AMD Istanbul: Field Upgrade Only If Your Hands are Nimble
The newly-launched AMD Opteron 24xx and 84xx server CPUs have six processor cores. Unlike Intel's Nehalem, which requires entirely new and unproven mainboards, systems, chipsets and sockets, the "Istanbul" is based on existing, mature AMD chipsets and uses the existing 1207-pin Socket F, allowing current Quad-Core Opteron systems to be field upgraded rather than requiring entirely new server purchases.