AMD is working hard to get the temperature of the Opteron down. The CPU maker announced today that it would be working to cool the chip when in idle mode. As we all know, modern processors can get hell-a-hot, and when they are all packed together in a server running four or eight or sixteen or more, things can get pretty hot indeed. In production servers, such overheating represents a terrible risk. To help deal with this, AMD is working to provide power-reduction technology initially developed for its notebook processors to its Opteron processors for servers.

"The technology, called PowerNow with Optimized Power Management, lets the operating system slow the processor's clock speed and consequently reduce power consumption by as much as 80 percent."

AMD's moves to bring its CPU PowerNow technology from mobile processors to its server line mirrors similar efforts from Intel to bring its SpeedStep technology from mobile processors to the server realm. The PowerNow implementation in Opteron processors is already present in chips made since the middle of 2004, but is awaiting operating system support and well as further hardware support.