Hammer Time: AMD On The Attack, Continued
In case you missed the reams and reams of anticipation on this topic: Opteron CPUs are all 64 bit CPUs that can also carry out conventional 32 bit x86 code natively. You might remember this feature as "x86-64", but from now on it is called "AMD64". There is an important difference to Intel's 64 bit processor Itanium and its "IA64" architecture, which is merely able to slowly emulate the myriads of 32 bit software titles we all use today. In addition, AMD's Opteron is the first x86 CPU that features an integrated dual-DDR333 memory interface, allowing dedicated memory for each Opteron processor in multi-Opteron systems as well as very low latency for memory accesses. Finally, AMD equipped Opteron with three Hypertransport Channels that act as the connection between the outside world as well as internal components of the CPU.
Up close and in person: the "244" indicates the model numbering. More details about this in our test.
The first server from AMD: two Opterons with 1.8 GHz result in the model number 244.
This also works: the Dual Opteron system under Windows XP for workstation benchmarks.
