AMD announced the AMD Opteron processor family will include AMD PowerNow! technology with Optimized Power Management (OPM) in the first half of 2005, designed to allow enterprise IT and workstation customers to decrease overall power consumption by enabling them to optimize performance-on-demand.

The integration of AMD PowerNow! technology with OPM can reduce power consumption in the datacenter by dynamically changing power states based on workload utilization. While AMD claims its processors with PowerNow! technology can reduce power consumption by up to 80% when the capability is enabled, the company does not give away much details and exact power consumption numbers.

Advanced Micro Devices did not say which AMD Opteron processor support the PowerNow! with OPM capability: 130nm, or 90nm. However, it is known that generally power-optimizing technologies should be supported by system BIOSes and operating systems.

The addition of the AMD PowerNow! technology with OPM is expected to strengthen the industry-leading performance-per-watt capabilities of the AMD Opteron processor. Not only will AMD PowerNow! technology with OPM provide enhanced power management capabilities, it can also aid in platform investment protection for today’s demanding enterprise server environments by providing less strain on datacenter cooling and ventilation systems.

This flexibility will not only enable lower total datacenter operational costs, but will also provide additional work environment benefits, such as lower cost of ownership, investment protection, lower acoustics and some other.

AMD’s main server partners, such as IBM, HP and Sun, said they were interested in a server technology that reduces power-consumption. Intel Corp.’s latest server processors also sport features originally found in mobile chips to decrease consumption of electricity.

The AMD Opteron processors featuring AMD PowerNow! technology with OPM will be supported by Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Linux, Novell and other operating systems.