HP takes Opteron option

On the first anniversary of the AMD Opteron last week, HP announced a four-way server based on the company’s x86 extension technology.

The ProLiant DL585 is designed for use in Linux server clusters. The DL585 can operate with either 32-bit applications and operating systems or more transaction-intensive 64-bit applications. The server runs Linux; HP expects it to be used with electronic design automation applications or with applications that can benefit from clustering, such as ERP or video rendering.

HP claims the DL585 outperforms a 3-GHz Xeon server by 40%. It operates at speeds ranging from 1.8 GHz to 2.2 GHz and has as much as 64G bytes of main memory, four internal drives and hot-swappable drive bays.

Further, the DL585 has four drive bays that can hold 587G-byte Ultra320 SCSI drives.

The DL585 is housed in a 4U enclosure that can be rack-mounted. It has seven PCI-X slots and an embedded dual-port PCI-X Gigabit Ethernet adapter. The fans and power supplies are redundant.

Although the four-processor ProLiant DL585 costs less than a two-Xeon-MP DL580, which starts at $15,800, it doesn’t have the memory protection of the Xeon. The DL580 has hot-pluggable memory.

HP will also introduce a blade server later this year that uses the Opteron processor.

HP’s place in x86 servers is virtually assured. A February IDC study showed that HP boxes account for 32.6% of the servers shipped. Opterons accounted for only 800 of the 228,000 x86 servers shipped in 2003.