The six-core AMD Opteron processors (codenamed 'Istanbul') extend AMD's offering in the server space. The five new CPUs work with existing AMD server platform to enable users to easily replace their existing quad cores with the new six core ones. The 45nm process based CPUs (the Opteron 8435, 8431, 2435, 2431 and 2427) have a clock speed from 2.28Hz to 2.68Hz and work with DDR2 memory.

Systems based on six-core AMD Opteron processors are expected to be available beginning this month from leading OEMs including Cray, Dell, HP, IBM and Sun Microsystems.