Just one day after Intel announced its 6-core Intel Xeon Processor 5600 series of GPUs, AMD today announced a lineup of forthcoming motherboard and channel products for its soon-to-be available AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform. This platform is based on the new AMD Opteron 6100 Series processor (code-named "Magny-Cours") and the AMD SR5690 chipset and will bring 8- and 12-core x86 processors to the market.

The Magny-cour CPUs will fit server systems with two or four sockets, enabling them to replace the existing Opteron 1000, 2000 and 8000 chips. Magny-Cours will have 12-cores, four-channel memory controllers, high-speed inter-chip interconnections and they will be compatible with AMD's third-generation Socket G34 platform. The CPUs will be clocked at 1.7-2.3GHz range and have an average power consumption of 85W, 115W, and 140W. The 8-core variables will be clocked at 1.8-2.4GHz.

"Our industry partners are ready to showcase the advantages of AMD?s new Direct Connect Architecture 2.0," said Patrick Patla, vice president and general manager, Server and Embedded Divisions, AMD. "The additional performance enabled with more cores, more memory channels and more features is a value their customers are eager to put to work."

Asus plans to release the KGPE-D16 serverboard based on the AMD SR5690/SP5100 chipset and utilizing AMD Opteron 6100 Series processors. Gigabyte and MSI are also expected to support AMD's new platform with products this month.