AMD begins shipping 16core Bulldozer chip

Compatible with existing AMD Opteron 6100 series platforms and infrastructure, the chip is expected to launch and be available in partner systems in Q4 2011. According to AMD, many of the initial shipments have been earmarked for large custom supercomputer installations that are now underway. "This is a monumental moment for the industry as this first Bulldozer core represents the beginning of unprecedented performance scaling for x86 cpus," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, AMD. "The flexible new Bulldozer architecture will give web and datacenter customers the scalability they need to handle emerging cloud and virtualisation workloads." The AMD Bulldozer is designed to compete with the new Intel I7 series. It is the first release of a new module by AMD since 2003, and is expected to be accompanied by two integer cores, each boasting 4 pipelines and shared L2 cache.