AMD demos virtualization with "next-gen" Opteron processor

Boston (MA) - Following a developer preview at the Novell Brainshare Global 2006 conference two weeks ago and a presentation in San Francisco behind closed doors in early March, AMD today unveiled its upcoming processor with virtualization technology to visitors of the Linux World tradeshow.

AMD's product introduction are rather evolutionary, rather than revolutionary; calling the processor a "next-generation" part sounds much more dramatic than it really is. This new chip, currently referred to as "Rev F," builds on the existing 90 nm architecture, but will come with the new socket 1207 and use DDR2 memory. According to Phil Hughes, spokesman for AMD, Rev F is scheduled to be available in the third quarter of this year. The company did not provide further details on the processor.

Rev F has been on a road show for several weeks, but so far, there had been no virtualization demo. However, visitors of Linux World are first to actually see the company demo its virtualization technology previously code-named "Pacifica" and now called "AMD-v." AMD said it uses XenSource as well as Microsoft's Virtual Server software to demo virtualization.

According to Hughes the demo at the tradeshow has simply purpose to show the virtualization feature and not possible performance gains the dual-core Rev F CPUs will bring. The processor on site runs at a clock speed of 2.6 GHz.

According to the Inquirer, AMD may be launching new versions of its current Socket 940 Opteron processor, models 256 and 856, with a 3 GHz clock speed within a few days.