eBay Seller Auctions AMD 12-Core Opterons

A manufacturer is selling a set of 4 for a starting bid of $7000.

Although AMD hasn't officially launched the Opteron 6174 "Magny-Cours" CPU, custom-built server and workstation manufacturer Oakville Mehlville Computers (OMC) is already on eBay selling AMD's 12-core CPU. X-bit Labs, who actually first spied the auction, said that the chips do not look like engineering samples, and could be from the first mass-production batch.

The auction's starting bid for a tray of four microprocessors is $7,000 USD, with a "Buy It Now" price of $8,000 USD. Designed for the socket G34 platform, the Opteron 6174 has a clock speed of 2.20 GHz, 12 MB of unified level-three cache, and 6 MB of level-two cache (512 KB of cache per core).

Despite the appearance of the Opteron 6174 on eBay, AMD would not confirm with X-Bit if the company has already began shipments of the new processor to hardware stores and online outlets. "What I can confirm for you at this point is that Magny-Cours is on track to launch in the current quarter," said Phil Hughes, a spokesperson for AMD.

Given that OMC isn't offering a mainboard (or cooling system) with the Opteron 6174 chips up for auction, there's really no way to test the chips to see if they actually work. That's a bad thing given that the seller isn't accepting returns. And although OMC has a 99.2-percent positive feedback, this looks like a good auction to avoid until the G34 platform is at hand.