It's been some time since AMD last made a chipset for its Opteron server and workstation processors, but according to a roadmap slide we spotted over at TechReport, it now seems like AMD is back at it again. We're looking at what appears to be two models for the second half of 2009 and they're likely to be paired up with the quad-core Shanghai as well as the six-core Istanbul processors.

According to the roadmap the two chipsets will be known as SR5690 and SP5100, although the only difference that we can tell for sure at the moment is that the SR5690 will feature IOMMU or an input/output memory management unit which, according to AMD, should offer "superior virtualization performance through more direct CPU/peripheral interaction."

It doesn't seem like AMD is moving away from DDR2 memory during 2009, as the Fiorano platform, which the two new chipsets fits into, is listed as using HyperTransport 3.0 and PCIe 2.0 and the same old Socket F with dual-channel DDR2 support. This might not be a bad move, as registered memory has a price premium over standard DDR2 and with DDR3 costing even more, it seems like AMD is just going to wait a bit longer to move to the new memory standard.

In 2010 AMD will be moving to the Maranello platform for its Opteron processors and with the Magny-Cours and Sao Paulo 12 and six-core processors we're finally seeing support for DDR3. AMD will also be adding the SR5670 chipset in 2010, and it will also support IOMMU. Interestingly, it seems like AMD is going to allow for unregistered DDR3 memory to be used with both of these processors, which is highly uncommon for such high-end platforms.

You can find more details here.