Multitasking Challenge to Intel Marks AMD64's Second Anniversary

AMD celebrated the second anniversary of its Opteron 64-bit server and workstation CPU by announcing the ahead-of-schedule availability of dual-core Opteron 800 series processors for four- to eight-way servers, promising up to a 90-percent performance improvement over single-core Opteron chips. Dual-core Opteron 200 series CPUs for two-way servers and workstations will ship in late May, with Athlon 64 X2 chips for desktop PCs and desktop-replacement notebooks coming in June.

Archrival Intel Corp. shipped its first dual-core CPU -- the 3.2GHz Pentium Extreme Edition 840 for enthusiast and gaming desktops, priced at $999 in 1,000-unit OEM quantities -- earlier this week, with Pentium D desktop chips due shortly. But AMD, in addition to beating Intel to the server market, boasts that its dual-core processors work as plug-in replacements, fitting the same socket infrastructure and same power envelope as their single-core cousins. And as AMD64 processors, naturally, the new chips will seamlessly run both 32- and 64-bit single- and multithreaded x86 applications.

The 90-nanometer-process, dual-core Opteron 865 (1.8GHz), 870 (2.0GHz), and 875 (2.2GHz) are volume-priced at $1,514, $2,149, and $2,649 respectively; each contains 1MB of Level 2 cache per core. The same clock speeds apply to next month's dual-core Opteron 265 ($851), 270 ($1,051), and 275 ($1,299), which promise to turn two-socket servers into virtual four-way systems. Sun, HP, IBM, and Supermicro have announced dual-core Opteron servers, with IBM also unveiling a workstation and Cray two supercomputers using the new processors. Operating-system choices will include Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64 and Win XP Professional x64 as well as Sun's Solaris 10 and Red Hat, SUSE, Mandriva, and other versions of Linux.

In June, AMD will officially launch 2.2GHz Athlon 64 X2 models 4200+ ($537) and 4400+ ($581) and 2.4GHz Athlon 64 X2 models 4600+ ($803) and 4800+ ($1,001). The first processor within each pair has 512K of L2 cache per core, the second 1MB.