* Intel releases Itaniums, AMD ships Opterons
Both Intel and AMD last week rolled out high-powered 64-bit processors.
Intel introduced two Itanium 2 dual-processor chipsets for technical computing and front-end edge, security and enterprise applications. AMD announced two Opteron processors.
The Itaniums include a chipset operating at 1.4 GHz with 1.5M bytes of Level 3 cache, and a Low Voltage Intel Itanium 2 that operates at 1 GHz and has a 1.5M-byte L3 cache. The latter consumes half the power of current Itanium 2 processors.
The 1.4 GHz Itanium 2 is designed for dual-processor, high-performance technical and scientific computing systems and clusters and entry-level, front-end enterprise systems.
The Low Voltage Intel Itanium 2 processor, codenamed Deerfield, supports entry-level, front-end enterprise systems, offering an alternative to entry-level RISC-based platforms. It has a maximum power consumption of 62 watts.
Both are now available worldwide. The 1.4 GHz version costs $1,172, and the low-voltage version costs $744 in 1,000-unit quantities.
AMD last week bolstered its Opteron processor family with the addition of the Model 846, suitable for four- to eight-processor servers. It is designed for running compute- and memory-intensive applications such as large databases and decision support systems.
The company also introduced the Model 146, a processor suited for applications requiring large amounts of memory and scalable input/output, such as digital content or engineering applications. This processor is also used for entry-level servers running Internet and edge applications.
The Opteron Model 846 is $3,200 in 1,000-unit quantities. The Model 146 is $669 in 1,000-unit quantities. Both are available now.
