News
AMD Explains Opteron Model Numbers
- By Scott Bekker
- March 13, 2003
AMD, continuing its quest to move the industry away from the clockspeed references in processor names that it argues are nearly meaningless, on Thursday announced a new model number strategy for its Opteron line of processors that launches April 22.
AMD will use a three-digit model number to communicate SMP scalability and performance of the processor relative to other Opteron chips in the series.
The three series will be the AMD Opteron processor 100 series for one-way servers, the 200 series for two-way servers and the 800 series for up to eight-processor servers. Within each series, the last two digits of the model number will start at 40, and higher performing processors will have a higher model number, so an Opteron 242, for example, will be a higher performance processor than an Opteron 241.
The AMD Opteron server processor is AMD's next generation of server chips that combines the x86 instruction set with 64-bit processing.
Meanwhile, new research from IDC this week shows AMD regaining some ground from chip market giant Intel in the fourth quarter of 2002. AMD recaptured 2.7 percent of the 4.1 percent market share it lost last year. AMD ended the fourth quarter with 15.4 percent market share, compared with Intel's 83.3 percent, according to IDC. VIA has 1 percent share and Transmeta has less than 1 percent share.
IDC reports that AMD had lost market share in the second and third quarters of 2002, but that the chipmaker stopped the decline in the fourth quarter by shipping high-end desktop processors that raised its average selling prices.
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.