AMD Unveils Opteron processors For Servers

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. on Tuesday unveiled low- and mid-power Opteron processors for servers.

The 55-watt Opteron HE and 30-watt EE chips, scheduled for release in March, are particularly useful within blade servers. Excessive heat and power consumption can cause problems for the densely packed, rack-mounted computers.

"Any enterprise concerned about power usage in their data centers now has a low-power option that also offers industry-leading per watt performance, reliable security and the assurance of investment protection," Marty Seyer, vice president and general manager of AMD's Microprocessor Business Unit, said in a statement.

The Opteron processor is an important weapon in AMD's battle against the larger Intel Corp. in the chip market. The AMD processor, which was released about a year ago, can run 32-bit software, as well as more advanced 64-bit applications, such as databases or video-editing.

IBM and Sun Microsystems Inc. are among the computer makers that are using, or plan to use, the chips.Opteron processor models 846 HE and 840 EE are priced at $1,514 in 1,000-unit quantities. The 246 HE and 240 EE models are priced at $851 for the same quantities, and the 146 HE and 140 EE are priced at $733.