Advanced Micro Devices announced today, 6 March 2006, its three new Opteron models, only a day before AMD’s biggest competitor starts its twice-annual Intel Developer Forum.

Running at an improved speed of 2.6 Ghz, the three new Opteron models 185, 285 and 885have improved their performance with 4 to 15 percent. Over-all server power consumption and cooling requirements are minimized with the help of the three Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors.

The 185 model is conceived for single processor systems and will be available within 30 days. Immediately available are the other two models, the Dual-Core AMD processor Model 885 for four- or eight processor systems while the processor Model 285 is for dual processor systems. The two dual-core processors are integrated on the same die, this way, getting to a full processor speed communication. Even if dual-core, the Opteron processors reach to significant power changes, meaning they operate in the same power and thermal infrastructure as a single-core AMD Opteron processor. The overall operating costs are lowered as fewer servers are used to do the job of many. AMD PowerNow is a technology used to increase savings as servers and workstations can dynamically power down processors based on usage. For example during idle time the CPU power consumption can be reduced by up to 75 percent.

The new AMD Dual-Core processors get support from IBM which has announced its intentions of using them for the new server and workstation lines. Sun Microsystems is also backing up.

The Rev F models are going to be introduced on the market later this year. Under the codename Santa Rosa the two models will introduce two new features: the virtual machines which enable running of multiple operating systems simultaneously in separate partitions, technology called Pacifica and Presido, a technology used to improve security. DDR2(double data rate), the new memory technology will also get support from the future Rev F models. Intel is actually moving now from DDR2 to FB-DIMM technology(fully buffered dual inline memory modules).