July 1 - 8:45am EDT   HP today stepped up the power of its xw9400 workstations with the addition of AMD's six-core Opteron 2400 series to the mix. Also nicknamed Istanbul, the chips give a system as many as 12 cores. HP maintains AMD's view that the chips offer about 34 percent more performance per watt when compared to earlier quad-cores, which often use the same amount of energy. [full story]

June 30 - 6:25pm EDT   AMD on Tuesday introduced the latest component in its Opteron 1000 Series of server processors, the quad-core 'Suzuka.' Following the company's tradition of naming processors after Formula 1 tracks, 'Suzuka' is inspired by a circuit in Japan. The CPU is based on the same core as AMD's Shanghai products, with processor speeds of 2.5GHz, 2.7GHz and 2.9GHz. While the new offering aims to increase performance, the platform is also claimed to decrease power consumption. [full story]

June 1 - 1:55pm EDT   AMD on Monday launched the latest AMD Opteron, codenamed 'Istanbul,' as the company's first six-core server processor utilizing Direct Connect architecture. The component is designed to balance performance with power consumption, with up to 34-percent more performance-per-watt than earlier generations running on the same platform. [full story]

April 22 - 6:25pm EDT   Marking thh sixth-anniversary of the Opteron processor, AMD has outlined its future server architecture and its dual-path roadmap that will focus on both developing low-power processors as well as performance on a platform level. Having introduced its Opteron EE processor on Wednesday morning, says its next-generation "Istanbul" processors are now expected to ship in May and its "Magny-Cours" processors due in the first quarter of 2010. AMD promised that the "Istanbul" will be compatible will existing processor sockets but that "Magny-Cours" features a new format known as Direct Connect Architecture 2.0. In 2011, the company expects that it will deliver Opteron chips ... [full story]

April 22 - 9:00am EDT   Hoping to compete on energy over speed, AMD today launched a new take on its pro-level processors in the form of the Opteron EE. The processors, which AMD claims are the lowest power quad-core x86 processor, are a functional match for the latest Opterons but use just 40W of average power; the use is less than the 55W of the already modified Opteron HE and far less than the 75W or more of full-power Opterons. The chipmaker considers the EE ideal for blades, rackmount servers and other systems which are often part of densely packed clusters. [full story]

April 21 - 5:05pm EDT   AMD tonight showed slight improvement in its performance by reporting reduced losses for its first quarter of the year. The chip designer managed a net loss of $416 million; while worse than a net loss of $351 million for the first quarter of 2008, the figure is less than a third of the $1.4 billion loss reported just in the fall. It also notes that revenue was "flat" versus the fall and thus that its losses are under better control. [full story]

February 25 - 10:15am EST   AMD Business Development head John Fruehe late yesterday confirmed plans for his company's first 6-core processor. Nicknamed "Istanbul," a variant of the company's current 45 nanometer Opteron processors is due in the second half of this year and should provide significantly more simultaneous computing power without hurting power use. Fruehe claims tests show the same levels of energy and heat as for existing quad-core Opterons. [full story]

January 26 - 9:00am EST   AMD early Monday upped its claims to performance with a new set of Opteron HE quad-core processors. The new chips are the company's first of the type built on the current 45 nanometer "Shanghai" architecture and use just 55W of average power while also reportedly consuming about 20 percent less power than an equivalent Xeon when idle. The semiconductor firm touts the technology as ideal for servers but also makes it available for workstations. [full story]

November 21 - 3:05pm EST   Early tests conducted with Intel's upcoming Nehalem-based Xeons by TechRadar today show the processor running approximately twice as fast as its current equivalent. Based on the same basic design as Core i7 mainstream chips, a pair of 2.8GHz quad-core Xeon X5560 chips received a SPEC score of 160 in floating-point math tests versus 90 for two 3.4GHz Xeons from the current generation. [full story]

November 21 - 9:35am EST   AMD's mainstream Phenom II processors should rekindle the competition with Intel for clock speed, according to a collection of reports of an AMD demonstration session. Based on the recently unveiled Shanghai architecture being used for new Opterons, the quad-core desktop chips should make a modest leap to 3GHz in official clock speeds but will have room for overclocking previously only available with Intel's Core 2 chips. An example tested by AMD is capable of running reliably at 4GHz with fan-based cooling and shows the company could upgrade the clock speed to match or beat Intel if necessary. [full story]

October 8 - 9:35am EDT   Intel today said it was concerned its patents might be at risk as a result of AMD's manufacturing split. The former company licenses its x86 chip architecture and other key technologies to AMD and has "serious questions" about whether those licenses will be honored if AMD's division into design and manufacturing companies is approved, according to Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy. [full story]

October 7 - 8:00am EDT   AMD this morning took a radical step to improve its fortunes by launching into its promised split into two separate companies. The plan will see AMD break off its semiconductor manufacturing business into a separate company, for now known as the The Foundry Company, and will result in the new company both assuming about $1.2 billion of AMD's debt and the Abu Dhabi-based firm Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) supplying about $2.1 billion to both start up the new company as well as to help earn a majority stake in the project, which will also give it 55.6 percent of shares. [full story]

July 1 - 12:00pm EDT   HP this morning used an educational conference as an opportunity to unveil a quad-core workstation inexpensive enough to be bought by anyone: the xw4550 uses a latest-generation 2GHz AMD Opteron to offer up performance which is normally off-limits to those in school or at work. The system can handle video editing and other heavy-duty tasks while still being durable and tamper-proof enough to sit in a public place, according to its creator. The system can appropriately be locked down in hardware and software. [full story]

June 3 - 1:50pm EDT   AMD today seized on the Computex show to launch a new set of quad-core Opterons aimed at high-end home users and budget workstations or servers. The 1300 series is rated for just one processor socket and meant for users that are comfortable with four cores; the feature set is the same as for the full-power 2000- and 8000-series, including better power saving and support for virtualization and the company's signature HyperTransport bus. [full story]

May 12 - 4:05pm EDT   AMD on Monday sought to push the limits of its high-end processors and launched new quad-core versions of the Opteron HE processor. All five new entries consume an average of just 55 watts, or much less than the 75 and 105 watts of power used by existing Opterons and less than some of their Intel Xeon equivalents. The cooler-running chips allow the system to run in both smaller workstation PCs as well as blades and rackmount servers, where many Opterons are often too hot for the tight spaces. [full story]