IT Week Labs tests of AMD's 64bit Opteron processor indicate that the new chip offers excellent performance compared with Intel's 32bit Xeon server chips.

The Opteron chip launches this week, after several years on the drawing board. Analysts say 64bit chips are more efficient when handling large amounts of data, as is common in high-end business intelligence and Olap systems.

Intel began shipping its 64bit Itanium chip almost two years ago, but sales have been disappointing because Itanium runs 32bit x86 software much more slowly than existing 32bit server chips. Firms moving to Itanium must simultaneously replace hardware and software, a scenario not welcomed by most IT managers. Itanium's sales have also suffered because its performance in 64bit mode is generally not much better than that of cheaper Xeon chips.

In contrast, our tests show the Opteron is an excellent platform for both existing and new software, offering performance on a par with a 2.4GHz Xeon in 32bit mode, and a 47 percent improvement in 64bit mode.

AMD will initially sell three versions of Opteron. We tested an Opteron server fitted with high-end Model 244 Opteron processors and 8GB of DDR RAM. We used the open-source GnuPG encryption tool because it taxes the computational capabilities of the processor and the efficiency of the memory subsystem.

We tested encryption because it is frequently cited as justification for acquiring high-performance servers, and some manufacturers market encryption accelerators to stave off such upgrades.

Opteron speeds past Xeon

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