Super Micro primes 'Magny-Cours' Opterons

Printable View

11-28-2009, 05:35 PM
zalbard

Super Micro primes 'Magny-Cours' Opterons

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/

Quote:

SC09 Super Micro may not be a name-brand, tier-one server maker, but it's the motherboard and whitebox maker behind scads of tier two, three, and four server sellers around the globe. And that's because Super Micro gets out in front - and stays there - whenever a new technology is coming to market.

A year ago, at the SC08 supercomputing trade show, Super Micro was way ahead of the pack with motherboards supporting Intel's "Nehalem EP" Xeon 5500 processors, and it wasn't shy about showing off its wares a full four month before the Xeon 5500s were launched. Fast forward a year, and Super Micro was at SCO9 in Portland showing off two motherboards based on AMD's forthcoming "Magny-Cours" Opteron 6100s, their G34 socket, and the homegrown chipsets supporting them.

The Opteron 6100s and the G34 sockets are due at the end of the first quarter of 2010. Their "Lisbon" Opteron 4100 brethren and the C32 sockets are due later in the second quarter. So there is no point going over that ground again. There are a bunch of different ways to skin the future Opteron cats. What's interesting is how Super Micro is coming out of the gate with Opteron products and once again making a commitment to being first to market.

"We are definitely excited about the year coming up," says Don Clegg, vice president of marketing and worldwide business development, who took El Reg into the belly of the ginormous Super Micro booth at SC to show off the first of what will no doubt be many G34 mobos.

Technically speaking, the Opteron 6100s are aimed at two-socket and four-socket servers - and larger, if companies want to do their own chipsets - but Super Micro is being crafty and will actually deliver a uniprocessor mobo based on the Opteron 6100s. By doing so, the company can deliver a single-socket box with lots of memory and I/O, since the C32 socket is crimped compared to the G34 socket.

http://www.3dnews.ru/_imgdata/img/2009/11/28/151464.jpg

The lighting was poor inside the Super Micro booth, and I had not quite got the hang of using my new Droid phone's camera, so these pictures are pretty crappy. But as you can see in the picture to the left, the G34 uniprocessor board has eight memory slots, for a total of 64 GB of DDR3 main memory, and what looks like three PCI-Express 2.0 slots (two x8 and one x16) and three PCI-X slots.

With eight or twelve processor cores, this will make a pretty peppy workstation or entry server, depending on if you plunk a video card or a RAID disk controller into that x16 slot. This board is called the H8SGL-F, and the -F part of the name means that it has an IMPI management server embedded on the system board, which means it does not have to eat up a peripheral slot, as it does on other mobos.

http://www.3dnews.ru/_imgdata/img/2009/11/28/151465.jpg

Some XS users might want to get one of these soon... Or did they get these already?! :D :lol:
11-28-2009, 05:41 PM
Movieman

Some day I will get across to the guys here about the level of quality of the Supermicro boards. Just can't be touched and they don't break.
Only downside is lack of being able to OC them/
11-28-2009, 05:47 PM
demonkevy666

Those G34/32 sockets are huge they're 2/3 the lengths of the ram slots O_O
11-28-2009, 05:51 PM
Smartidiot89

Quote:

Originally Posted by Movieman

Some day I will get across to the guys here about the level of quality of the Supermicro boards. Just can't be touched and they don't break.
Only downside is lack of being able to OC them/

Don't meen to be rude but you're talking from experience with Intel?

I know that these boards will(should) be very clockable atleast with software such as k10stat.

If the price is right, damn I might just get a good single-socket G34 :D
11-28-2009, 05:55 PM
Movieman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smartidiot89

Don't meen to be rude but you're talking from experience with Intel?

I know that these boards will(should) be very clockable atleast with software such as k10stat.

If the price is right, damn I might just get a good single-socket G34 :D

No rude taken..:up:
Yes, and to qualify I mean with the current dual 1366 boards.
Single socket SM does allow OC'ing..
I stand corrected! :bows:
11-28-2009, 11:41 PM
JumpingJack

Quote:

Originally Posted by demonkevy666

Those G34/32 sockets are huge they're 2/3 the lengths of the ram slots O_O

:) They are two die put into one package, the socket should be roughly double.

