AMD low-power chips headed for HP, Dell servers

From CNET News.com: Advanced Micro Devices on Monday released low-power and high-performance processors that will find their way into servers from Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Sun Microsystems, and Rackable Systems.

The new server processors are updated versions of AMD's 45-nanometer Shanghai processor.

"When we first came to market, we brought out the standard-power (Shanghai processors) because that's where the bulk of our market is," John Fruehe, the director of business development for server and workstation products at AMD, said in an interview. "As always, we follow(ed) up fairly quickly with the HE, which are the energy-efficient models, and the SE, which are the high-performance models."

The five new low-power 45-nanometer quad-core AMD Opteron HE processors operate at 55-watt ACP, or Average CPU Power (PDF). This standard differs from Intel's Thermal Design Power, or TDP, rating.

"TDP is much more conservative," Fruehe said. "The TDP on those (HE) processors is 79 watts," he said. But the "average customer is going to see them running in the mid-40s (ACP) range," Fruehe added.

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