AMD had demonstrated the industry’s first native quad-core x86 server processor, achieving four x86 processing cores on a single die of silicon. At the annual AMD Industry Analyst Forum, a server powered by four upcoming Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processors (codenamed Barcelona), manufactured on 65nm silicon-on-insulator process technology, was shown utilizing all 16 cores. By delivering a consistent thermal envelope while adding two more processing cores, along with micro-architectural enhancements.

"Upgradeability from dual- to quad-core processors is expected to be as straightforward as it was from single- to dual-core with AMD, with unchanged thermal and electrical envelopes. The demonstration today was an example of this. The reference server platform was seamlessly upgraded to quad-core by replacing the server’s existing DDR2-based AMD Opteron processors with the new Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors and updating the BIOS. The upcoming AMD Opteron processors are based on AMD’s innovative Direct Connect Architecture, which reduces bottlenecks found in legacy front-side bus x86 architectures and includes AMD’s proven Integrated Memory Controller. These processors are designed to enhance I/O throughput and CPU-to-CPU communication, and to deliver increased performance with low power consumption and low memory latency."

The full press release on this one is posted here.