Suzuka: AMD's First DDR3 CPU

Original Article Date: 2009-10-01

It's taken about nine months for AMD to catch up with Intel on moving to DDR3 RAM support, releasing the new "Suzuka" 1380-series quad-core processor.

The Suzuka Processor includes the following features:

1333MHz DDR3 RAM support via Direct Connect Architecture and integrated memory controller, in dual-channel configuration
Native quad-core die at 45nm process
2MB L2 (4x512MB) and 6MB L3 cache
Hyper-Transport v.3 (HT3), providing 4.4GT/s to the PCI-Express bus - double the bandwidth to previous Opteron 1P models that used HT1.
AMD-V virtualization technology
Three models at launch: 1381 (2.5GHz), 1385 (2.7GHz), 1389 (2.9GHz), all 75W TDP.
Socket AM3 (941-pin) for DDR3 support (can also be used in Socket AM2+ with DDR2 RAM)

From the above list, you can see that Suzuka is a thoroughly modern processor, designed to compete with Intel's Core i7.

I've done my own benchmarking of an Opteron 1389 (2.9GHz) CPU, and whilst it doesn't beat the Core i7 920 (2.67GHz), it comes close. This inability to match the Core i7 is likely due to the dual-channel RAM addressing on the Suzuka. The Core i7 uses triple-channel memory addressing, i.e. it is able to address three DIMMs simultaneously, instead of two. This, in theory means up to 50% more memory bandwidth is possible on the Core i7, than the Suzuka, and as RAM bandwidth plays such a major part in typical CPU operations, the benchmarks I found are not too surprising.

That said, AMD have priced the Suzuka extremely competitively, offering excellent server and workstation performance, beyond that of any AMD or Intel previous generation, and at comparatively low cost.

Back in the Game: Three New Server/Workstation Chipsets from AMD

It has been some time since AMD have been in the chipset market, preferring to delegate that role to companies such as Nvidia, Broadcom and VIA.

Many users will therefore be happy to see the return of AMD into the chipset space, since their previous chipsets were considered more reliable, with better driver support than third-party suppliers.

AMD have three new chipsets on offer, differing mainly in the number of PCI-Express lanes available, but all with the following features:

Hyper-Transport v3 (HT3), providing up to 5.2GT/s.
Full provision of PCI-Express v2.0 (5Gb/s per lane, up from 2.5Gb/s in PCIe v.1.1)
SR5650 (22 PCIe lanes), SR5670 (30 PCIe lanes), SR5690 (42 PCIe lanes)
AMD-Vi (IOMMU 1.2), providing a complete virtualization solution for the processor AND all onboard devices

The SR5650 is targetted mainly at the single-processor budget space, the SR5670 for mainstream two-processor applications and the SR5690 for systems demanding high-performance I/O such as 4-way SLI/GPU and 4/8-processor solutions.

New AMD-based Servers and Workstations

We have revamped our AMD-based entry-level server and workstation solutions with the new Suzuka Opteron DDR3 CPU and the SR5650 chipset from AMD.

The MESSINA workstation, the SNOWDON tower server, and the GEMINI 1U rack offer excellent performance at entry-level pricing (from $899).

The ever-popular CADIZ two-processor workstation and FUJI 4/8-processor enterprise server will be revamped very soon with new mainboards from Tyan featuring the top-end SR5690 chipset. Stay tuned.

Best regards,

Ben Ranson
Chief Systems Engineer
Electronics Nexus
http://elnexus.com
ben@elnexus.com
1-877-773-5366