Advanced Micro Devices has started to ship higher-speed dual-core AMD Opteron processors to its customers and said it aims to introduce chips with two processing engines and even higher clock-speed by the end of the year. Introduction of dual-core chips with extreme clock-speeds in the fourth quarter may be an indicator which implies that AMD’s quad-core chips will not ramp up really fast.

“AMD plans to begin full volume shipments by early May of the new Opteron 2222 SE chip for two-processor servers and the 8222 SE chip for eight-processor servers,” said Patrick Patla, director of Opteron marketing for the company, reports IDG News Service agency. The new microprocessors are already in AMD’s central processing units’ database.

The new dual-core AMD Opteron processors 2222 SE and 8222 SE for dual-processor and multi-processor servers run at 3.0GHz clock-speed, contain 2MB of level-two cache and feature dual-channel DDR2 memory controllers with up to PC2-5300 (667MHz) memory support. Like all “SE” AMD Opteron products, the models 2222 SE and 8222 SE have thermal design power of about 120W. The AMD Opteron 1222 SE chip for uniprocessor servers is expected to come at a later time.

Even though the new microprocessors are drop-in compatible with existing socket F infrastructure, it is unknown which makers of servers will adopt them.

“AMD plans to design only one more version of this processor family, releasing a 3.20GHz dual-core Opteron chip by the fourth quarter, before committing entirely to a quad-core Opteron design called ‘Barcelona’, due to reach markets in the middle of 2007,” Patla said. “AMD will continue to produce those final dual-core Opteron chip designs for several years to come.”

Advanced Micro Devices is expected to release quad-core K8L chips for servers in mid-2007, however, their clock-speeds will be slower compared to dual-core chips and the plan to release higher-speed processors with two processing engines may indicate that AMD expects demand towards them even in late 2007. In addition, the fact that AMD plans 3.20GHz servers processors, perhaps, points to possibility of release enthusiast-class AMD Athlon 64 FX chips at the same frequency.

Pricing of the new chips is yet unclear.