AMD Updates Opteron Series with Low-Power EE Processors

Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices has announced today the expansion of its business-class Opteron processor family with the introduction of its new Quad-Core Opteron EE processors, designed on a low-power 45nm manufacturing technology. Said to be capable of delivering the same performance as the company's current CPUs, the new EE Opterons are expected to power some of those high-end data centers that are built for cloud computing, web serving and other performance-demanding environments. Built on AMD's latest Shanghai core, the main feature of these new Opterons is to deliver performance at reduced power consumption.

“Adding the 40 watt EE power band to the Quad-Core AMD Opteron line-up helps our customers achieve maximum value for their unique data center needs across the board,” said Patrick Patla, vice president and general manager, Server Workstation Business, AMD. “The EE processor is ideal for cloud computing environments, which demand both extreme energy efficiency and a balanced system that can handle high transactional demands.”

According to the chip maker, its new Quad-Core Opteron EE processors are designed to deliver a significant power efficiency boost, compared to its Opteron HE processor, a model that was essentially designed to provide the company's customers with a power efficiency boost over competitive products. According to the presented numbers, users should expect a 13-percent reduction in platform level power consumption and up to 14-percent reduction in processor power at idle.

The company's current offering includes two new 45nm Opteron processors, the 2373 EE 40W ACP, running at 2.1GHz and the 2377 EE 40W ACP, running at 2.3GHz. According to AMD, these new Opterons will provide users with the same number of features that are available for all the other Opterons, but with lower power specifications. Additional features include support for HyperTransport 3 technology and AMD Core Select technology.