Today is the official launch day for AMD's Socket F Opteron processors, these comprising of the Opteron 8000, 2000 and 1000 series aimed to compete with Intel's Xeon Woodcrest family.

For all the details, AMD's official announcement resides here, and there's more coverage at The DailyTech, The Inquirer, and The Register.

Sunnyvale, Calif -- August 15, 2006 --AMD (NYSE:AMD) today introduced its Next-Generation AMD Opteron™ processor family, featuring industry-leading performance-per-watt and outstanding virtualization capabilities. As the only x86 server processor with planned upgradeability to native quad-core within the same thermal design power envelope, Next-Generation AMD Opteron processors are designed to enable customers to increase computing capacity without altering datacenter infrastructure. Improving upon what already is recognized as a standard-bearer for energy-conscious microprocessor architecture design, new platforms based on Next-Generation AMD Opteron processors will be offered in record numbers from global original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

"Customers trust AMD for critical server applications, as evidenced by our record Q2 2006 AMD Opteron processor sales, and in 2006, AMD expects to double the number of AMD Opteron processor-based systems offered from global and regional tier-one OEMs," said Randy Allen, corporate vice president, Server and Workstation Division, AMD. "Today's announcement represents continued innovation along the customer-directed path we blazed years ago; we provide the complete x86 processor architectural standard for others in the industry to emulate and have planned a seamless upgrade path to quad-core processors."