AMD's point to point glueless design was both revolutionary (for x86) and well done, but it makes doing MCP logistically very difficult.
11-29-2009, 01:45 AM
saaya

wow thats an odd shaped socket alright...
11-29-2009, 01:59 AM
duploxxx

just a few more days and time to play :)
11-29-2009, 02:31 AM
madcho

Hope AMD is gonna make insane FX with dual chip !!! :D
11-29-2009, 03:25 AM
Chrono Detector

Look at the size of that motherboard, CPU socket and do those RAM slots look longer as well?
11-29-2009, 04:44 AM
Origin_Unknown

whats the release dates on these puppys?
11-29-2009, 06:19 AM
ajaidev

The single socket mobo is g34 or is it c32??

http://www.3dnews.ru/_imgdata/img/2009/11/28/151464.jpg

Also is c32 compatible with g34??
11-29-2009, 06:24 AM
Mechromancer

AMD, it would be so easy to release a desktop version of this for enthusiasts. All you need in MSI, Gigabyte, and ASUS to make ONE board each. I want one for my Folding@Home rig, cost-be-damned!
11-29-2009, 06:32 AM
Mechromancer

Quote:

Originally Posted by ajaidev

The single socket mobo is g34 or is it c32??

http://www.3dnews.ru/_imgdata/img/2009/11/28/151464.jpg

Also is c32 compatible with g34??

Both of these boards are G34. Also C32 is not compatible with G34.
11-29-2009, 06:36 AM
Nedjo

Quote:

Originally Posted by ajaidev

The single socket mobo is g34 or is it c32??

http://www.3dnews.ru/_imgdata/img/2009/11/28/151464.jpg

Also is c32 compatible with g34??

this is G34 mobo, C32 is something completely different:

http://blogs.amd.com/work/2009/07/29...stions-part-1/
11-29-2009, 10:49 AM
duploxxx

Quote:

Originally Posted by Origin_Unknown

whats the release dates on these puppys?

it's q1 2010 but AMD is trying to get it as fast as possible, samples are floating around real soon (yes yes santa is early this year:cool: ) and depending on the launch of c32-g34 intel is launching westmere as soon as possible to counter this.
11-29-2009, 12:28 PM
hyc

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mechromancer

AMD, it would be so easy to release a desktop version of this for enthusiasts. All you need in MSI, Gigabyte, and ASUS to make ONE board each. I want one for my Folding@Home rig, cost-be-damned!

How does AMD figure into this? Isn't it up to the mobo manufacturers themselves to arbitrarily decide what boards they'll make and try to sell?

C32/G34 is looking like Socket 754/939 all over again. Why waste time with the C32/S754...
11-29-2009, 01:55 PM
AliG

Largely different cpu sizes, that's why, just look at the size of the socket. The MCM cpus are going to be huge, and thus need a large socket. I suppose you could put the single die in a large ihs to fit it in the bigger socket, but amd said they have no intention of doing that. More than likely this is done for financial reasons, those who want the better cpus need to fork extra $$$ over for the better socket mobos.
11-29-2009, 02:41 PM
Lokinhow

Quote:

Originally Posted by hyc

How does AMD figure into this? Isn't it up to the mobo manufacturers themselves to arbitrarily decide what boards they'll make and try to sell?

C32/G34 is looking like Socket 754/939 all over again. Why waste time with the C32/S754...

C32/G34 looks more like LGA1156/LGA1366 than 754/939 in my opnion.
11-29-2009, 02:56 PM
Mechromancer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lokinhow

C32/G34 looks more like LGA1156/LGA1366 than 754/939 in my opnion.

I believe he meant they look to be short lived sockets. He wasn't talking about the physical characteristics.
11-29-2009, 03:22 PM
hyc

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mechromancer

I believe he meant they look to be short lived sockets. He wasn't talking about the physical characteristics.

Exactly. Glad to see that someone understands. ;)
11-29-2009, 03:24 PM
poke349

Awesome... 8 slots for a single socket?

I'm sold. :rolleyes:
11-29-2009, 03:31 PM
karbonkid

Pfft. Single CPU? you call that a computer?

Give me a Tyan any day...

Only joking, SM make great boards. Can't wait for Magny Cours, even though the only thing it'll mean for me is that I might be able to pick up used Shanghais at a decent price,,
11-29-2009, 03:33 PM
Movieman

I'm curious about what you can use for a heatsink for it.
IE: Would a TRUE base cover the cores?:shrug:
11-29-2009, 03:37 PM
poke349

Quote:

Originally Posted by Movieman

I'm curious about what you can use for a heatsink for it.
IE: Would a TRUE base cover the cores?:shrug:

Good point, that'll probably force you to use some proprietary sink until some 3rd party ones start showing up. And even then, there won't be too many of them.

