Intel Xeon, AMD Opteron

Dual core Opterons are the most interesting thing to occur to server processors in a long while. Although we covered AMD and Intel’s side of the dual core race extensively, Opteron has some pretty strong selling points with regard to multiple processor and multiple core scalability. Although certainly novel, the cost of these processors has yet to stabilize while the cheapest available dual core processor costs upwards of $1500!


The server market doesn’t have much else going on right now, and aside from a few new Irwindale introductions, there really isn’t much to comment on. nForce4 Pro for AMD servers is quite fantastic, and certainly worth the praise that it received from the reviews around the web. Now that Socket 940 is relatively affordable and more importantly competitive, these dual core behemoths should really make for some interesting benchmarks in the near future.

Finally, below, you can see a glimpse of Xeon pricing for the week. The Irwindale processors are starting to show up more frequently, but only at a few merchants still. The preorder prices have dropped dramatically in the last few weeks, but prices won’t stabilize for another month or so.


Sempron
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  • semo - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link

    i don't know... after seeing the next gen consoles i care a lot less about new x86 procs. even in their early days the next gen consoles should cost less than the x2.


  • AnnihilatorX - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link

    AMD Athlon 64 (939) 3700+ 1MB San Diego is $329 not $299
    that suprised me...
  • MAME - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link

    where are the X2's?
  • Rand - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link

    Any reason why you don't list any of the 533MHz FSB Pentium M's?
  • bearxor - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link

    Can't wait to see if AMD includes 64-bit on Sempron processors now.
  • cnq - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link

    Kristopher,
    May be a slight error or 2 in the AMD SKU overview.
    "Hammer" is not the name of *any* AMD stepping. It's the very general code name for the K8 architecture, encompassing, well, everything.
    You meant "ClawHammer". And it's not true that all ClawHammers are C0; there are some CG's. Consider the socket 754 3700+, and some of the mobile chips. Unless the ones that I think are CG are actually the SledgeHammers.
    Speaking of SledgeHammers: it's the FX-53/4000+ 130nm and FX-55/130nm, which are said to have ripping memory controllers compared to like-week'd NewCastles but are otherwise similar to CG ClawHammers.
  • cmyk - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link

    And were are the opterons?
  • cmyk - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link

  • dgarz01 - Sunday, May 22, 2005 - link

    I see no mention of the Pentium M Sonoma Plaform why is that? It woudl be nice to include this is your review for next time.
  • Tarumam - Sunday, May 22, 2005 - link

    The best buy is socket 939 3700+. Its a San Diego core, it has 1MB cache, new SSE3 instructions, its memory controller is revised and its under US$ 300,00. Not quite a bargain, but still an incredible price/performance ratio.

    That would be my pick, if a powerful system was needed today.

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