AMD Unveils Three Low-Power Opteron Processors

The dual-core Opteron 1218 HE, 2218 HE and 8218 HE offer 68-watt maximum thermal design power versus the mainstream 95 watts, the company said. The new processors target companies looking to reduce the cost of power consumption and cooling in the datacenter.

The AMD chips include technology for reducing power consumption during idle times. The processors also provide an upgrade path for companies planning to eventually switch to AMD quad-core processors, codenamed Barcelona, which are scheduled to ship in the middle of the year.

Pricing for the new chips are $432 for the 1218 HE, $611 for the $2218, and $1,340 for the 8218.

Opteron CPUs, in general, combine a memory controller and standard cache coherent interconnect in easing the job of building multiprocessor servers, as well as multi-core processors. The performance of the new Opteron chips is on par with Intel's Xeon 5100 series dual-core processors but AMD's chip series takes up less overall power because of the integrated memory controller. The integration effort has enabled AMD to grab a piece of the server market from Intel.