AMD puts 32-bit twist on 64-bit Opteron

AMD will unveil Opteron on Tuesday, hoping to trump Intel by offering a 64-bit server procecessor that can run 32-bit applications.

Although AMD has gained presence in the desktop-chip fray, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company has had limited success in the server arena, where rival Intel, buoyed by its 32-bit Xeon line, enjoys a solid position.

With Opteron, AMD is trying to convince low-end server users to move to a 64-bit chip that can support 32-bit applications while vendors recompile code to take advantage of 64-bit register widths, said Marty Seyer, AMD’s vice president of marketing.

The company also wants to compete in the high-end server market against Intel’s Itanium and RISC systems from Sun, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard, Seyer said.

AMD expects databases to be the primary application for Opteron at first. IBM already issued a beta of DB2 for the Opteron earlier this year, and Microsoft is expected to release a version of SQL Server for the chip in the near future. Oracle, however, has thus far said nothing of its plans regarding Opteron.

But AMD needs to show users that Opteron offers better 32-bit performance than Xeon and that its 64-bit capability will be adequate when users are ready to take advantage of it, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64 inSaratoga, Calif.

Intel is taking a markedly different tack, at least for the time being. With the 64-bit Itanium processor, Intel has bet that its new EPIC (Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing) architecture will boost performance enough to justify porting applications from 32-bit server processors or 64-bit RISC processors.

Analysts said that AMD’s approach will be easier than porting a company’s complete portfolio of applications to Intel’s EPIC.

“It’s not that there is great difficulty supporting that software [for Itanium], but you need to create those new versions, test them, and certify them for your systems on a platform that hasn’t seen much traction outside of high-performance computing,” said Gordon Haff, an analyst at Illuminata in Nashua, N.H.

AMD, however, thus far lacks the backing of tier-one server vendors such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and IBM.

Rumors that Intel is working on its own x86-64 bit chip have persisted since AMD announced its initial Opteron plans. Although Intel has steadfastly denied those rumors, many observers feel that if Opteron is successful Intel will have to come out with its own x86-64 chip to maintain market share.