Advanced Micro Devices has lowered pricing of its dual-core and single-core AMD Opteron processors for 1-way servers and workstations. After the reduction it became more apparent that a uni-processor (UP) server based on a dual-core chip is economically more competitive compared to a machine featuring two single-core processors, whereas on the workstation side it may be more reasonable to get an Opteron instead of comparable Athlon 64.

The decrease of the pricing comes nearly two months after the Sunnyvale, California-based chipmaker slashed the pricing of its AMD Opteron processors for dual-processor (DP) and multi-processor (MP) applications. The new price-reduction is in the range between 10% and 33%, which is rather significant. The previous price slash was in the range between 19% and 29% depending on the model. 

As a result of the price reduction dual-core AMD Opteron 180 (2.40GHz) costs $799 in 1000-unit quantities, whereas a couple of AMD Opteron 250 (2.40GHz) would cost $455 each in 1000-unit quantities. While in some applications two physical processors are still better than one dual-core chip, such a system would cost significantly more compared to dual-core central processing unit (CPU)-based.

AMD also sells AMD Opteron 152 chip clocked at 2.60GHz that has similar specs with AMD Athlon 64 FX-55. The chips are priced at $799 and $827, respectively. Similar situation may be observed with other AMD Athlon 64-series and AMD Opteron 100-series processors. The latest AMD Opteron for UP apps use the same Socket 939 infrastructure as the Athlon 64 products.

AMD did not issue any official statements regarding the price slash of server processors, but reflected the change in its online price-list.