AMD: 15% Improvement in Performance of 9 Opteron Server Chips

December 5, according to foreign media reports, in order to prevent the decline in the server market, AMD is implementing a positive strategy. The strategy is to introduce ARM and x86 chips before 2014, while continuing to improve its Opteron server processor product line.

AMD introduced a low-power Opteron processor on Tuesday. These processors are primarily used for cloud servers that deal with website transactions. The new Opteron 4300 and 3300 x86 server processors are configured with up to eight cores, primarily for entry-level and mid-range servers.

Nine new server chips are available for AMD's SeaMicro high-density servers. This server has used the old Opteron 4200 and 3200 server chips. The previous chips were introduced last year. The new chip provides an upgrade in performance and power consumption. AMD is trying to change the decline in its server business by upgrading its x86 chips and introducing ARM-based server chips in 2014. Although x86 processors are still expected to be mainstream, AMD's goal is to mix and match x86 and ARM processors in servers to solve the various workloads from database to website transaction processing. AMD began shipping Opteron 6300 processors for mid-range and high-end servers last month.

According to market research firm Mercury Research, AMD accounted for 4.5% of the global x86 server processor market share in the third quarter, down from 5.2% in the same period last year. Intel holds other market share. AMD had a server market share of 24% in the third quarter of 2006, reaching the highest point.

As with each new generation of chips, the new Opteron processor is expected to provide better performance while reducing power consumption.

AMD's new six Opteron 4300 chips are configured with 4 to 8 cores and consume 35 to 65 watts of power. The average performance of these processors is 15% higher than that of the old Opteron 4200 chip. These old chips are based on the Bulldozer architecture. The new chip uses the new Piledriver architecture.

The basic frequency speed of the Opteron 4300 chip is 2.2GHz to 3.1GHz, which can increase the main frequency to 3.8Ghz for special applications. The lowest-priced 6-core Opteron 4334 chip costs $191. The most expensive 8-core Opteron 4376 HE chip costs $501.

The three new Opteron 3300 chips announced by AMD are clocked at 1.9Ghz to 2.6GHz (overclocked to 3.6Ghz in Turbo mode) and consume 25 to 65 watts of power. The four-core Opteron 3320 EE chip costs $174 and the 8-core Opteron 3380 chip costs $229.

These chips all support Windows and Linux operating systems. AMD did not immediately comment on which servers will configure these new processor chips.