Advanced Micro Devices Incorporated (AMD) has recently started to ship the company's first 45-nm server processors, about the same time their first of the kind, called the „Shanghai” server chip, was launched, which has put them ahead of their schedule with approximately three months.

Nevertheless, the company’s competitor Intel Corporation is set to release their second-generation 45-nm chip called „Nehalem” during the following days.

AMD has informed that all the versions of the processor they had announced comprised four cores, adding that nine of them would be manufactured at launch, whereas five would be produced in the 2-way Opteron 2000 series, with another four in the 8-way Opteron 8000 series. The Opteron is the company’s x86 server processor line, having been, the time it was released on April 22, 2003, the first processor that implemented the AMD64 instruction set architecture known as x86-64.

Product marketing manager for the server and workstation division of AMD Burke Banda has revealed that they were planning to manufacture a version of their 45-nm server processor especially designed for four-socket systems, in addition to the aforementioned.

As for the prices for the two-socket versions that have begun shipping on Thursday, AMD announced that they would range from $377 to $989 (for the ones at launch), while the Opteron 8000 series ones would cost between $1,165 and $2,149.

In terms of speed, the the 2-way Opteron 2000 line would feature 2.3-, 2.4-, 2.5-., 2.6-, and 2.7-GHz, while the 8-way Opteron 8000 line would max out at 2.5-GHz.

In the year to follow, AMD is slated to launch a six-core processor called „Istanbul,” which along with the „Shanghai” one, will be part of the company’s „Fiorano” platform.