AMD takes the heat out of the Opteron

By Steve Malone

Posted on 6 Dec 2004 at 16:34

The AMD Opteron chip, principally aimed at high performance workstations and servers, is to get power management tools built in. AMD says the addition of the company's PowerNow! technology - currently used in its notebook offerings - is to allow for cooler running of blade servers and other high density environments where heat is an issue.

The company says that not only will adding 'power on demand' technology improve the performance per watt ratio, but will also reduce the need for expensive air conditioning and ventilation in data centres. With a reduced need for cooling fans inside the system units, it should also keep the noise down.

AMD says that the first commercially produced Opterons with Optimized Power Management (OPM) will appear in the first half of 2005.