Today, AMD announces it is demonstrating the industry's first x86 dual-core processor. During demonstrations held at the company's Austin facilities, AMD is showing an HP ProLiant DL585 server powered by four dual-core AMD Opteron(tm) processors manufactured on 90nm silicon-on-insulator process technology. With a simple upgrade path to more efficient computing, based on AMD's existing system infrastructure and industry-standard architecture, enterprise customers can expect more efficient processing power without the penalties of increased power consumption and heat dissipation. The dual-core AMD Opteron processor for servers and workstations is expected to offer the best performance per watt in the market when AMD plans to make it available in mid-2005.

"This industry milestone changes the dynamics of the computing business," said Dirk Meyer, executive vice president, AMD Computation Products Group. "Once again, AMD is delivering a simplified approach to more efficient processing power, with products that will deliver multi-core 64-bit computing to our strong customer base." This announcement follows a series of impressive firsts from AMD. As the first company to ship products that meet customer demands for high-performance, simultaneous x86-based 32- and 64-bit computing, AMD set in motion an industry-wide transition to pervasive 64-bit computing. Next, AMD was the first company to implement 64-bit computing and Enhanced Virus Protection (enabled by the Windows(r) Service Pack 2) in desktop and low-power mobile PC processors.