AMD claims new quad-core Opteron smokes Intel

Stan Beer
Monday, 10 September 2007 14:33

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Chipmaker AMD has released its new quad-core Opteron server processor, claiming a significant performance edge over Intel. According to AMD, Under the newest SPECcpu2006 benchmarks, AMD dual-core Opteron processors beat Intel Xeon equivalent by up to 15%. However, the jury is still out as to how the new quad-core Opteron stacks up against Intel's quad-core server offerings.

According to AMD, its benchmark testing of the new quad-core platform shows a 50% increase in integer and floating-point performance compared to its dual-core Opteron counterpart. There is plenty of education going on at the AMD site attempting to demonstrate the importance of correct benchmarking and the difference in scalability between the quad-core Opteron with its direct connect level 2 cache and the Intel Xeon with its shared level 2 cache.

Notably, however, there is no definitive statement or set of benchmarks comparing the respective quad-core offerings of the two companies, which is rather surprising given that AMD goes to great pains to explain that meaningful benchmarking involves comparing "apples to apples".

The new quad-core server platform will begin shipping this month, while the desktop AMD Phenom quad-core chips are expected to be on the market by December.

AMD has enlisted the support of OEM heavyweights including IBM, HP, Sun and Dell, among others to help rally the troops to its cause, which is to claw back the hard won market share it has lost to Intel in the past year, while waiting to bring its quad-core range to market.

“Sun is thrilled about the introduction of Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors. Incorporating Sun’s innovative design principles that enable stunning scalability and industry-leading performance-per-watt, our upcoming Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor-based servers and workstations will only accelerate the momentum Sun is experiencing in its x64 business,” said John Fowler, executive vice president of Sun Microsystems’ Systems Group. “With so much pent-up demand for the scalability of native quad-core processing, Sun believes there will be rapid, widespread adoption of Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor-based systems. We applaud AMD for yet another technological breakthrough, and are excited to continue to grow our alliance.”

Aside from performance issues, hardware OEMs are no doubt pleased that there is now competition in the quad-core space as it will put downward pressure on prices. Pricing info can be found here .