IDF Fall '04 Novell, Red Hat and Sun today said they will support future multi-core Opteron processors, AMD said today.

That's no great surprise, perhaps, since dual-core AMD64 CPUs were designed to appear to the operating system as a pair of processors, and SuSE Linux, Red Hat Linux and Sun Solaris are all capable of running on multi-processor rigs.

Still, it's nice to have them come out and give the upcoming dualies their thumbs-up, so you can't blame AMD for asking them to do so. Particularly since arch-enemy Intel is expected to discuss and demonstrate its own dual-core processors later today when this autumn's Intel Developer Forum (IDF) opens in San Francisco.

Just as AMD demo'd a four-way HP ProLiant DL585 server containing dual-core Opterons - for a total core count of eight - last week (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/31/amd_dual-core_demo/), so this week Intel will talk about 'Smithfield', its dual-core 'Prescott'-based Pentium 4, and possibly 'Montecito' and 'Millington', the dual-core Itaniums.

Dual-core parts from both AMD and Intel are due mid 2005. Both will need to resolve at least once potential rock on their multi-core road: software licences that bill on a per-processor basis. Should a dual-core chip be counted as one CPU or two? Fearing a backlash, AMD for one is touting the former, and is pitching its dual-core chips as devices better able to run multiple threads than multiple applications - in other words, they're simply fancy Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) CPUs, not a replacement for two-chip machines, OK?

That may prove a harder play for Intel, whose cores already provide SMT support, under the HyperThreading brand. But we can probably expect it to push dual-core in the same way. ®

Related stories

AMD to demo dual-core Opteron box (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/31/amd_dual-core_demo/)
Intel dual-core desktop chip 'to ship mid-2005' (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/04/intel_smithfield/)
Intel to announce 'Napa' Centrino 3 at IDF (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/26/intel_napa_smithfield/)
Freescale to detail dual-core PowerPC G4 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/18/dual-cores_detailed/)
AMD could ship a quad-core Opteron on 2007 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/16/amd_quad-core_opteron/)