IBM Adds to AMD Chip Server Line

IBM Corp. picked the middle of a hot summer, when many Americans are living with the threat of power outages, to unveil a line of computer servers that are designed to consume less juice than comparable machines.

The five new servers announced Tuesday are based on Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s next-generation Opteron processors. IBM already offered AMD-based servers, but these are Big Blue’s first Opteron machines in a lower end of the market popular with smaller and medium-sized customers.

Joe Clabby, president of technology research firm Clabby Analytics, said the memory-access speeds of the new servers were particularly remarkable. But competitors were less impressed. Sun Microsystems Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. also sell a range of Opteron-based servers.

The servers might have more meaning for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD, which is deep in a price war with leading chip maker Intel Corp., based in Santa Clara, Calif. IBM also uses Intel chips in many servers.

Shares of IBM fell $1.27 to $76.14, AMD declined 29 cents to $19.10 and Intel was off 34 cents at $17.66.