Hardware Extreme has posted a preview of the new AMD Opteron "Hammer" Processor. Processors based on Hammer technology are expected to ship in the forth quarter of 2002.

AMD believes that the AMD Processors based on Hammer technology which is targeted for both desktop home user & enterprise will be priced affordably compared to other competitive brands and will dominate over 50% in the competitive positioning in year 2004. According to them, the AMD Processors based on Hammer technology is designed to allow Microsoft's operating systems to use the capabilities and full performance of 32-bit and 64-bit applications. This means that it's 100% backward-compatible with 32-bit software and no changes are required for existing software. AMD also stated that the AMD Opteron processor-based servers are expected to be among the highest performing 32-bit and 64-bit servers for enterprise environments.