X-bit labs

AMD Talks 32-Way Servers.

Category: CPU

by Anton Shilov

[ 08/26/2004 | 05:34 PM ]

Meanwhile AMD yet has to provide 8-way servers and popularize its 4-way machines, some of the company’s closest partners begin to talk on 32-way large scale AMD Opteron servers.

During this year’s Hot Chips, a symposium on high performance microprocessors, Rich Oehler and Rajesh Kota from Newisys, a subsidiary of Sanmina-SCI that is concentrated on developing and making servers based on AMD64-technology, read a key-not called “Enabling large scale, 32-way Opteron Enterprise Servers”, covering high-end AMD Opteron-based machines with 32 microprocessors inside. The company’s web-site also claims “Newisys plans to build on the foundation to deliver robust enterprise-class server designs that deliver even greater price performance in the 4-32 way CPU multiprocessing computing space”.

Advanced Micro Devices has been historically known as a maker of clones of Intel’s processors, hoverer, starting from the mid-nineties the Sunnyvale, California-based chipmaker started to develop its own-designed central processing units. The first strong rival for Intel’s Pentium III processors – the AMD Athlon – emerged in 1999 for desktops and evolved into server/workstation product – the AMD Athlon MP – in 2001. However, AMD’s recognition in the server space only happened in mid-2003 when the company released the world’s first commercial x86-64 processor – AMD Opteron that has been gaining momentum since then.

Earlier this year MaxSelect, a Moscow, Russia-based system integrator, unveiled plans to market 8-way AMD Opteron servers, though, it has not said the machines are available for purchase since then.

Sunnyvale, California-based AMD recently indicated plans to increase presence in the server market.