AMD introduces six-core Opteron
AMD has introduced a six-core version of its Opteron server chip designed for the most demanding datacentre workloads, such as databases and server consolidation using virtualisation.
Codenamed Istanbul, the six-core chip is available immediately, several months earlier than had been planned. It is expected to appear in four-socket systems from Dell, HP, IBM and Sun in the near future.
Istanbul delivers up to 34 per cent higher performance than last year's Shanghai quad-core chip running at the same clock speed, according to AMD. It fits within the same power envelope as Shanghai, and even uses the same socket infrastructure so that existing systems can be upgraded.
