Opteron is AMD's latest salvo
Advanced Micro Devices is firing back at Intel today with a new version of its Opteron chip for business computers.
The Sunnyvale company's new chips are its first response to a highly touted server chip from Intel launched in July. The new Opteron chips use a new kind of socket for a computer system board, which in turn allows AMD to use more power-efficient memory chips in computer servers.
The so-called DDR2 (double-data rate 2) memory chips use less power and give AMD's chips a 10 percent performance boost over the versions that use the older form of memory, dubbed DDR. Since AMD didn't make other major changes to the chip, it remains to be seen if it will be competitive with Intel's newest chips for servers.
