AMD Debuts Low-Power Opteron EE Processor

While most of the buzz surrounding AMD of late has focused on its all new Phenom II X4 955 processor and its plans for 12- and 16-core processors in 2011, the company celebrated Earth Day earlier this week with a less notable, less energy-intensive option. The newly introduced AMD Opteron EE processor includes the company's lowest x86 quad-core server power band, offering 13$ power savings in platform-level power consumption compared to previous generation )the quad-core Opteron HE).



The 40-watt chip is engineered for very dense data center environments such as those built for cloud computing, web serving, or other highly dense environments, and it offers up a full suite of virtualization and power management capabilities so customers do not have to compromise on feature sets in order to deploy very low power servers. Better still, AMD asserts that this new chip delivers up to 62% improved performance-per-watt over the previous generation. Patrick Patla, vice president and general manager, Server Workstation Business, had this to say: "Adding the 40 watt EE power band to the Quad-Core AMD Opteron line-up helps our customers achieve maximum value for their unique data center needs across the board. The EE processor is ideal for cloud computing environments, which demand both extreme energy efficiency and a balanced system that can handle high transactional demands."