AMD tries to draw Intel into chip battle

From InfoWorld: AMD is offering prizes to drum up more interest ahead of this month's launch of its 12-core server chip, as rival Intel also has server-chip launch plans.

AMD will award prizes valued at $8,189 to the person who best describes in an essay, video or blog post how to use 48 cores in a server, according to a blog entry by John Fruehe, director of product marketing for servers and workstations products at AMD. The prizes are a copy of Windows Server 2008 and four Opteron 12-core processors running at 2.2 GHz, which adds up to 48 cores in a four-socket server.

AMD is already shipping Magny-Cours processors, which will be called Opteron 6100 after they officially launch, to manufacturers. The server chips will be officially announced and available through retail channels later this month.

In the blog entry, Fruehe said the Magny-Cours chip would offer more memory channels than Intel's upcoming Westmere-EP server products. Intel said it will release its Westmere-EP server processors, which will include up to six cores, and the eight-core Nehalem-EX server processor by the end of this month. Intel will launch the chips under the Xeon product line.

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