AMD Unveils Nine New Opteron Processors

AMD has unveiled nine new mid-range and entry-level Opteron 4300 Series and 3300 Series server processors, which offer improved performance per watt for customers focused on reducing their energy usage.

The Opteron 3300 Series processors are targeted at web hosts or small to medium sized businesses, and provide enterprise-class features in a lower power envelope. The Opteron 4300 Series processors give up to 15 percent better performance versus the prior generation AMD chips, based on SPECint benchmark results. SPECpower results show up to a 24 percent improvement in performance per watt.

“The Piledriver core architecture shared by the AMD Opteron 4300 and 3300 Series processors provides optimized performance, power and price for today’s customer,” said Suresh Gopalakrishnan, general manager, Server Business Unit, AMD. “These new processors are ideal for cloud providers, web hosts and small- and medium-sized businesses who want to address their space and power constraints. With a simple upgrade, existing customers can obtain more performance and improved energy efficiency and new customers will obtain compelling value and ROI.”

The Opteron 3300 Series features 2.8 GHz base frequency and up to 3.8 GHz using AMD Turbo CORE technology, up to 8 cores per socket, AMD-V virtualization, up to 4 DIMMs per CPU for up to 32GB of memory per processor and one x16 Hyper Transport technology (HT3) link at up to 5.2GT/s. The Opteron 4300 Series features the only x86 processor to support ultra-low voltage 1.25V memory, up to 8 cores per socket, 3.4 GHz base frequency and up to 3.8 GHz using AMD Turbo CORE technology, AMD-V virtualization technology, up to 6 DIMMs per CPU for 192GB of memory per processor, and up to two x16 HyperTransport technology links at up to 64.GT/s per link.

Servers based on the new processors are now available from Supermicro as well as the AMD SeaMicro SM15000 platform. Additional server offerings will soon be available from Dell and others. Support from a broad software ecosystem is available for the new processors, across hypervisors, operating systems, developer tools and Java virtual machines.

“AMD Opteron processor solutions have provided excellent investment return for our customers,” said Brian Payne, executive director of Server Solutions, Dell.  “The new 4300 and 3300 Series processors in the AMD-based Dell PowerEdge servers maintain this history and are ideal for web service providers who strive to maximize revenue from their server infrastructure and also for small- and medium-businesses who carefully invest to enable growth.”