AMD's Six-Core Istanbul Processors Slated for May Release

Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices will reportedly launch its highly anticipated six-core microprocessors next month, in an attempt to boost profitability and better compete with the latest offering from its main competitor, Intel. The new releases will be part of the chip maker's business-class Opteron processors and will likely compete with Intel's latest Nehalem-based Quad-Core CPUs. Codenamed Istanbul, the processors will provide AMD's customers with an easy upgrade solution, as they will be socket-compatible with the current generation of quad-core, Shanghai-based processors.

Dirk Meyer, the company's president and chief executive officer, announced the move during a conference call with financial analysts. “I am pleased to announce that because of our strong engineering execution, we are pulling in revenue shipments of Istanbul into May, for system availability in June,” Meyer said.

One of the main features of AMD's upcoming six-core Opteron processors is that they will allow customers to easily upgrade to the latest solution, without having to worry about system compatibility or having to turn off the system for longer periods. This feature is enabled by the drop-in compatibility delivered by the Istanbul chips, allowing system vendors to roll out higher-performance solutions that deliver an increased performance-per-watt.

Additionally, AMD's upcoming six-core Opterons will boast an L3 cache size of 6MB, dual-channel DDR2 memory controller and a new HyperTransport Assist technology, which essentially allows for the processors installed on a system to work better together by reducing the amount of traffic generated by the processors while seeking the shortest path to the necessary data.

AMD's Istanbul Opterons are built on the company's 45nm manufacturing technology and should become available to customers sometime in June this year, according to AMD's CEO. This will provide AMD with a head start over its main competitor, Intel, which is also expected to roll out its first 6-core processors later this year.