AMD on Monday launched the latest AMD Opteron, codenamed 'Istanbul,' as the company's first six-core server processor utilizing Direct Connect architecture. The component is designed to balance performance with power consumption, with up to 34-percent more performance-per-watt than earlier generations running on the same platform.

HyperTransport technology is claimed to increase memory bandwidth by up to 60 percent, with optimized communication between the L3 cache in each processor. The platform supports two-, four-, or eight-socket servers, along with AMD Virtualization (AMD-V) and AMD-P power-management technology.

Despite the prevalence of DDR3 memory in many newer systems, AMD integrated DDR2 components to maintain lower power consumption, latency and costs. Company representatives noted that DDR3 will be good memory "for 2010," and customers should stay tuned for continued developments with the server products.

The six-core Opteron Istanbul will soon be available in devices manufactured by Cray, Dell and Sun Microsystems, among others.