AMD claims quad core Opteron SE increases server densities at low total cost

By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor -- 6/9/2008

To help IT managers scale up datacenters to address enterprise-computing environments rather than investing in traditionally large and expensive enterprise-class proprietary hardware, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based microprocessor company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) today rolled out four new quad core Opteron SE processors.

See also: Virtualization: Remember to regularly shrink the partition Virtualization, multicore disrupting server market, IDC says

AMD said the quad core Opteron SEs processors are meant to allow businesses to scale up datacenters by moving to servers with enterprise-class functionality at industry-standard pricing by adding more cores to 4- and 8-socket x86 servers than can handle database and virtualization applications.

This announcement follows AMD’s launch last week for three quad-core Opteron 1300 series processors for one-socket servers and workstations.

OEMs such as Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Dell and IBM will offer systems based on the Opteron SE processors, AMD noted.

“For many customers, the concept of ‘scaling up’ a datacenter has meant a sizeable financial investment in new hardware to gain satisfactory performance during peak workloads. Today, the performance benefits of the new quad core AMD Opteron SE processor built on AMD’s Direct Connect Architecture and HyperTransport technology can help IT managers improve application performance and scalability of memory and data intensive workloads at a fraction of the cost. This is a significant benefit for customers looking to consolidate their datacenter or those interested in moving from proprietary hardware to x86 servers for mission critical software, such as database applications,” commented Patrick Patla, director for AMD’s server and workstation business, in a statement.

Further, AMD pointed out that as the industry rallies around the scaling up of datacenters, Microsoft is at the forefront to help make sure that mid-market and enterprise customers seeking to improve server utilization can take advantage of 64-bit environments.

“A flexible and scalable datacenter that meets the dynamic demands of doing business in a global economy is more important than ever for organizations of all sizes. As we prepare for the general availability of Microsoft SQL Server 2008, we are excited about our work with AMD to provide our mutual customers a state of the art data platform for their business critical workloads such as ERP, Web, Business Intelligence, and Data Warehousing,” explained Dan Neault, general manager of Microsoft’s SQL Server.

Opteron models 2360 SE (2.5 GHz), 2358 SE (2.4 GHz), 8360 SE (2.5 GHz), and 8358 SE (2.4 GHz) are available now.

As for the market AMD is playing into, recently, market research company IDC reported that factory revenue in the worldwide server market grew 3.5% year over year to $13 billion in Q1, despite slowing economic growth in the US, and marking the eighth consecutive quarter of positive revenue growth and the highest Q1 revenue in the worldwide server market since 2001.

More than 2 million servers were shipped for the second consecutive quarter and unit shipment growth of 7.8% year-over-year in Q108 demonstrates that worldwide demand for servers has remained healthy, even as virtualization technology is being adopted worldwide, IDC noted.

“The server market continues to experience solid growth as businesses of all types focus on expanding and refreshing their IT infrastructures for both traditional and emerging cloud-based workload,” noted Matt Eastwood, group VP of enterprise platforms at IDC, in a statement.

HP and IBM finished Q1 in a statistical tie for the number 1 position in the worldwide server market with 29% and 28.1% share respectively. Dell grew factory revenue 9.4% year-over-year and moved into the number 3 position in the market holding 12.3% share for Q1, while Sun’s revenues declined 1.8% year-over-year in Q1, ending with 10.5% revenue share as the number 4 vendor. Fujitsu/Fujitsu-Siemens maintained its fifth-place standing in terms of factory revenue, with 6.3% market share in Q1.

IDC also reported that x86 server market decelerated slightly in Q1, growing 4.4% year-over-year to $7 billion worldwide, its slowest growth rate in seven quarters. Unit shipment growth also continued with a gain of 8.5% to 1.9 million servers.

“The efficiency advantages of virtualization in enterprise servers is apparent across the industry and has led to continued demand for capable x86 solutions,” offered Daniel Harrington, research analyst with IDC’s enterprise server group. “Geographically, the growth in the market was driven by the EMEA and Asia/Pacific regions, while the U.S. actually showed negative revenue growth in the x86 segment for the first time since the dot-com bust of the early 2000s.”

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