The newly-released dual-core AMD Opteron 800 series, which is said to outperform a single-core version running at the same speed, is designed for 4-way to 8-way servers and priced from US$1,514.
AMD expects its OEM partners to roll out systems based on the 800 series processors within the next month. The AMD Opteron 200 series designed for 2-way servers and workstations, however, will be available late-May, with OEM-based products expected to be rolled out in June.
HP will be launching a 4-way dual-core Opteron-based system, HP ProLiant DL585, in the region by end-May, said Ricky Chu, HP's product manager for Asia-Pacific industry standard server group. A 2-way option will be released by July this year, he added.
| "This is not a horse race. It requires a whole ecosystem to move in tandem with any new technology, and that takes a lot of effort. William Wu, regional platform marketing manager, server platform group, Intel Asia-Pacific |
"Currently, Intel does not have a dual-core server processor yet. But we will support that, too, as soon as they make it available in the market, just as we have with AMD," Chu said. "That would give customers more choice."
Intel already has a dual-core offering but the processors are based on the company's Pentium 4 architecture and designed primarily to run in desktops. Some companies, however, are using it for entry-level servers.
According to K Sugumaran, regional sales director of mid-market sales, Sun Microsystems Asia South, AMD has been a "rule-breaker" that has been "taking on the incumbent". Sun last week also released a dual-core 8-way Opteron-based x64 server, Sun Fire V40z.
Sugumaran noted that he has seen "generally a 20 percent to 30 percent increase" every quarter in customer demand for AMD-based systems.
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What Dell says |
According to market anayst IDC, AMD-based servers registered a three-and-a-half-fold increase in 2004 over 2003 in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan.
Last week's launch is months ahead of Intel's dual-core Xeon processors, codenamed Montecito, which are slated for release at the end of 2005.
Intel, however, appears unfazed by AMD's swift move to market in the server space, emphasizing that the processor is but one of several components vital to successfully drive a new platform.
"At this point, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done," said William Wu, regional platform marketing manager, server platform group, Intel Asia-Pacific. The chipmaker, he said, is currently working closely with the software industry to develop applications that "are more threaded" so they can be optimized to run on dual-core architectures.
He said that many applications today, including middleware, enterprise-class software and databases, are not well-written to take full advantage of the computing prowess that dual-core platforms offer. He noted that Microsoft had only recently released its 64-bit Windows server OS.
Besides the chip and hardware makers, software developers and systems integrators will also need to come together to drive the adoption of multi-core processor architectures, Wu said.
"Without the software, you can't take full advantage of the architecture. Why then would you want to buy it?" he said.
"This is not a horse race. It's not about who comes up with a faster chip or who goes to market with it first," he added. "The technology can be good, but if you don't have the software to take advantage of that, then there's no point. It requires a whole ecosystem to move in tandem with any new technology, and that takes a lot of effort and time."
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