Dell, IBM, Microway Unveil AMD Shanghai Servers

Dell, IBM, and Microway on Thursday refreshed several products with Advanced Micro Devices' latest Opteron server processor, hoping to bask in the limelight of the launch of the next-generation chip.

AMD on Thursday introduced the new quad-core processor, code-named Shanghai, which marked the chipmaker's first product using an advanced 45-nanometer semiconductor fabrication process. The move to 45 nm brought AMD up to manufacturing parity with rival Intel, which has been shipping 45-nm products for nearly a year.

Dell introduced a total of eight PowerEdge blade, rack, and tower servers powered by Shanghai, and IBM unveiled two blades and two rack servers. Other vendors releasing Shanghai-based products included Microway, which refreshed its Navion server line and introduced a Shanghai-powered workstation.

Dell refreshed its PowerEdge line with three blades, the M905, M805, and M605; four rack servers, the R905, R805, 2970, and SC1435; and one tower server, the T605. The servers are available with two or four sockets.

Advantages of the upgraded line include a doubling of the available bandwidth between two processors for an AMD-estimated 12% performance improvement, Dell said.

IBM's upgraded lineup includes the two-socket BladeCenter LS22 and LS42, which, according to IBM, have faster memory for improved application performance. The System x3455 rack is a 1u, two-socket system, and the x3755 is a 4u rack that can hold up to four AMD processors. The BladeCenter LS42 is set for release with Shanghai this month with prices starting at $5,165. The System x3455 and x3755 are scheduled to be available with the new chip early next year. No date or pricing were released for the BladeCenter LS22.

Microway is offering its Navion-4X and Navion-8X servers with Shanghai. The server line is available with two, four, or eight processors and up to 128 GB of memory and eight drives in a 4u chassis. Microway also refreshed the WhisperStation workstation with the option of one or two of AMD's new chips. The computer is available with Linux or Microsoft Windows. Pricing was not disclosed.