AMD ships quad-core for entry-level servers

Shipping now, with clock speeds up to 2.3GHz, the Opteron 1300 series is based on the Barcelona quad-core design but is AMD's first server chip to feature Hypertransport 3.0 – a faster version of the interconnect technology used in other Opterons. The new chip was previously codenamed Budapest.

John Fruehe, AMD's market development manager for server and workstation products, said the new platform is more cost-effective than twin-socket designs in applications that do not require such a large memory space. The Opteron 1300 supports up to 8GB of unbuffered Dimms, while other Opteron server chips support up to 32GB.

"You will see this a lot in web services, in workstations, or for database development servers," said Fruehe. "You need a real server for application development work, but budgets are often tight. This platform delivers the performance but is more cost-effective," he added.

HP has announced a new ProLiant ML115 G5 server and xw4550 workstation based on the Opteron 1300 series, while supercomputer vendor Cray is using the chips in its XT4 systems.

AMD said its Opteron chips for two-socket and eight-socket systems will get Hypertransport 3.0 support with the introduction of the Shanghai core later this year.