San Jose (CA) - AMD used the Fall Processor Forum to provide more details about its dual-core Opteron architecture which is scheduled to be released by mid of 2005. Buyers could expect performance increases of 30 to 55 percent over the single-core versions, the company said.

AMD and Intel have been tight-lipped about the performance potential of upcoming dual-core processor architectures and instead preferred to advertise other advantages such as only little or no increases in power consumption and heat dissipation.

Once again it is AMD that takes a step forward and promises that dual-core Opterons will deliver at least 30 percent, and in a best-case scenario up to 55 percent more performance than their single-core siblings. Clock speeds however were about 600 to 1000 MHz lower than single-core speeds to avoid overheating, said Kevin McGrath, AMD's Opteron architecture manager. He added that the dual-core chips will include 206 million transistors, which is almost the double amount of the transistor count of single-core Opterons (105 million), but maintain about the same footprint of the single-core package.

As previously announced by the company, the dual-core processor line-up for the one- to eight-socket server and workstation market will be introduced in mid-2005. The chips will be based on the existing 940-pin socket. Dual-core processors for the client market are expected to follow in the second half of 2005.