14 DAY TRIAL // As many of you probably already know, Advanced Micro Devices plans to release its latest server microprocessor, code-named Shanghai, in just a few days, on November 13th, to be more precise. The new chip is a Quad core Opteron, manufactured using the 45nm process technology, and expected to come with a clock running at 2.7GHz.
Shanghai is said to be the replacement of the company's former Barcelona chip, which caused a lot of woes, mainly due to its problems rather than performance levels. According to the company, the new chip brings an improved performance, as compared with the old version, while it also eliminates all previous issues the product may have had. The Sunnyvale company will announce the 2.7GHz chip on November 13, while it is expected to release a higher clock version next year.
According to AMD and some of its partners, Shanghai comes with many features optimized for virtualization. Since these features are a must in today's IT market, the chip should prove a good match for Intel's Core 2 Quad-based Xeons. Even though the number one chip maker will release new Nehalem-based Xeons next year, Shanghai still has a lot of time to prove what it is capable of.
While it proves to have the same clock speeds as the Xeons, Shanghai will probably end up cheaper than Intel's processors, as AMD needs it in order to gain ground on the market. As the chip maker hasn't had a competitive product launched on the server market during the last year or so, it obviously has to make a stand. This product has good chances of doing so, especially given the fact that it needs less power than Nehalem.
Moreover, existing servers will upgrade much easier to Shanghai Opterons than Core 2 Xeons based servers could, as they need to change the whole system to move to Nehalem Xeons. All this may help AMD's chip gain some good market points, and the company certainly needs them.