The 4P Tax, a price premium traditionally charged in the server market for 4P capable processors, died on Monday, March 29 at the age of 12. The 4P Tax made its mark among customers looking for highly scalable, robust server solutions, with its requirement that these customers had to pay higher prices to obtain these 4P server processors. It is only right to honor the life and legacy of the 4P Tax today, at a time when people around the United States associate with paying taxes (yesterday being Tax Day).

The 4P Tax did not die of natural causes, but rather at the hand of a single company – AMD. In a sweeping move, AMD has removed the 4P tax completely as part of the latest AMD Opteron™ 6000 Series platform. And, while AMD has proclaimed the death of the 4P Tax, customers who have enjoyed paying more than they need to can still find their familiar 4P Tax in competitive solutions.

The 4P Tax is survived by the Value 4P – an upstart server processor segment offered by AMD to deliver 4P capable processors at a 2P price point. We’d like to say we are saddened by the death of the 4P Tax, but customer feedback indicates that we are all far better off without it.

John Fruehe is the Director of Product Marketing for Server/Workstation products at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.