Opteron

Let bygones be bygones. That's what Advanced Micro Devices is hoping for with the roll-out of its first 45-nanometer processor Thursday.

(AMD also announced its upcoming 45-nanometer "Phenom II X4" desktop technology. See below.)

The No. 2 PC processor supplier will make the case that Shanghai is not Barcelona. The latter chip--AMD's first quad-core processor--was rolled out in September 2007 to great fanfare but then faced prolonged delays. This gave Intel an opportunity to regain ground it had lost to AMD in the server chip market. (AMD lost more than five percentage points to Intel in … Read more

Advanced Micro Devices' first 45-nanometer chip, the Shanghai quad-core Opteron, has made its debut at resellers.

The officially unannounced Opteron 837X and 838X series processors are not cheap. Online reseller PC Connection lists the Opteron QC (quad-core) 8384 at $2,509. Another reseller, Buy.com lists the same processor at $2,240.

The 8384 is expected to run at 2.7GHz and draw 75 watts, relatively low power consumption for a quad-core server processor.

The 8385--same clock speed with a faster system bus--is offered for $2,509 at PC Connection.

Other processors listed include the 8382 (2.6GHz), 8380 (2.… Read more

I miss the old SGI. Silicon Graphics was widely regarded as the greatest computer company in Silicon Valley back in the 1990s. Sometimes forgotten--but not gone--SGI was one of our greatest success stories and one of our greatest tragedies.

Apple may have had more revenue by virtue of shipping millions of small systems, but SGI's hardware spanned the range from video-game consoles (the Nintendo 64) to workstations to supercomputers. SGI's Unix-based operating system, IRIX, was one of the most sophisticated in the industry.

I used to lust over SGI machines. I'd obsess over lists of used SGI gear, looking for a great deal that would let me have my own IRIX box at home. In 2004, I finally bought an Octane with MXI graphics... but that was years after these machines were effectively obsolete, and I paid less than 0.5% (1/200th!) of the original retail price of the machine.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, SGI was not well managed, losing huge amounts of money because its leaders would not… Read more

Intel has upstaged Advanced Micro Devices at DreamWorks Animation. The movie studio has decided to drop AMD and go with processors from Intel, citing better performance and a more promising roadmap.

DreamWorks specifically mentioned Intel's upcoming Nehalem processor and Larrabee graphics chip as reasons for the switch.

Intel and DreamWorks announced Tuesday that they had formed a strategic alliance for 3D filmmaking technology. DreamWorks plans to produce all its feature films in stereoscopic 3D--which requires the viewer to wear special glasses for enhanced 3D--beginning next year. Intel will provide DreamWorks with "the latest high-performance processing technologies, including future … Read more

Intel Xeon processors--particularly the "Harpertown" variety--dominated the top 500 supercomputer list. But IBM's Power chips made a strong showing as usual at the very top of the list. AMD's Opteron processor landed in the No. 1 and No. 4 ranked systems.

The Top500 List--updated twice a year--of supercomputers was released Wednesday. Intel's Xeon, AMD's Opteron, and IBM's Power chips vied for most of the spots in the list.

The most dominant chip was the Intel Xeon E54xx series "Harpertown" processor. Appearing in 116 systems for 23.2 percent of the … Read more

On Monday, Advanced Micro Devices announced availability of low-power quad-core Opteron processors targeted at servers.

The HE (high-efficiency) processors have a thermal envelope of 55 watts. Other AMD quad-core server processors have higher thermal envelopes of 105 watts or 75 watts.

The low-power Opterons are available in both the 2300 and 8300 series. The 2300 series processors are designed for servers that use two processors, while the 8300 series processors are for systems that use four or eight processors.

The new parts include the 8347 HE (1.9GHz, $873) and the 2347 HE (1.9GHz, $377).

"Our new Quad-Core … Read more

Advanced Micro Devices said the long-delayed quad-core "Barcelona" Opteron processor is available in servers from computer vendors such as Hewlett-Packard.

Barcelona had been delayed repeatedly due to production glitches and bugs. AMD is now shipping a "B3" version that includes the bug fix in silicon.

"Customers can get the quad-core AMD Opteron processor today in systems from HP, as well as other system providers," the chipmaker said in a release Tuesday night. The HP ProLiant G5 servers are the first of many systems that are expected to be available in the coming weeks from … Read more

AMD's quad-core Barcelona chip for servers is ready to launch--really launch this time.

AMD is shipping the quad-core Barcelona Opteron to channel and distribution partners this week, according to an AMD representative on Thursday. System vendors such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard are readying systems for shipment in the second quarter.

(Correction: AMD is shipping samples of the Barcelona processor to channel and distribution partners not production versions of the chip.)

AMD is shipping the B3 version of the processor that fixes a TLB bug. Large vendors such as Dell, HP, and IBM have been waiting for this version of … Read more

Hewlett-Packard has committed to Advanced Micro Devices' quad-core Opteron "Barcelona" processors in its Proliant DL585 servers, according to company documents.

This comes as AMD is preparing to send samples of its "B3" quad-core Opteron processor to customers. The B3 stepping (or version) fixes, in silicon, a rarely occurring glitch in the Barcelona chip, referred to as the TLB bug. The bug has delayed shipment of quad-core chips to top-tier U.S. server vendors, giving Intel a leg-up in the high-end server market.

Currently, Proliant DL585 G2 servers use dual-core Opteron processors. But HP documentation updated last … Read more