AMD's quad-core server processors, due to be demonstrated later this year, will be based on the chip maker's upcoming Socket F infrastructure.

So says Marty Seyer, the head of the company's server products operation, in an interview with US publication CRN. He didn't mention the unannounced Socket F, of course, but he did say the quad-core parts will be compatible with AMD's next generation of dual-core Opterons.

The new dualies are due mid-2006, Seyer said, and will incorporate AMD's 'Pacifica' virtualisation hardware to allow them to run multiple instances of the same OS or even different operating systems simultaneously.

Seyer confirmed that the next-generation Socket will support DDR 2 SDRAM, certainly clocked to 533MHz and 667MHz, we'd say, and possibly up to 800MHz. He also said that the quad-core chips will demo'd around the time the new-socket dualies ship. AMD has indicated in the past that its quad-core CPUs will ship commercially in 2007.

Socket F incorporates a whopping 1207 pins. ®