AMD has high hopes for its 6100 series of chips – the family inexplicably named Magny Cours.
John Fruehe, director product marketing for servers at AMD reckons that Intel will have a hard time keeping up with the family because it aims to deliver four cores for the price of two.
Plus it’s got Direct Connect Architecture 2.0 – that lets the CPUs talk to each other a bit faster.
Here are Fruehe’s words: “We believe that Direct Connect Architecture 2.0 will deliver more performance for important workloads. The 6100 series removes the so-called 4P tax. People look more towards value and cloud computing will be more important. Customers used to care about raw performance but as we filled out the data centres, they were running out of room and power became critical. The desire to keep skilled IT people was important and they cut back on the number of servers they were buying, as a result of the recent economic downturn.”
AMD says that in 2010 there will be eight and 12 cores in its Magny-Cours family, and in 2011 it will introduce Interlagos, with 12 and 16 cores. The SR5600 series will have a “Bulldozer” core.
Fruehe said that in Lisbon four and six cores will come this year, and Valencia with six and eight cores will also use the Bulldozer core.
AMD thinks that the best place to get marketshare is in the 2P space. Intel tries a one size fits all approach, and removes features from popular low power value processors, the smaller competitor claims.
Intel, it claims, artificially limits memory speeds, and IO speeds, and it uses different chipsets for many models of its microprocessors. AMD does not, it claims.
Because AMD offers the same API, BIOS and drivers, it makes it easier for OEMs like HP to manufacture, said Fruehe.
Direct Connection 2.0 lets all processors communicate with each with only one hop, and gives a claimed 33 percent increase in CPU to CPU communication speeds. And there’s more memory channels, so AMD supports more memory. Said Fruehe.
Westmere has only six channels and 17 DIMMs, and AMD has an advantage because it has better throughput with eight channels and 24 DIMMs. AMD can scale to 48GB per processor. Said Fruehe.
AMD has also rationalised its pricing. The 4000 series will be aggressively priced, but the price for the 6000 price will be the same for a 2P or a 4P processor. AMD’s price is $1,386 while Intel’s 2P costs $1,633 and $3,600 for 4P systems. Said Fruehe.
The company also claims it outperforms Intel processors at both integer and floating point. “If you want to pay more money for Intel you can do that. Just know you get lower performance”. Said Fruehe.
AMD will have partners including Dell, Acer, HP, and Cray. It will also get support from the major software companies. Said Fruehe.
HP will introduce HP Proliant G7 servers using the Opteron 6100 series – the DL385 G6, DL165 G7 and the SL165z G7. HP said.
Heres bit more with Link to AMD Own Press Kitten.
With AMD's launch of its "Magny-Cours" Opteron 6100 processors today, another battalion in the x64 War of 2010 is moving into position, opposite the field from Intel's "Westmere-EP" Xeon 5600s. Tomorrow, Intel will roll out its big-gun "Nehalem-EX" Xeon 7500s, and in the second quarter, AMD will move its entry "Lisbon" Opteron 4100s into the front lines. The shooting will not wait until all the chips are in the field, of course, and this morning, the battle is already loud and smoky,Causilties & LitterBearercome in as Units Hit Market, Today Sides will Display Formations & Strenght in Early preDawn of Battle.
designed to scale up to 16 cores per processor, which is what is necessary to support the future 16-core "Bulldozer" cores in 2011. Bulldozer, which will plug into the G34 sockets used for the Opteron 6100s and the C32 sockets used for the Opteron 4100s).
integrated DDR3 main memory controller on the Opteron 6100s can support up to 1.33 GHz DDR3 DIMMs, delivering up to 42.7 GB/sec of memory bandwidth per G34 socket. That's 2.5 times the memory bandwidth of the Istanbul Opterons. If you want to use low-voltage DDR3 memory modules, then they top-out at 1.07 GHz, which means you get 20 per cent less memory bandwidth, but save somewhere around 10 per cent on the memory power usage for DIMMs.
AMD is supporting 8 GB DIMMs now with the Opteron 6100 systems, which means a two-socket box can support 24 memory slots (192 GB) and a four-socket box can go to 48 slots (384 GB).
twelve-core Magny-Cours chips provide about 88 per cent more integer performance and 119 per cent more floating point performance than the six-core "Istanbul" Opteron 2400 and 8400 chips they replace. Each 2 Bulldozer coes should render 1.8 times power of Single Core. Although New Module approach seems sure to increase final power condierably. While Mike Sips Mlk & honey, Early Bard Prepares Battle Plans. Paul Reveeeree', New Chips Ahoy, theGREAT White be amoung Flock. Dam Torpedoes, Launch When Ready Today. Squack,Squack, States Commodore Smidlap. Pengee' & Butterfly.
Just theFACTS, Jack: 6100 Numbers:top to bottom,6176SE,12Cor2.3Ghz12Mbcache105W$1,396/61742.2Ghz60W$1,165/,61722/1Ghz$989,/61681.9Ghz$744/,61362.4Ghz8Cores$744/,61342.3Ghz$523/,61262 Ghz$266/,6164HE1.7Ghz12Core65W$744/61282Ghz8Core$523/6124 1.8Ghz $455 when description isn't included that spec is same as unit to left that has that spec.
http://blogs.amd.com/work/amd-opteron%E2%84%A2-6000-series-platform-press-kit/
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