This rare AMD chip is the cheapest 16-core CPU right now

Nearly 10 years ago, AMD attempted to break Intel's stranglehold on the server market with the Opteron 6272, a 16-core processor with 16 threads. Its price at launch was $523, but you can now get hold of one for £31.99 (around $40/AU$60) on eBay - and yes, you can fit up to four of them in a server or workstation.

The vendor is based in the UK, but will ship to many countries worldwide for an additional fee. Should remaining stocks run dry, there are still a fair few 6272s available from other sellers.

Based on the Bulldozer architecture, the Opteron 6272 was produced using a 32nm manufacturing process, has a TDP of 115W and 32MB cache with a base frequency of 2.1GHz.

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Unsurprisingly, these parts have been pulled from a working environment. Opteron processors are server CPUs, used primarily in data centres that support service providers (i.e. web hosting , cloud storage and SaaS companies).

Fast forward to 2020 and AMD has its best chance in a decade to make a splash, with the new EPYC range that has up to 64 cores per CPU and is built using 7nm process.

Compared to its predecessor, AMD's new server processor enjoys a much higher IPC (instruction per clock), larger cache, multithreading and the ability to ramp up the core count with ease.