A generation jump from 6 to 12 computing cores on the processor -- with the briefest of pit stops to unload an 8-core option – has allowed AMD to do a quick sprint towards the ever-shifting goal posts of performance in the computer chip business. In an announcement in New Delhi last week, simultaneous with world-wide launches, the US-based semiconductor technology company, unveiled 'the world’s first 12-core x86 processor for the enterprise server market’, with a promise to abolish the ‘4P tax’: customers do not have to pay a premium to buy a processor capable of scaling up from 2 CPUs to 4 CPUs in a single platform.
“The new 12-core Opteron 6000 series will offer a doubling of performance over 6-core processors for the same price, with an 88 percent increase in integer performance and a 119 percent increase in floating point performance”, said Vamsi Krishna, Senior Technical Manager, AMD India. While the processors constitute what is in effect a Second Wave in AMD’s Direct Connect architecture, they also exploit some new technologies – like CoolSpeed which reduces processor speed if it gets too hot.
Ravi Swaminathan, who took over as AMD India’s Managing Director earlier this year, told “IndiaTechOnline” that at least one of the new technologies ticking away inside the Opteron 6000 was largely crafted at AMD’s India-based development centres in Bangalore and Hyderabad: support for the ‘C1E’ power state which puts the device to sleep if all its cores are idle. While offering a compelling power-performance-price combo for traditional markets like data centres, the 12-core Opteron will also target burgeoning cloud computing opportunities, Arvind Chandrasekhar, AMD India’s General Manager, Business Development, added.
AMD introduced the chip industry’s first 64 bit x86 processor in 2003; the first dual core in 2005, the quad in 2007 and the hex core in 2009.
Hardware manufacturers Acer, Cray, Dell, HCL and HP -- and software leaders Microsoft and VMware were on hand at the launch event promising the imminent availability of systems and solutions for India fuelled by them. - Anand Parthasarathy in Delhi

Link to the Opteron 6000 series product page: http://www.amd.com/us/products/server/processors/6000-series-platform/Pages/6000-series-platform.aspx  
Blog: A 12-core world: http://blogs.amd.com/work/2010/03/28/welcome-to-the-world-of-12-cores/  
Check out  ( for a few days only!)   our video  of the 12-core Opteron in a 4-P server configuration