New AMD Opteron 4000 Series is Designed for Cloud, Hyperscale Data Centers

the new AMD Opteron 4000 Series platform is now available and Advanced Micro Devices (News - Alert) says it is the first server platform designed from the beginning to meet the requirements of cloud, hyperscale data center, and SMB customers.

The platform is also available for high-end embedded systems such as telecom servers, storage, and digital signage, through AMD Embedded Solutions.

Systems from Acer Group, Dell (News - Alert), HP, SGI, Supermicro, ZT Systems, and numerous other channel partners are expected beginning today and will continue into the coming months, the company said.

"Until now, customers wanting to build a dense and power-efficient cloud or hyperscale data center had to shoehorn expensive, higher-end solutions into their computing environment, or they had to choose low-power client-based designs that may not have offered the right level of performance and server functionality," said Patrick Patla, corporate vice president and general manager, Server and Embedded Division, AMD (News - Alert). "With the AMD Opteron 4000 Series platform, these customers now have a server platform that is extremely power- and cost-efficient; allows a high degree of customization; and is also an ideal solution for high-end embedded systems."

AMD said that power usage remains the number one concern in the data center. The AMD Opteron 4000 Series platform provides four- and six-core performance at less than 6W per core; reduces power up to 24 percent over the previous generation, and allows more than double the servers within the same power budget as previous generation platforms, the company said.

The AMD Opteron 4100 Series processor features prices as low as $99.

The AMD Opteron 4100 Series processor is also well-suited for custom-designed servers because it allows for smaller heat sinks, power supplies, and fans, as well as low voltage memory to help improve power efficiency, the company said.

Depending on how the system will be used, customization also allows unnecessary, power-consuming features to be eliminated, further driving cost and power efficiency, according to AMD.

The AMD Opteron 4000 Series platform is chipset-consistent with the 8- and 12-core AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform and is planned to support the new "Bulldozer" core, planned for 2011, the company said.

Earlier this year, AMD announced version 8.702 of the ATI FirePro graphics driver, bringing in considerable performance improvements for Dassault Systèmes CATIA, Autodesk (News - Alert) 3ds Max and PTC ProENGINEER users.