New AMD Chips Coming
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The ongoing battle of high-end chips is due to hot up this week. AMD today (US time) will announce new and faster dual-core Opteron processors, trying to pip Intel at the higher end of the mass market.

 Meanwhile, Dell will announce boxes powered by dual-core Xenons from Intel and some computer makers are banding together to keep Intel’s attention focussed on its slow-selling Itaniums.

AMD will gong in its Opteron 180, 280 and 880, which are 2.4GHz chips with one, two and up to eight processors. The dual-core Opterons are used in machines from Sun, H-P and IBM – three of the top four server sellers.

Intel has several dual-core and multi-core processor designs, but the main wave won’t hit the market until later this year.

Previous Opteron dual-core models topped out at 2.2GHz, except for a few 2.4GHz “special edition” models that need 120 watts, compared with 95 for the ordinary Opterons. So far, only Sun has used the SE chips. Heat is obviously a problem.

Ordinary Opterons running at 2.4GHz erode Sun’s SE speed advantage, but AMD indicates more and faster SE models are possible. Pricing remains the same as for the slower chips: in 1000-unit quantities, AMD’s 880 costs $2649, the 280 $1299, and the 180 – which won’t ship for another 30 days – $799.

Back in Rita-deluged Texas, Dell will announce its first server with 2.8GHz, dual-core Xeons in two workstations and four servers, to ship next month. The servers will cost from US$2448 to $2748, while the Precision 470 and 670 start at $2479 and $2779.

Meanwhile some big names are applying their shoulders to the Itanium wheel in a bid to keep it rolling. Besides Intel and Hewlett-Packard – the creators of Itanium – the group includes Unisys, Silicon Graphics, NEC, Fujitsu, Hitachi and Bull. The so-called Itanium Solutions Alliance plans to foster development of software for the chip.

The companies say they remain committed to Itanium, which is designed for high-end computing chores, even though customers are flocking to the lower cost x86 offerings from Intel and AMD.