Advanced Micro Devices on Monday released its fastest chips yet. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company announced the six-core Opteron chips, code-named Istanbul — a move that pushes the chip manufacturer out in front of server customers.
The six-core processor, considered to be the most efficient processor yet, combines lower costs, higher performance per watt, and more scalability, according to AMD. The processor is for two-, four-, and eight-socket servers.
Server customers, including Dell, HP, IBM and Sun Microsystems, will have access to the six-core AMD processors beginning this month, according to the company. Low-power HE, high-power, frequency-optimized SE, and very-low-power EE versions of the processor will be available sometime in the third quarter.
The processor also has 34 percent more performance per watt, reduces probe filter traffic between processors, and increases stream memory and bandwidth by 60 percent.
“Based on close collaboration with our customers, we believe there is a clear value shift changing the economics of the server market,” said Patrick Patla, vice president and general manager of AMD’s server business.
Unlike AMD’s first quad-core processor, Barcelona — which was six months behind schedule after AMD faced several glitches — Istanbul surpassed expectations on availability.
In fact, Istanbul is available five months ahead of schedule, according to the company. Its early launch surpasses even the launch of AMD’s 45nm Shanghai processor, which was available three months earlier than expected.
AMD had announced Shanghai’s availability just as rival Intel was announcing its 45nm Nehalem chip. Now the release of AMD’s latest Opteron chip comes just days after Intel announced it would begin production of its eight-core Nehalem-EX processor this year. The Nehalem systems are slated for 2010.
The back-to-back announcements are not surprising: The two rivals are competing to provide more processing power for server customers who want faster ways to keep up with demanding…