Newly released processors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Intel Corp.will reinvigorate the market for high-end servers, according to one server analyst.
The biggest impact of Intel’s recently released Xeon 7300 chips, known as Tigerton, and AMD’s just-launched Quad-Core Opteron processor, called Barcelona, will be felt in the market for high-end servers with four processors, called 4P systems, said Rajnish Arora, research director for servers and workstations at IDC Asia-Pacific.
The 4P market has lagged in recent months because two-way, or 2P, servers based on quad-core processors from Intel offered the same number of cores as 4P systems using dual-core chips from Intel and AMD. But that is set to change with the release of the Xeon 7300 and Quad-Core Opteron.
“Both Tigerton and Barcelona will reinvigorate the 4P market,” Arora said.
The Xeon 7300 and Quad-Core Opteron are the first quad-core x86 processors designed for 4P systems. Previously, both Intel and AMD offered only dual-core processors for this segment of the market. The introduction of these chips allows server makers to build systems with a total of 16 cores in four processors, double the amount of cores that was previously possible.
“It’s a very powerful, scalable platform now,” he said.
The increased processing power of these systems will allow users to consolidate their x86 servers, since fewer servers can offer more performance. “They are far more powerful than 4P servers sold two years ago,” Arora said.
While fewer servers are required, the prices of servers will start to rise as users demand systems with more memory to handle virtualization workloads.