AMD shows off six-core Opteron

AMD has demonstrated a six-core Opteron processor, codenamed Istanbul, which is due to be launched later this year.

The processor can be used as a slot-in replacement for current Opterons and can be used in systems with two or four sockets.

No performance figures were given but John Fruehe, AMD's director of business development for servers and workstations, said Istanbul's speed and power efficiency were impressive.

"Despite putting more cores in the processor, we managed to keep it in the same power and thermal ranges as our existing 'Shanghai' processors," he wrote in a blog.

"And since it fits into the same socket, our [manufacturer] customers should be able to bring products to the market quickly. End users will be able to quickly qualify and deploy these servers because the overall platform is the same as what they are using."