AMD's Hammer gets a new name: Opteron

AMD Gives an Updated Roadmap

Along with this announcement (there's another one coming in the next 15 - 30 minutes), AMD is also updating their processor cores roadmap to reflect the new Opteron processor.

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What's most interesting is that AMD only shows a SledgeHammer based Opteron tailoring to the Server & Workstation markets going forward. There is no mention of a DP ClawHammer based part in that market segment. Instead we have the AMD Athlon based on the Barton MP core with a 512KB L2 cache. This could be AMD's way of making sure that there is a clear performance division between their Athlon MP and Opteron lines in the high end, possibly an indication of how competitive the Barton MP core may end up being.

In the future (beyond 2H 03) it's clear that the Barton MP core will be replaced by a ClawHammer derived Opteron processor but once again, it's very interesting to see ClawHammer only targeted at the desktop market.

Other than that change there are no major alterations to the roadmap.