AMD and Sun Ally on Release of New System

By DE Editors

September 10, 2007 — Advanced Micro Devices (AMD; Sunnyvale, CA) has unveiled the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor — the industry’s first native x86 four-core processor. The new processor’s performance, virtualization, energy-efficiency, and investment protection work within AMD’s portfolio of open, scalable, reliable, high-performance solutions.

Simultaneously, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) announced the Sun Blade X8440 Server Module, the  first blade server designed for the new Quad-Core AMD Opteron Processor. Sun also previewed a next-generation four-socket, 2U quad-core server that will be available by the end of the year, powered by Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors.

Both of the new systems will take Sun’s x64 (x86, 64-bit) server design to a new level of innovation and differentiation from competitive platforms.

Sun plans to incorporate Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors into a number of rackmount and blade platforms, including the Sun Fire X4600 M2, Sun Fire X2200 M2, Sun Fire X4100 M2 and Sun Fire X4200 M2 servers.

The Sun Blade X8440 Server Module is available with dual-core, second-generation AMD Opteron Model 8222 processors (3.0GHz), and is scheduled to be available with Quad-Core AMD Opteron 8300 Series processors by the end of the year.

The Sun Blade X8440 module, which designed to support AMD’s new Dual Dynamic Power Management technology, which allows the cores and memory controllers to operate on different voltages, determined by usage, provides up to 128GB of memory per blade—with six PCI Express interfaces per server module and 192Gbps I/O throughput per blade.

For more information, read about the Sun and AMD alliance.
See AMD’s full release concerning the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor or read Sun Microsystems’s full release on the Sun Blade X8440 Server Module.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.