AMD Opteron to shadow Intel Xeon pricing

By Alun Williams

Posted on 8 Aug 2003 at 12:31

At the end of July, AMD re-jigged its pricing for the 64-bit Opteron server range to make way for a new release, the Model 246, which appeared earlier this week.

From now on, however - according to reports on the Net - AMD will be explicitly shadowing the price charged for Intel's 32-bit server processor, the Xeon. Effectively, AMD is serving notice of higher charges for subsequent Opteron chips.

It is a bid by AMD move the focus of competition away from the desktop market where Intel has successfully put the squeeze on its smaller competitor, reports ComputerWire.

It quotes Marty Seyer, general manager of AMD's microprocessor business unit, as saying that AMD needed to focus less on price/performance, as in the past, and more on price/value.

Specifically, the benchmark will be Xeon pricing. ComputerWire quotes Seyer as saying that the Opteron will have 'parity' of pricing, but also, 'we will not undercut Xeon'.

Currently, the leading 100 series Opteron for single server or workstation systems is priced at $438, the Model 144. For dual systems, the 200 series Model 246 is $794, and for multi-processor systems, the top-of-the-range 844 is priced at $2,149. By comparison, Intel's Xeon for single-processor systems reaches $690 for the 3.06GHz model. The multiprocessor Xeons reach $3,692 for the 2.8GHz model. (Note that all pricing is based on 1,000 unit quantities.)

AMD has reported a series of quarterly financial losses and is certainly in need of generating greater revenues. A recent report from In-Stat/MDR also recommended that if AMD is to stay the course, competing against Intel in the x86 market, it must move to more efficient and advanced production processes, fast, and get its Opteron chip into machines from major server vendors.