AMD has revealed it's already started revenue shipments of its anticipated twelve-core AMD Opteron processors, code-named Magny-Cours. The company said that the shipments are limited and are intended to prepare for the launch of servers powered by the new chips later this quarter.

According to information from unofficial sources cited by X-bit Labs, Opteron 6000-series processors will service TDPs from 85W to 140W and offer clock speeds between 1.70GHz and 2.4GHz. They are designed to fit into the elongated Socket G34 and are expected to include 12MB of L3 cache along with DDR3 memory support. Essentially, Magny-Cours is a multi-chip module version of the upcoming six-core Lisbon, which itself is a refined version of the current Istanbul hexacore chip for servers.


Even though clock-speeds are not that impressive, and TDPs are somewhat higher compared to existing multi-processor platforms, AMD hopes that its next-generation servers will still offer some serious processing power and great performance-per-watt. The company is also expected to release eight-core variants of Magny-Cours.

For its part, Intel is getting ready to launch the 32nm six-core/twelve-thread Gulftown, which will work at higher frequencies than AMD's chips, followed shortly by eight-core/sixteen-thread Beckton CPUs.