AMD Rolls Out Seven New Shanghai Chips
AMD launched its first nine 45nm quad-core Opteron server chips in mid-November and followed up with Phenom II desktop processors earlier this month. The five new Opterons, designated "HE" for "highly efficient," are 55-watt processors providing up to 20 percent lower idle power over the first nine 75W Opterons in the Shanghai class, said Burke Banda, product marketing manager of AMD's Server and Workstation Division.
"The channel guys are really excited about these HE parts. So many of our guys are HPC-based in nature, so this is huge for them. And these follow the curve where these HE parts are at the same speeds as the previous Barcelona generation's heaviest power-draw parts," Banda said.
Hewlett-Packard has eight server products based on the new Opteron HE chips available now. Dell, IBM, Sun and other OEMs and whitebox builders are expected to follow suit soon, according to AMD.
The chip maker has seeded both its two-socket and four- to eight-socket Opteron families with the new low-power parts. Clock speeds range from 2.1 to 2.3GHz and pricing for the chips ranges from $316 to $1,514. Banda said the new parts' socket compatibility with older Barcelona-class quad-core Opteron platforms has AMD upbeat about orders despite weak overall demand in the microprocessor market.
"If we talk about the macroeconomics, the channel guys are not in as bad a position when it comes to inventory as some others. There are on-demand manufacturers able to drop in the Shanghai part [in older platforms]. With slowing of the economy, the question really becomes, 'Am I getting the best bang for my buck?'" he said.
The two new special edition Opterons, designated "SE," become the top parts in their respective stables. Both are 2.8GHz, 45nm quad-core Opterons slotting into the 105W thermal envelope -- the Opteron 2386 SE is priced at $1,165 and the Opteron 8386 SE at $2,649.
"We've got the benchmark-busting guys who want the SE product. The new parts are 2.8GHz, but originally we were planning on only going up to 2.3 or 2.4. But we debuted with a 2.7GHz part [in the original Shanghai lineup], so there you go," Banda said.