AMD Opteron

Keywords

optimus, Microsoft, Intel, Itanium processor, Windows Server 2003, x86 processors, SuSE, Red Hat, Parametric superiority

Links

Free Resources,
Articles,
Book Reviews,
Interviews

Tools

<< Previous

Opteron Contd...

A handful of specialized server-makers, like Angstrom Microsystems had signed on to use Opteron. AMD had also sold Opteron-based evaluation units to customers such as the Hollywood special effects house Pixar Animation Studios (producers of the "Toy Story'' movies) that could use Opteron-based systems to produce its computer-generated movies faster and cheaper. Meanwhile, Sun, which was trying to open up its Solaris products to other architectures, was looking at using Opterons in some of its blade servers¹⁴. The option would pit Opteron against Sun's UltraSPARC processors. But Sun still looked like using Opteron.

HP, which developed the core of the Itanium architecture along with Intel, seemed to be placing all its bets on Itanium 2. It was not developing 64-bit processors on its own. Dell, a strong player in the PC market, was not a significant player in high-end corporate hardware. But Dell had plans to penetrate this market. Randy Groves, Dell's Chief Technology Officer explained why his company was also seriously looking at Opteron:¹⁵

"What makes this different from past AMD discussions is that until now AMD's value proposition has been Intel compatibility at a lower cost. Now it's not a pricing discussion. This is something Intel doesn't have."

But Dell unlike HP was keeping its options open. Dell would wait and see if AMD could make Opteron consistently in large volumes. Though AMD was more popular with consumers rather than businesses, Dell believed that AMD could move into the business server segment at a future date.

In early 2003, IBM announced it would be sharing technology and manufacturing know-how with AMD fueling speculation that Opteron and Athlon 64 would be manufactured in IBM's plants. That would make it harder for Intel to convince customers to give up their existing software and move on to Itanium. IBM was also critical of Intel's scalability claims. Intel's new i8870 chipset supported up to four Itanium 2s in a Symmetrical Multiprocessing (SMP) configuration. Two 8870 chipsets were linked to allow a maximum of eight processors. IBM remained skeptical about such a scalability¹⁶ model. Depending on customer preference, IBM was willing to use Opteron in its servers but not Itanium 2.

Next >>

14] A single circuit board populated with components such as processors, memory, and network connections that are usually found on multiple boards. Server blades are designed to slide into existing servers. Server blades are more cost-efficient, smaller and consume less power than traditional box-based servers.
15] Source: See This Chip? Fortune, February 3, 2003.
16] Scalability: Measure of how easily a system can be configured (By adding or subtracting processors and memory etc) to make it more or less powerful to supply the required processing power.