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Sun Adds AMD Chips to Its Quad-Core Server Offering

The announcement comes right after AMD introduced its Highly-Efficient Opteron chips

May 14, 2008 10:46 GMT  ·  By
Sun's new Fire X4440 server allows easy access to the disk drives
   Sun's new Fire X4440 server allows easy access to the disk drives

Server manufacturer Sun Microsystems has just announced the availability of new server systems equipped with Advanced Micro Devices' quad-core Barcelona chips. The AMD-based servers are the result of a long collaboration between the two manufacturers and aim at giving a cost-effective alternative to the Intel-powered counterparts.

According to Sun, the three new servers in the Fire family come with hardware configurations almost identical to those of the existing Sun servers, except for the fact that their core logic is based on AMD and Nvidia technology.

Sun is the latest major system builder to adopt AMD's quad-core Opteron processors, as HP, Dell and IBM had already introduced their Opteron-powered offerings in mid-April. The new servers are optimized for virtualized environments and deliver quad-core performance at reduced electricity costs.

Moreover, David Simmons, Sun senior product line director claims that the new offerings can suit the needs for both storage and computational performance in data centers. "With extremely high I/O throughput, they can also be used as storage servers in open storage infrastructures", Simmons explained.

Sun's Fire X4140 model can work with one or two dual-core / quad-core AMD Opteron processors in a 1U form factor. It comes with 16 DDR2 DIMM slots for a total of 128 GB of RAM memory and supports up to eight SATA-II hard-disk drives. The server sells for a starting price of $2,545 in its default configuration.

The X4240 server comes with a 64-bit processor option and supports up to 16 hard-disk drives on two rack units. It sells for a starting price of $3,145

The Sun Fire X4440 offering packs some more RAM with a second bank of 16 DDR2 DIMMs. According to Sun, it is the only four-way Opteron server with a 2U chassis available immediately. However, it comes with a larger price tag of $5,995.

Sun's newest server offerings are on par with systems built by other manufacturers. Hewlett-Packard has also introduced a 4-socked AMD Opteron server with 16 DDR2 memory banks and support for up to 128 GB of system RAM.