AMD Debuts Low-Power Opteron EE Processor

AMD Debuts Low-Power Opteron EE Processor

Friday, April 24, 2009 - by Shawn Oliver
While most of the buzz surrounding AMD of late has focused on its all new Phenom II X4 955 processor and its plans for 12- and 16-core processors in 2011, the company celebrated Earth Day earlier this week with a less notable, less energy-intensive option. The newly introduced AMD Opteron EE processor includes the company's lowest x86 quad-core server power band, offering 13$ power savings in platform-level power consumption compared to previous generation )the quad-core Opteron HE).



The 40-watt chip is engineered for very dense data center environments such as those built for cloud computing, web serving, or other highly dense environments, and it offers up a full suite of virtualization and power management capabilities so customers do not have to compromise on feature sets in order to deploy very low power servers. Better still, AMD asserts that this new chip delivers up to 62% improved performance-per-watt over the previous generation. Patrick Patla, vice president and general manager, Server Workstation Business, had this to say: "Adding the 40 watt EE power band to the Quad-Core AMD Opteron line-up helps our customers achieve maximum value for their unique data center needs across the board. The EE processor is ideal for cloud computing environments, which demand both extreme energy efficiency and a balanced system that can handle high transactional demands."

Via: AMD | News Archive | Tags: AMD, CPU, Opteron, Low-power, Opteron EE
Comments
By acarzt on Apr 24, 2009

Wow, a 40 watt quad core... that is impressive!

By 3vi1 on Apr 24, 2009

>> 62% improved performance-per-watt

Meaning:  They reduced heat dissipation, not improved speed of processing - right?

By acarzt on Apr 24, 2009

Basically they can achieve the same or similar performance with less power usage.

By 3vi1 on Apr 24, 2009

>> the same or similar performance with less power usage.

That's not necessarily true. I don't think that watts as a measure of heat dissipation need to scale equally with power usage and/or performance. Though I'd be very interested in reading a HH article to disabuse me of that notion.

By acarzt on Apr 24, 2009

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article169-page3.html

According to this article(if i'm understanding it correctly) AMD detemines TDP essentially by how many watts of power it draws.

There is also this definition

http://www.cpu-world.com/Glossary/T/Thermal_Design_Power_(TDP).html

Either way, 40 watts is their lowest rated Chip...the Next closest are 45watt Dual cores.

I think they are just going off clock speed vs TDP to come up with their 62% improvement. Since I don't know the clock speeds of these chips. BUT Doing a little math and using my theory... and a little reasearch. The top dog chip should be clocked at about 2.6Ghz

Let's see if i'm right :-)

*edit* Of course they could just be pulling these numbers out of their ass lol

By 3vi1 on Apr 24, 2009

>> Of course they could just be pulling these numbers out of their ass lol

Companies never do that! More than 10,000 times a week. LoL...

I understand your point. I just think the terminology/description used in the press release is too vague to determine what the end result will be. It could even be a slower processor with better heat efficiency per cycle, though operations now take 4x as many cycles.

Then again... I've had plenty to drink and should just wait for the detailed HH review. :)

By acarzt on Apr 24, 2009

I'll be drinking soon enough too so cheers!! lol

By 3vi1 on Apr 24, 2009

It was my day off - hence my head start. Cheers back atcha! :)

By Super Dave on Apr 24, 2009

And here I thought AMD had abandoned the low-wattage market to Intel! I'm joinin' you boys now...Beer

 

 

 

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