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While Intel’s launch was aimed at desktop users and particularly the computer hobbyists and entertainment enthusiasts, AMD squarely aimed its first dual core release at the higher end – the server market. According to AMD, it makes more sense to target servers first because many server applications are already written for parallel processing while desktop applications, including games, are single threaded.
“Servers and workstations can take immediate advantage of dual core,” said Gina Longoria, product manager for Opteron. “You are able to increase throughput and provide more efficiency on multithreaded applications, and the vast majority of multithreaded applications do see significant benefits from dual core.”
Other benefits of the AMD approach include compatibility with existing 940-pin sockets that support current single core infrastructures, Longoria added.
“Partners can leverage their existing systems with no need to change to different socket,” she said. “Thermals are the same. All that is needed is a BIOS update. And those benefits make it easy to bring dual core to market.”
The dual core Opteron also offers better performance per watt than other single core products available today, Longoria said.
AMD said its new dual core 800 Series is available immediately, followed by the 200 Series, which will be available within 30 days.
Both Sun and Hewlett-Packard are among the AMD partners planning their own new product announcements based on dual core Opteron processors in conjunction with the AMD launch.
AMD said its dual core products for the desktop would ship in June. AMD will offer four different configurations at speeds of either 2.2GHz or 2.4GHz and with different amounts of level two cache.
In the desktop space, applications that are multithreaded now include multimedia codecs and other multimedia applications.
“Consumer electronics offers the biggest opportunity for dual core on the desktop right now, with other areas to follow,” Longoria said. For example, games are expected to go dual core in 2006 and productivity applications in 2007.
In addition, in contrast to Intel’s strategy, AMD plans to keep single core products as part of its product line up for “quite a while. “High frequency single core is better for some applications,” Longoria said. “And in some cases single core may be enough for some applications. We sill have a demand for single core going forward.”
