AMD will launch Rev F versions of its Opteron chips in the third quarter, a move that ends the single-core server processor era and paves the way for four-core models.
The company had discussed some Rev F details before, but in a meeting in San Francisco on Monday, on the eve of the Intel Developer Forum, product marketing manager Kishna Weaver narrowed the launch date to the third quarter from just mid-2006.
With Opteron, AMD has opened a new front in its decades-long competition with Intel. Intel previously had the x86 server market to itself with Xeon, but with Opteron, AMD beat Intel to market with several features and has been gaining market share. One such feature was the use of dual processing cores.
All Rev F models will be dual-core chips, AMD said. And the Socket F connector, with 1,207 electrical connections, will accommodate quad-core Opterons scheduled to arrive in 2007, the company said.
The dual-core to quad-core transition strategy is similar to the approach the chipmaker took with its Socket 940, which accommodated both single-core and dual-core Opterons. That approach let computer makers reuse the same designs for the new chips.
Intel also plans to release its first quad-core Xeon models in 2007 — Clovertown for dual-processor systems and Tigerton for four-socket systems.
The Rev F models are built using the same 90nm manufacturing process as current Opterons. In late 2006, AMD plans to begin its move to a 65nm process; Intel started 65nm chip production in 2005.
Also coming with the Rev F chips will be Pacifica and Presidio, features for improved virtualisation abilities and security. Memory will be faster and consume less power with the move from the first version of DDR memory to DDR2. The chip's high-speed cache memory will stay the same, 1MB per core, and will continue to use a single on-board memory controller.
When Rev F models debut, AMD will consolidate two low-power versions into a single line, said Brent Kerby, AMD's Opteron product marketing manager.
With today's Opterons, AMD offers standard models that consume a maximum of 95W, a high-efficiency "HE" version that runs slower but consumes 55W, and a special edition — for large customers such as IBM and HP — that runs at full speed but consumes only 68W.
When Rev F arrives, though, the HE models will run at 68W, he said. That provides a better balance of processing oomph and power consumption.
AMD's PowerNow technology, which cuts processor speeds when computing demand is low, also gets an update for Rev F. Currently, a computer's BIOS must be updated to accommodate a faster new Opteron model, but that requirement is eliminated with the Rev F chips.
