Tuesday, January 27, 2009

AMD to Update Server Processors with New Shanghai Opterons

Designed to provide better power consumption

Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices is expected to unveil a series of new processors, designed to provide the company's professional users with an alternative low-voltage and high-clock speed server solution. The new chips will be part of AMD's Opteron family of server CPUs and are based on the company's “Shanghai” processors, released back in November 2008. According to the latest details in the industry, the new chips are expected to be announced this week, meaning that customers will likely be able to take advantage of them in the upcoming months.

AMD will unveil five new “high-efficient” variants of its Shanghai-based Opterons, all of which will be running on slightly lower clock speeds, but will provide an improved power consumption rate. According to “The Register,” the chip maker will provide new Opteron processors rated at 55 watts, using the company's ACP (Average CPU Power) scale. This rating is different from the one the chip manufacturer used in the past, namely the peak power consumption metrics.

In addition to the high-efficient Opterons, AMD is expected to release a Special Edition Shanghai chip, which will become available in two different models, one that will be targeted at two-socket servers, and one that will be designed for four-socket systems. Despite its slightly higher clock rate, this chip will feature a power consumption rate almost double that of the other chips. The processor is rated at 105watts.

Regarding the specifications of the new processors, all new Shanghai-based chips are going to provide four cores with a 512KB L2 cache memory and 6MB of L3 cache. They will be capable of supporting server configurations featuring 800MHz DDR2 memory. Furthermore, the Shanghai processors are expected to provide an enhanced performance level, when compared to the Barcelona chips released by AMD prior to its current server processor architecture.

Price-wise, the Opteron 2372 HE part, rated at 2.1GHz, will cost $316, while the 2374 HE, rated at 2.2GHz, will come with a price tag of $450. The 2376 HE part, running at 2.3GHz, is listed at $575 in 1000-unit quantities. All of the aforementioned processors are designed for two-socket servers, while for bigger servers AMD will release the 8374 HE, running at 2.2GHz, and an 8376 HE rated at 2.3GHz, priced at $1,165 and $1,514, respectively. The higher-clocked models, rated at 2.8GHz, will be offered for both two-socket servers and four-socket boxes with prices of $1,165 and $2,649.