My invite must still be in the mail

AMD is having their launch party in New York today for their new dual-core Opteron. Some have asked the question, “Why did AMD want to start with the servers instead of doing like Intel and launching a dual-core desktop CPU?”.

“We decided to launch our dual-core Opteron for servers and workstations first because it would give us the biggest bang for the buck,” Gina Longoria, AMD Opteron 200 Series Product Manager, told internetnews.com. “We expect our customers to really take on dual-core and we see us getting further into the enterprise market because of it.”

One of the nice design features of the new dual-core Opteron is that it has the same pin-out as current Opteron’s. Almost all systems currently using the single-core Opterons will be able to upgrade to the new dual-core by simply updating the BIOS. Also, there is no increase in power usage. The maximum power draw for the dual-core Opteron is 95 watts which matches the maximum power consumption for the current single-core Opteron.

Four models of the dual-core AMD Athlon XP (desktop) are tentatively set for release in June, 2005. The clock speeds will range between 2.2 GHz and 2.4 GHz.

AMD press release
InternetNews.com Story
Techworld.com Story

21.Apr.05 Hardware, Technology