Opteron-based servers with one, two, or four processors are all over the place, but server manufacturers rarely experiment with more exotic chip counts. However, the folks at The Inquirer have spotted an Opteron server that packs three chips, each with two DIMM slots, on a custom motherboard.
Said server is capable of gobbling up to 16GB of RAM, and it features two PCI Express slots as well as two 4x Infiniband ports for connectivity. The goal of a three-way chip arrangement isn't merely to serve as a curiosity, though. The Inq says a 3P Opteron system should have lower cache coherency latency than a four-way one, because each of the three chips is connected directly to the other two. Performance could therefore be theoretically higher in some workloads.
