AMD Rams Opteron 4000 Platform into the Cloud

The FireStream cards may be the latest big thing that Advanced Micro Devices has to provide the HPC market with, but they aren't the only one. In fact, AMD has just come out and dropped another bomb the likes of which have not been seen since the same CPU and GPU maker rolled out the Magny-Cours processors. To be more specific, the Sunnyvale, California-based outfit has brought out a new server platform and processor line that seeks to address the needs of power-efficient 1 and 2P systems.

The Opteron 4000 platform is based on the Socket C32 and utilizes the new Opteron 4100 processors codenamed Lisbon. These fresh chips have between 4 and 6 cores, are based on the 45nm manufacturing process technology and, of course, support DDR3 memory. In addition, they have an ACP between 32W and 75W and a pair of HyperTransport 3.0 links.

“Until now, customers wanting to build a dense and power-efficient cloud or hyperscale data center had to shoehorn expensive, higher-end solutions into their computing environment, or they had to choose low-power client-based designs that may not have offered the right level of performance and server functionality,” said Patrick Patla, corporate vice president and general manager, Server and Embedded Division, AMD. “With the AMD Opteron 4000 Series platform, these customers now have a server platform that is extremely power- and cost-efficient, allows a high degree of customization, and is also an ideal solution for high-end embedded systems.”

It should probably be noted that the Opteron 4000 platform is chipset-consistent with the 8-core and 12-core Magny Cours Opteron 6000 and is meant to support the 2011-bound Bulldozer platform as well. 1 and 2P systems based on the new solutions will be utilized in hyperscale, data center, cloud and SMB customers. Acer, Dell, SGI, HP, Supermicro and ZT Systems are among the companies that offer such installations.