AMD's Barcelona Goes To Market with Quad-Core

As Advanced Micro Devices gets ready to sell its quad-core "Barcelona" Opteron processors, similar models from Intel loom on the horizon. The new AMD processors run at clock frequencies up to 2Ghz and will be available in standard and low-power versions. The first servers using the chips will come in September. AMD successfully carved a significant niche for itself in the server market with the release of the 64-bit Opteron processor family, gaining share against Intel's Xeon with better performance, lower power consumption and a faster transition to a dual-core design. But Intel fought back in 2006. Its dual-core Xeon 5100 "Woodcrest" model fixed the performance problems midway through the year. Then, squeezing two silicon chips into a single electronics package gave Intel its Xeon 5300 "Clovertown" quad-core model toward the end of 2006. Intel's second-generation quad-core server processors, "Harpertown," a server member of Intel's "Penryn" family, will arrive this year, offering better performance, lower power consumption and lower manufacturing costs by virtue of a 45-nanometer manufacturing process. AMD is only just now moving to a less advanced, 65-nanometer process. 

For more on Barcelona:
- see this press release
- and this DailyTechRag article