As was the case with LGA771...
11-29-2009, 03:39 PM
Movieman

Quote:

Originally Posted by poke349

Good point, that'll probably force you to use some proprietary sink until some 3rd party ones start showing up. And even then, there won't be too many of them.

As was the case with LGA771...

Yea, but I got around that..
2-Dynatron H46-G's with 80mm Vantec tornadoes modded to fit..
Works excellent..:up:
11-29-2009, 03:39 PM
karbonkid

Quote:

Originally Posted by Movieman

I'm curious about what you can use for a heatsink for it.
IE: Would a TRUE base cover the cores?:shrug:

TRUE base is ~40mm. So no, I don't think it would.
11-29-2009, 03:44 PM
poke349

Quote:

Originally Posted by Movieman

Yea, but I got around that..
2-Dynatron H46-G's with 80mm Vantec tornadoes modded to fit..
Works excellent..:up:

Well... My harpertown rig was only the second rig I've built. And the first one was done some 6 years earlier - mostly by my dad... So in some sense, my harper rig is my first truly self-built rig.

So I definitely didn't have the balls at the time to do any sort of modding on a 10k rig. Even though we didn't have to pay for all it... it's still expensive stuff.
11-29-2009, 03:49 PM
Movieman

Quote:

Originally Posted by poke349

Well... My harpertown rig was only the second rig I've built. And the first one was done some 6 years earlier - mostly by my dad... So in some sense, my harper rig is my first truly self-built rig.

So I definitely didn't have the balls at the time to do any sort of modding on a 10k rig. Even though we didn't have to pay for all it... it's still expensive stuff.

making a fan fit a HS isn't modding, it's cake..10 mins with a cordless drill and searching the bins at the hardware store for the right screws.. cake..

Ok, sorry folks, back to topic..
GO AMD!:up:
11-29-2009, 03:52 PM
Manicdan

Quote:

Originally Posted by Movieman

making a fan fit a HS isn't modding, it's cake..10 mins with a cordless drill and zip-ties.. cake..

Ok, sorry folks, back to topic..
GO AMD!:up:

fixed for ya
11-29-2009, 03:53 PM
poke349

Quote:

Originally Posted by Movieman

making a fan fit a HS isn't modding, it's cake..10 mins with a cordless drill and searching the bins at the hardware store for the right screws.. cake..

Ok, sorry folks, back to topic..
GO AMD!:up:

Not when you're far away from home in some dorm room with no car or money... :rofl::rofl::rofl:

bleh... I have a tendency to get off topic too... :D
11-29-2009, 04:33 PM
Vienna

Teir two motherboard maker!?!??!!! An insult! <3 SuperMicro
11-29-2009, 04:41 PM
Movieman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vienna

Teir two motherboard maker!?!??!!! An insult! <3 SuperMicro

agreed.. Not commonly known but when Intel wants verification of a concept who do they turn to first? Supermicro..;)
11-29-2009, 07:05 PM
Lokinhow

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mechromancer

I believe he meant they look to be short lived sockets. He wasn't talking about the physical characteristics.

yess, but I wasn't talking about physical characteristics too.

LGA 1366 is for high performance, and LGA 1156 for more mainstream use, the same for G34/C32.

Or I understood it wrong? :shrug:
11-29-2009, 10:00 PM
haylui

hopefully these sockets are BullDozer compatible.
11-30-2009, 09:09 AM
[XC] Synthetickiller

Super Micro has never produces a mobo with OC options in the bios, right?

Maybe SM needs to take the initative and try to go into that market. I know they make great server boards, I own a dual socket 940 opty board, but I'd love to see them give Asus/GIgabyte/EVGA/MSI, etc a run for their money.

i7 isn't for me as the performance is NOT high enough to warrant moving from a q6600 @ 3.6ghz and more recently an P2 945 @ 3.75ghz to 4.0-4.4ghz for $800.

This sort of set up, with comparable clock for clock to i7 would be worth it considering that its 12 REAL cores and that it actually could OC to 4.0ghz (at least on water).

Ok, I'll stop dreaming....

Nice stuff anyways. :up:
11-30-2009, 09:13 AM
Smartidiot89

Quote:

Originally Posted by karbonkid

TRUE base is ~40mm. So no, I don't think it would.

