Dual-core chips are here to stay

Despite the fanfare surrounding the arrival of quad-core PC processors late last year, dual-core chips are anything but on a downward slide these days, in-the-know chip businesspeople say. Thus, while it’s safe to say that to say that almost all x86 servers now ship with dual-core chips inside—and that the twin-core chips have lived up to their advertised benefits when it comes to performance per watt consumed—how many folks are in immediate need of quad-core processors? Not as many as you might think, says Steve Demski, AMD’s Opteron Product manager. At least not right now.

Demski says that, while four processor cores may sound twice as good as two, it’s just not that simple of a jump. Although he admits that AMD feels some pressure because Intel now offers several quad-core Xeon chips and AMD has not yet delivered a quad-core Opteron in response, Demski says AMD is pushing its dual-core Opterons hard as ever. To that end, AMD will continue delivering high-performing dual-core Opterons even after its quad-core Opteron arrives, Demski said. 

“Are we being affected by [quad core] from a business standpoint? To some degree, sure,” Demski told me in a phone interview. “But there’s enough demand that we’re being asked for higher-performance dual-core products just as often as we are being asked for quad-core.” 

Thus it is not at all surprising to see AMD add to its dual-core Opteron processor line, this week. The chipmaker on Wednesday released new Opterons that offer higher clock speeds, up to 2.8GHz, and greater power-efficiency. The chips come in advance of AMD's planned mid-year introduction of quad-core “Barcelona” Opterons. AMD also lowered prices on its existing Opteron chips to make room for the new dual-core processors. It won’t stop there, either. AMD will push the dual-core Opteron to 3GHz later this year, Demski said.

Where's the sense of urgency, you ask? Quad-core chips will be confined to the high-end of the market for some time, Demski said, as certain types of software play catch-up.  

“It’s not the OS guys or the Oracles or IBMs of the world that aren’t ready for quad-core,” Demski said. Instead, “you have a lot of applications that are home-grown...and there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to them to be ready.”

Thus there’s a substantial market out there for dual-core and AMD intends to continue serving it. Indeed, just as it took months and months for dual-core chips, which were first introduced in early-to-mid 2005, to penetrate the mainstream server market, the advance of quad-cores is likely to be equally as slow.