AMD is reporting that an HP server with its quad-core Opteron processor achieved the top spot on the VMware VMmark virtualization benchmark for x86 servers, and now holds the top three spots on the 16-core VMmark benchmark.

AMD said this latest result shows that its quad-core Opteron processors allow high-performance virtualization that allows data center managers to make large-scale virtualization deployments.

Patrick Patla, general manager of AMD’s server and workstation business, commented in a statement, “AMD has an extensive track record of helping enterprises face demanding challenges by enabling flexible, virtualized systems that address major issues including server consolidation, business continuity and disaster recovery. AMD’s latest benchmark result underscores the fact that Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors are more than just four cores and provide innovations such as AMD virtualization with rapid virtualization indexing (RVI) to help deliver an ideal platform for addressing real-world data center needs.”

AMD said RVI technology is meant to allow near-native performance of virtualized applications while allowing fast switching between virtual machines (VMs) and noted that the VMmark 1.1 consolidation benchmark, released by VMware in May, includes several workloads that leverage RVI.

VMware’s VMmark 1.1 benchmark measures application performance in virtualized environments on a variety of enterprise workloads running simultaneously in separate virtual machines and utilizes SPECjbb2005 and SPECweb2005, which are available from the Standard Performance Evaluation Corp (SPEC).

Ann Steffora Mutschler is senior editor at Electronic News