AMD Unveils Low-Power Opteron

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is rolling out a low-power 64-bit Opteron processor that company officials said is ideal for dense platforms such as blade servers.

At the Server Blade Summit 2005 in Santa Clara, Calif., on Tuesday, AMD announced the Opteron Model 248 HE, a low-power version of the current 2.2GHz Opteron 248.

The current model has a power envelope of 95 watts. The HE model has a smaller envelope, at 55 watts.

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Both AMD and rival Intel Corp. are pushing technology designed to ease the power consumption and heat generation of their processors.

For example, AMDs PowerNow technology can increase or reduce the amount of power to the chip depending on the demand. It throttles back the power when the demand is low, saving energy.

The 248 HE, which also is targeted at workstations, is one of several HE models the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company has rolled out. In the second quarter, AMD is scheduled to release the 848 HE, aimed at servers and workstations that hold up to eight processors.

AMD also offers several EE models, which have a power envelope of 30 watts.

Click here to read more about AMDs power-saving technology.

AMD and Intel are pushing the performance of their x86 processors beyond simply increasing the frequency. Both companies are planning rollouts this year and next of dual-core capabilities in both PC and server chips, and expanding the reach of the processors 64-bit capabilities.

Intel, of Santa Clara, also is introducing technology aimed at easing power and heat issues. For example, Xeon and Pentium chips will offer power savings via Intels SpeedStep and demand-based switching technology, which can throttle down the processor depending on the demand from the application.

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