Intel shows off Opteron at channel show

LURKING IN INTEL'S bubble of a stand here at the Channel Expo 2007 was an interesting couple of boxes.

Sitting underneath a box marked Cloverton was a similar slice of hardware, but this one sported a nice, green AMD logo.

The dual-core Opteron was a tad outnumbered by its rival in clover and the benchmarks running on the systems unsurprisingly put the Cloverton ahead on points.

Interestingly, the Opteron pulled less power idle than Cloverton, but demanded around 15 extra Watts when put under load.

Barcelona would probably be a more interesting comparison, we suggested. "Yeah, but no-one's got one yet have they," said the Intel techie showing us round.

Intel's driector of SMB business, Tim Black, looked a little reticent to talk about the Opteron when we INQuired.

"It's a very good part," he generously let slip.

An AMD spinnerette, was encouraged. "Nice to see them acknowledging they do have competition - for once," she muttered. µ