AMD Continues to Prepare for Mass Shipments of New Opteron Processors

From X-bit Labs: Advanced Micro Devices continues to get ready for initiation of mass shipments of its next-generation Opteron processors. On Wednesday the company kicked off AMD Ready Solutions program that is designed to ensure that its mainboard partners supply its distributors with enough G34 mainboards that have BIOS versions which support the forthcoming Opteron chips powered by Bulldozer micro-architecture.

“With AMD Ready Solutions for servers, our customers can find complete and verified server platforms in the channel the day of launch. The combination of the existing socket infrastructure already in place with AMD Ready Solutions will enable faster and easier upgrade paths to new levels of server performance and scalability,” said Paul Struhsaker, corporate vice president and general manager of commercial business unit at AMD.

AMD Opteron processors code-named Interlagos and Valencia are drop-in compatible with existing C32 and G34 socket mainboards designed for previous-generations of chips. However, the new Opteron 4200- and 6200-series central processing units (CPUs) require new versions of BIOS to be flashed onto motherboards.

Under the AMD Ready Solutions program, Asustek Computer, Supermicro and Tyan will update their mainboards to support the latest processors and ship them in quantities to distributors, including ASI, Avnet, Ingram Micro, Supercom and Synnex. The program is started ensure that 2-way and 4-way G34 mainboards (and eventually 1-way and 2-way C32 platforms) with support for the forthcoming Opteron chips are on the market once AMD starts to ship its next-gen Opteron chips in quantities.

At present Advanced Micro Devices supplies its AMD Opteron 6200-series "Interlagos" microprocessors to Cray, a leading maker of high-performance computers, which upgrades supercomputers at various sites across the globe with sixteen-core AMD chips. It is unknown when AMD intends to start shipments of its 4200- and 6200-series CPUs to other server makers and into the channel.

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