Opteron 4100 Is Cool for Clouds: New AMD Server Processors Reduce Power in Data Centers

摘要

AMD has its head in the clouds. Its new Opteron 4100 server processors are intended for cloud-computing data centers that buy servers by the truckload. With prices starting at $99 per chip and typical power as low as 32W, Opteron 4100 processors are challenging Intel's lowest-power Xeons in servers having one or two sockets. Although they can't match Xeon's most power-efficient models, they offer a less expensive alternative while still going easy on the electricity.rnThese prices and power levels may seem low for server processors, but at AMD, $99 buys a quad-core chip running at 2.2GHz, and 32W represents 100% utilization for a server processor with six CPUs.