by Anton Shilov
02/24/2004 | 03:31 PM
HP, the world’s largest maker of servers, today officially introduced its first x86-64 server machines – the ProLiant DL145 and DL845 – based on AMD Opteron 200- and 800-series microprocessors. Besides, AMD and HP have agreed to work together to drive next-generation server capabilities through a multi-year purchasing, marketing and technology collaboration agreement.
<%BANNER[article]%>Initially HP plans to sell 2P ProLiant DL145 1U servers powered by various AMD Opteron processors 200 series and priced from $1599 to $2999 depending on configuration. Additionally, HP intends to offer its DL845 4U server with 4 AMD Opteron processors 800 series in the second quarter of the year. Even later, in the second half of 2004, HP expects to ship an ultra-dense, two-processor HP ProLiant blade server based on AMD Opteron chips with reduced power consumption.
As usually, customers may configure their ProLiant DL145 according to their needs, e.g. install larger HDDs or up to 16GB of memory. The ProLiant DL845 will also be configurable and will be capable of handling up to 64GB of memory.
Generally speaking, HP has just outlined pretty strong plans for AMD Opteron central processing units. Besides, the firm will add computers based on Intel’s IA32e processors later this year. HP will continue to provide its customers with more choice across its Xeon-based ProLiant line with 64-bit extensions. As Intel’s new Xeon processors become available later this year, HP expects to deliver one- and two-way ProLiant servers with the new Xeon processors this summer, the company said. 4 and 8 way Intel Xeon MP systems with 64-bit capabilities are expected at a later date.
HP has been a technology development partner of Intel Itanium 2 processors. The company disclosed plans to axe its own PA-RISC for high-end servers in favour of the Itanium 2. Even though Intel does not position the Xeon CPUs with 64-bit extensions against Itanium 2 chips, just like AMD also does not see its Opteron products fighting against IA64 offerings, customers may bite Xeon and Opteron instead of Itanium 2 chips, which may affect HP’s and Intel’s plans towards the future of micro-processing.