14 DAY TRIAL // It is likely that Consumers are most interested, right now, in NVIDIA's upcoming DirectX 11 cards, as well as the six-core central processors that promise to enable a new generation of gaming experiences. Intel has already launched its hexacore chip, the Gulftown, and AMD is gearing up to release a whole collection of Thubans. In the meantime, however, the latter is ramping up production of many-core server processors. The Opteron X12 12-core processors were supposedly set to debut during the soon-to-be-over ongoing quarter. A formal announcement, unfortunately, has not been made, but fears might be quelled now that Fudzilla has discovered several Magny-Cours models listed on PROVANTAGE.
The AMD Opteron 6176 has each of its 12 cores operating at a frequency of 2.3GHz. The chip also has a cache memory of 18MB and is the most expensive of the line, with a price tag of $1,491. There are two other processors that are close, performance-wise, to this model. The 6162 runs at 2.1GHz and costs $1,060, whereas the 6174 has a clock speed of 2.2GHz and a price of $1,250.
The two more interesting chips in the listing are the Opteron X12 6136 and 6164. The former consumes 105W, is clocked at 2.4Ghz and has 128MB of cache memory, but, strangely enough, it is cheaper than the 6176, at $808.
The 6164, on the other hand, operates at only 1.7GHz, has 16MB cache and only consumes 65W, which is quite impressive, considering the emphasis that servers and data centers place upon energy efficiency. In return for the lower speed, this processor has a significantly lower price point, compared with that of its siblings, of $797.
Through these processors, AMD aims to offer servers and data centers the ability to more easily and quickly perform parallel computing tasks with high efficiency. Those interested in the multi-core chips can check out the listing here.