AMD intros low-cost, eight-core Opteron 3200
updated 11:15 am EDT, Tue March 20, 2012
AMD's Opteron 3200 web server chips start to ship
Chipmaker AMD has just detailed its new eight-core Opteron 3200-series CPUs, meant primarily for cloud and web hosting servers. Based on its current Bulldozer architecture, it can be had in four- or eight-core variants and is rated at 2.7GHz. A Turbo Core mode bumps the clock speed up to 3.7GHz, though only at half the active cores.
The power consumption is rated at an unusually lean 45W or 65W friendlier to smaller desktops and servers, and the processors get AM3+ sockets to keep the prices low. Pricing is said by AMD to be about $90 less than comparable Intel Xeon processors. The new Opterons can support as much as 32GB of memory capacity. The eight-core chips get 16MB of total cache, with the four-core examples have 8MB.
The chips have already begun shipping in PCs and servers from MSI, Tyan, Fujitsu, and Dell.
