Sun unveils quad-core Opteron servers

Sun Fire and Sun Blade systems driven by AMD chips

Sun believes that its new server range is competitively placed against similar servers from HP, Dell and IBM

Sun Microsystems has taken the wraps off its first Sun Fire and Sun Blade servers powered by AMD Opteron quad-core processors.

The Sun Fire X4140, X4240 and X4440 servers are the latest additions to Sun's 64-bit x86 server line.

The new servers come with a choice of operating systems, including Solaris 10, OpenSolaris, Linux and Windows.

"Sun's new x64 systems with quad-core AMD Opteron processors offer increased performance, scalability and energy efficiency and ultimately more value than similar servers on the market," said Lisa Sieker, vice president of marketing for the Systems Group at Sun.

Other systems announced with quad-core Opterons include the Sun Fire X2200 M2, X4100 M2, X4200 M2, X4600 M2 and Sun Blade X8440 servers.

The company reckons that its range of Opteron-based Sun Fire servers has been deployed by more than 12,000 customers at over 31,000 site locations.

The quad-care Opteron Sun Fire X2200 M2, Sun Fire X4100 M2, Sun Fire X4140, Sun Fire X4200 M2, Sun Fire X4240 and Sun Fire X4440 servers are available now.

The quad-core Opteron Sun Fire X4600 M2 and Sun Blade X8440 servers are expected by the end of the quarter.