AMD has introduced three higher-performing Opteron server processors, which now support a fast memory standard.

The Opteron 148, 248, and 848 all run at 2.2GHz, a 200MHz increase over the clock speed of AMD's x46 line of Opterons, said Opteron product manager Gina Longoria.

The Opteron 248 is available immediately, while the other two chips will ship next month.

The Opteron 148 costs $733 (£433), and the Opteron 248 costs $913 (£540). The Opteron 848 commands a much higher price of $3,199 (£1,891). All prices are based on quantities of 1,000 units.

AMD now has four 64-bit Opteron chips available in each series. The 100 series is designed for one-way servers and workstations, the 200 series for two-way servers, and the 800 series for up to eight-way servers. All chips contain 1Mbyte of Level 2 cache.

IBM is the only major server provider to offer a product using Opteron, but Sun Microsystems is expected to announce its support for Opteron when president and chief executive officer Scott McNealy makes his keynotespeech at Comdex this week. 

Customers purchasing an Opteron server or workstation will now be able to use PC3200 (400MHz) DDR (double data rate) SDRAM (synchronous dynamic RAM) in those machines.

PC3200 memory is used in many high-end PCs and workstations, but the longer validation time required for server products delayed AMD's support for the standard on Opteron processors.