appeal to IT managers as they are hot-swappable with existing dual-core chips.
“Today marks one of the great milestones in microprocessor achievement as AMD raises expectations for industry-standard computing,” said Hector Ruiz, chief executive at AMD.
“We have worked closely with our customers and partners to design a new generation of processing solutions embodied by today’s Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor ­ a four-way winner in performance, energy efficiency, virtualisation and investment protection.
“Early customer response has been extremely positive.”
Paul Miller, vice president of marketing, enterprise storage and servers at HP, said: “More customers choose ProLiant for their AMD processor-based server blades than any other vendor by a factor of more than two to one. The launch of Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors can help customers bring new levels of efficiency to their infrastructure as we broaden our AMD Opteron processor-based family of servers.”
The processors run at 55-75 watts and AMD has introduced a new power rating system that it said will help businesses better understand power usage. The Average CPU Power metric measures processor power usage including cores, integrated memory controller and HyperTransport technology links, while running a suite of typical commercial applications. AMD maintained that it provides a more accurate picture of real-world power usage than the industry-accepted thermal design power rating.
The processors come with clock speeds of up to 2GHz, but AMD is aiming to crank that up to 2.5GHz by the end of the year. Intel’s new quad-core Xeon 7300 processors, which launched last week, already turn in clock speeds of 2.93GHz, but use a lot more power.
Intel overshadows AMD with quad-core processor