AMD's 8 and 12 Core CPUs Launched

Original Article Date: 2010-03-31

Wait a minute, did he say twelve processor cores? He must be referring to a 2P system, 6-cores on each, right? No, AMD have done the dirty and squeezed two six-core CPU dies into a single processor 1944-pin package. They have also done the same for their 4-core CPUs, pushing two together to deliver an 8-core CPU.

So, overnight, AMD have doubled the core density of all platforms built using the Opteron processor. And this has significant ramifications:

• The largest market segment, the 2P (dual-processor) platform now has access to 24-cores, all deliverable on a single 12x13" mainboard.
• The budget 1P (single processor) ATX platform can now house 12-cores, and suddenly high-performance computing is available in a low-cost, compact desktop form-factor.
• Lastly, the enterprise 4P and 8P segment has been truncated to provide just 4P solutions, delivering up to 48-cores on a single 12x16" board, and available in a tight 1U form-factor chassis. Gone are the double-decker twin-board 8P platforms. AMD deemed that it was not worth servicing this top-end high socket count market, which has shrunk over the years as more and more cores get crammed into a single CPU package.

Equally significant in this release is the move to high-speed DDR3 1333MHz system memory support, from the previous 800MHz DDR2. And, not to be out-done, the 6100-series CPUs can access the RAM in a 256-bit quad-channel mode (i.e. simultaneously accessing four DIMMs in a single fetch operation), more than doubling the previous 128-bit dual-channel access, and bettering Intel Xeon's 192-bit triple-channel mode.

Importantly, these are NOT two Shanghai quad-core or Istanbul six-core CPUs glued-together. They are out-and-out new core designs, with a complete refresh on key architectures such as Direct Connect 2.0 (dealing with RAM, including the new HT Assist - which improves the performance of sharing of RAM between CPUs), AMD-P 2.0 (advanced platform power management) and AMD-V 2.0 (advanced virtualization technologies).

Whilst the manufacturing process is still at 45nm, the shared L3 cache has been doubled to 12MB, to handle increased traffic on the more numerous cores.

Lastly, the new "G34" 1944-pin socket design is upward-compatible to at least the next future generation of Opteron CPUs, which will enable simple in-place upgrades on mainboards purchased now. This is not surprising as AMD have a better track record than Intel for longevity/stability of platform architecture designs.

Here is a summary of the advancements in the new 6100-series Opteron CPUs:

• Double the number of cores of the previous generation Opteron CPUs, to 8 and 12 cores per socket.
• Quad-Channel DDR-3 1333MHz RAM support, more than doubling the memory bandwidth over the previous generation Opterons.
• Complete design revision of core CPU architectures including power and memory management.
• New 1944-pin socket with plenty of room for future CPU upgrades on the same platform.
• Increase in cache to 12MB to keep pace with the increased number of cores.

New CPU List

The most important fact in this chart is the shockingly low cost of the entry 8-core 6128 2.0GHz CPU. This price is lower than the entry quad-core Xeon E5620 2.4GHz 4-core CPU from Intel. So AMD are offering double the number of cores at a similar clock-speed and price-point! Is this too good to be true? Ok, so it's expected that an AMD core won't be quite as fast as an Intel core, as the Nehalem/Westmere cores are really something. But for the Intel to beat the AMD on price-performance, you'd have to assume that the AMD core was less than half as powerful as the Intel core, and this is very likely NOT the case. The previous generation Opteron ("Istanbul") cores were about 70% as powerful as an equivalent clock-speed Intel core. Now, with the advances in core design from Istanbul to Magny-Cours, and the fact that they're now accessing RAM nearly twice as fast, it just might be that an AMD core could be as quick as that of an Intel. Only time will tell, but my guess is that AMD, in offering the 8-core CPU at such a price may have just wiped the floor with Intel on price-performance.

The 12-core CPUs start at a signficantly higher price, but I think this is justified. The promise of 24-cores in a mainstream 2P box is something that IT managers and power workstation users have but drooled at, and was only available previously to the premium 4P and 8P specialist market. Those building HPC clusters, also, may find that the saving on reduced numbers of boxes (in using 12-core vs 8-core), may offset the higher price of the 12-core CPUs, and also provide the advantage of reduced rack-space taken up.

AMD on AMD - New Chipsets Keep it in the Family

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.

All mainboards supporting the new 6100-series CPUs sport one of the 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, and the SR5690 for 2P and 4P systems demanding high-performance I/O such as 4-way GPU.

New AMD-based Servers and Workstations

We have revamped all of our AMD-based server and workstation solutions with the new 6100-series CPUs from AMD.

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This is definitely the most exciting release from AMD in a long time. Overnight they have doubled their compute density, and they are offering this at a price that seems incredibly low! My prediction is that they have leap-frogged Intel on the critical price-performance metric, which is an amazing feat considering their lack of market capitalization compared to Chipzilla.

I will have some benchmarks and, more importantly, some real-world customer feedback soon on these new chips. You, ultimately, will tell the true story on Magny-Cours.

So do we have a real race between Intel and AMD once again? I think so, and it's about time too!

Best regards,

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