Buy 2 TRUE, saw abit on the fins, use super-glue - BAM now we have a cooler supporting Magny-Cours:rofl:
11-30-2009, 09:47 AM
demonkevy666

socket G34 and socket C32 are sever sockets.
bulldozer will fit in AM3/AM3+. AM3 is not dead these do not replace desktop, but socket 1207 severs.
11-30-2009, 09:59 AM
Particle

Socket F love. You and I are destined to wander into obsolescence I fear.
11-30-2009, 10:09 AM
poke349

Quote:

Originally Posted by [XC] Synthetickiller

Super Micro has never produces a mobo with OC options in the bios, right?

Maybe SM needs to take the initative and try to go into that market. I know they make great server boards, I own a dual socket 940 opty board, but I'd love to see them give Asus/GIgabyte/EVGA/MSI, etc a run for their money.

i7 isn't for me as the performance is NOT high enough to warrant moving from a q6600 @ 3.6ghz and more recently an P2 945 @ 3.75ghz to 4.0-4.4ghz for $800.

This sort of set up, with comparable clock for clock to i7 would be worth it considering that its 12 REAL cores and that it actually could OC to 4.0ghz (at least on water).

Ok, I'll stop dreaming....

Nice stuff anyways. :up:

Allowing OC options would eat away at some of the market for the higher binned chips. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if Intel/AMD is paying these mobo companies to NOT allow OC options.
11-30-2009, 10:30 AM
Particle

Nonsense. Servers aren't going to be overclocked by anyone who is really in the market for one. They'll be OC'd by enthusiasts and fly-by-nights and that's it.
11-30-2009, 10:34 AM
poke349

Quote:

Originally Posted by Particle

Nonsense. Servers aren't going to be overclocked by anyone who is really in the market for one. They'll be OC'd by enthusiasts and fly-by-nights and that's it.

If I was a manager, and I knew some money could be saved like this. Then even if I didn't have the technical know how to do it, I'd find someone to do it.
11-30-2009, 11:01 AM
Manicdan

Quote:

Originally Posted by poke349

If I was a manager, and I knew some money could be saved like this. Then even if I didn't have the technical know how to do it, I'd find someone to do it.

chances are if you have a company and need a rackmount server, you probably are playing with data too valuable to let get corrupted by an OCed CPU.
11-30-2009, 11:07 AM
mk_dir

Quote:

Originally Posted by poke349

Awesome... 8 slots for a single socket?

I'm sold. :rolleyes:

Uhm quad memory acces it's the reason i think.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lokinhow

C32/G34 looks more like LGA1156/LGA1366 than 754/939 in my opnion.

The C32/G34 situation looks like this (C32 for 1P & 2P entry level servers, G34 for 2P & 4P performance market):

http://www.madboxpc.com/wp-content/u...md_sockets.jpg

Acording to this table, there's no single socket G34, only C32.

Quote:

Originally Posted by haylui

hopefully these sockets are BullDozer compatible.

http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/...AMDroadmap.png

For sure, new cores based on Bulldozer (Interlagos & Valencia) will use the same sockets, in fact the platform is the same (San Marino & Adelaide), only BIOS update required, it's my guess.
11-30-2009, 11:24 AM
poke349

Quote:

Originally Posted by Manicdan

chances are if you have a company and need a rackmount server, you probably are playing with data too valuable to let get corrupted by an OCed CPU.

Yes, that along with warranty issues would be the reason not to do so.
But if the cost benefit analysis turns up positive in the end, I can see someone doing this from a purely business perspective.

Of course I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I'm just thinking from an entirely business standpoint.
11-30-2009, 11:30 AM
[XC] Synthetickiller

Quote:

Originally Posted by Manicdan

chances are if you have a company and need a rackmount server, you probably are playing with data too valuable to let get corrupted by an OCed CPU.

+1

The people running the show don't want you messing with anything. Data corruption is not worth the extra speed. I've never even heard of an IT or related position being allowed to mess with hardware settings besides raid arrays, etc.

