Opteron is the name of a family of CPUs within the AMD64 line. Designed by AMD for the server market, it competes with Intel's Xeon.
For Socket 940 and Socket 939 Opterons, each chip has a three-digit model number, in the form Opteron XYY. For Socket F and Socket AM2 Opterons, each chip has a four-digit model number, in the form Opteron XZYY. For all Opterons, the first digit (the X) specifies the number of CPUs on the target machine: * 1 - Designed for uniprocessor systems * 2 - Designed for dual-processor systems * 8 - Designed for systems with 4 or 8 processors
For Socket F and Socket AM2 Opterons, the second digit (the Z) represents the processor generation. Presently, only 2 (dual-core), DDR2, 3 (quad-core) and 4 (six-core) are used.
For all Opterons, the last two digits in the model number (the YY) indicate the clock frequency of a CPU, a higher number indicating a higher clock frequency. This speed indication is comparable to processors of the same generation if they have the same amount of cores, single-cores and dual-cores have different indications despite sometimes having the same clock frequency.
Model Number Methodology for the AMD Opteron 4000 and 6000 Series Processors.
AMD Opteron processors are identified by a four digit model number, ZYXX, where:
Z- indicates Product Series * 4000 Series = Low cost and power optimized 1 and 2-way servers * 6000 Series = High performance 2 and 4-way servers
Y- indicates series generation * 41xx = 1st generation of 4000 series * 61xx = 1st generation of 6000 series
XX- communicates a change in product specifications within the series, and is not a relative measure of performance.
The suffix HE or EE indicates a high-efficiency/energy-efficiency model having a lower TDP than a standard Opteron. The suffix SE indicates a top-of-the-line model having a higher TDP than a standard Opteron.