AMD Launches New Server CPU Platform

Today, AMD has launched the AMD Opteron™ 6000 CPU series. This represents the latest AMD advances in server CPU technology and promises to work well for Windows Server 2008 R2 customers and partners.

“Microsoft has partnered with AMD in the data center since the original AMD Opteron processors were launched in 2003, and we naturally have been working together to deliver enhanced efficiencies with the new 8- and 12-core AMD Opteron 6000 Series platforms,” said David McCann, General Manager, Windows Server Marketing at Microsoft. “Customers running Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V and SQL Server will benefit from the balanced price, performance and power these new server platforms offer.”

The new Opteron 6000 Series addresses three key data center trends directly, namely virtualization, power management and value. On the virtualization front, the Opteron 6000’s ability to support up to 48 cores in a 4P configuration means enough horsepower for large virtual machine configurations. Additionally, the Opteron 6000 also includes AMD-V software virtualization acceleration technology, which is fully supported by Windows Server 2008 R2’s Hyper-V.

AMD also designed the 6000 series with power management in mind, including the AMD-P suite of power management features, which minimize the usage of the whole CPU, individual cores and even specific logic within each core based on current workload. Windows Server 2008 R2 supports this AMD-P technology as well as the 6000’s C1E Power State feature, that turns off memory controller and HT3 links during idle times.

The Opteron 6000 also represents an excellent server CPU value, delivering twice the performance of its previous generation as well as double the cores at the same price point. With Windows Server 2008 R2’s support for dense virtualization infrastructures and granular power management, the combination of Microsoft’s Windows Server platform and AMD’s Opteron 6000 series gives customers the power, performance and value they need to deliver next generation data centers today.