Hector Ruiz, CEO, AMD has strong reasons to believe that AMD will give Intel a run for its money in the 64-bit microprocessor market. Itanium I, Intel's first 64-bit microprocessor has failed. Itanium II has also elicited a lukewarm response from the market. But Opteron, AMD's 64-bit microprocessor, released in mid-2003 is receiving strong performance reviews. Many companies that shied away from AMD's products in the past such as HP, Sun, IBM have started using Opteron. AMD has grabbed 7% of the low-end server market, up from almost nothing a few years back. Is AMD finally ready to catch up with Intel?
In the present scenario, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) are faring well in the battle against Intel in the 64-bit microprocessor market. Itanium I, Intel's first 64-bit microprocessor has failed. Itanium II is also eliciting a lukewarm response from the market. But Opteron, AMD's 64-bit microprocessor, released in mid-2003 is receiving strong performance reviews. By 2004, many companies such as Microsoft, IBM and HP, which were staunch supporters of Intel, started using Opteron. Even Sun Microsystems (Sun), a company that traditionally uses its own SPARC chips, started using Opteron.
HyperTransport technology is useful for any application where high speed, low latency and scalability are necessary. This technology reduces the number of buses while providing a high-performance link for PCs, workstation and servers, as well as numerous embedded applications and highly scalable multiprocessing systems.
Opteron's target segments include companies that require faster database transactions, customers needing quick graphics response such as in the CAD4 industry, which has computationally intensive tasks for modeling and scientific applications. Opteron is designed for high-end servers it can also run like 32-bit (Pentium and Athlon) processors in most PCs. A PC version of Opteron is also expected to be available unlike Intel's Itanium 2. Opteron prices range from $283 to $794, compared to Itanium 2's $1,338 to $4,226. Opteron's design makes it fully backward compatible with existing 32-bit applications. That differentiates it from Itanium 2, which uses a different architecture. |
