AMD’s ‘Istanbul’ Opteron CPUs are now shipping ahead of schedule. AMD claims the processor will produce 34 percent more performance than the existing "Shanghai" quad-core processor at the same power requirements.
Originally, the 45-nm Istanbul had been scheduled to ship later in the year, but AMD president and CEO Dirk Meyer said that the company decided to "pull in" the timetable.
The six-core server processor integrates with two-, four- and eight-socket servers using AMD’s Direct Connect Architecture
AMD said that systems based on the six-core Opteron processors are expected to be available beginning this month from Cray, Dell, HP, IBM and Sun Microsystems. HE, SE and EE versions are planned for the second half of 2009.
AMD listed the following as key features of its latest Opteron:
- Six true cores
- HyperTransport Technology Assist (HT Assist)
- Increased HT3 bandwidth
- AMD-P power management technologies
- AMD Virtualization (AMD-V) technology
- Same power/thermal ranges as Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors
So, what’s next for the Opteron? Look out for 12 cores in 2010 and an even more impressive 16 cores by 2011.