Enthusiasts would kill for a board with SLI/Crossfire, a socket or two with this cpu. :up:

I don't see it happening, but its always a nice thought, lol.
11-30-2009, 11:54 AM
Manicdan

Quote:

Originally Posted by [XC] Synthetickiller

+1

Enthusiasts would kill for a board with SLI/Crossfire, a socket or two with this cpu. :up:

I don't see it happening, but its always a nice thought, lol.

at that point you would be circuit breaker limited. youd have one PSU coming from the bathroom and one from the kitchen just to keep them from tripping.
11-30-2009, 12:12 PM
Don_Dan

Quote:

Originally Posted by Manicdan

at that point you would be circuit breaker limited. youd have one PSU coming from the bathroom and one from the kitchen just to keep them from tripping.

Do you really think it would consume more than 3600W?! I can hardly believe it.

On topic: Will this work with unbuffered DDR3 or ECC/registered only? :D
11-30-2009, 12:24 PM
Manicdan

Quote:

Originally Posted by Don_Dan

Do you really think it would consume more than 3600W?! I can hardly believe it.

On topic: Will this work with unbuffered DDR3 or ECC/registered only? :D

it was purely sarcasm. no way it would
11-30-2009, 12:26 PM
Don_Dan

Quote:

Originally Posted by Manicdan

it was purely sarcasm. no way it would

I fail. :D
11-30-2009, 12:31 PM
[XC] Synthetickiller

Quote:

Originally Posted by Manicdan

at that point you would be circuit breaker limited. youd have one PSU coming from the bathroom and one from the kitchen just to keep them from tripping.

I Know its a joke... but I doubt a system like that (dual socket cpus + SLI) would need more than 1000-1250, right?

I ran a dual socket that required 1000w simply for the dual 8 pin plugs on the mobo. Besides that, it did sli. I never ran SLI on the board, but I doubt the load I put on it was very high.....
11-30-2009, 12:46 PM
Smartidiot89

Quote:

Originally Posted by poke349

Yes, that along with warranty issues would be the reason not to do so.
But if the cost benefit analysis turns up positive in the end, I can see someone doing this from a purely business perspective.

Of course I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I'm just thinking from an entirely business standpoint.

Noone, and I meen noone in this type of market would ever OC their system.

AMD and Intel har guaranteed that X CPU should run perfectly fine under X% load for X amounts of years. Overclocking ruins everything and having a CPU crash could meen disaster.
11-30-2009, 01:36 PM
poke349

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smartidiot89

Noone, and I meen noone in this type of market would ever OC their system.

AMD and Intel har guaranteed that X CPU should run perfectly fine under X% load for X amounts of years. Overclocking ruins everything and having a CPU crash could meen disaster.

I agree with you, but "No one" is too strong of a word.

I know of someone who's self-employed and has BSEL modded Harpertowns for professional rendering.
11-30-2009, 01:44 PM
Manicdan

Quote:

Originally Posted by poke349

I agree with you, but "No one" is too strong of a word.

I know of someone who's self-employed and has BSEL modded Harpertowns for professional rendering.

hmm a graphics rendering business might actually like to OC...

i could see a few companies that would do testing and developing on cheaper OCed machines to reduce time and cost. but then run the final production print or whatever, on the non OCed servers.
11-30-2009, 01:53 PM
Particle

Quote:

Originally Posted by poke349

If I was a manager, and I knew some money could be saved like this. Then even if I didn't have the technical know how to do it, I'd find someone to do it.

That just isn't the attitude in the industry. It's hard enough convincing someone to buy servers without hard drives so that you can use your own, yet alone overclock at the risk of instability. If I were to tell my boss that we could get some more performance at the cost of maybe crashing more often or corrupting data, he'd think I were joking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by poke349

I know of someone who's self-employed and has BSEL modded Harpertowns for professional rendering.

No offense intended to the guy, but there's a big difference attitude-wise between a render box ran by a PC enthusiast as a one-man-show and the mainstream business of serving.
11-30-2009, 02:41 PM
Origin_Unknown

Quote:

Originally Posted by Particle

No offense intended to the guy, but there's a big difference attitude-wise between a render box ran by a PC enthusiast as a one-man-show and the mainstream business of serving.

indeed - my companys >100 users wouldnt be too happy if i was to overclock one of the exchange servers and it kill some mails etc
11-30-2009, 03:14 PM
poke349

Quote:

No offense intended to the guy, but there's a big difference attitude-wise between a render box ran by a PC enthusiast as a one-man-show and the mainstream business of serving.

No offense taken. :)

But when did I ever mention anything about large company-owned rack-mount servers?

I was thinking more along the lines of mini-workstations. Or render-boxes as Manicdan has mentioned.