AMD: the world's first 12-core processor has begun shipping

[ajaidev]

Intel 2x12 (2x Gulftown) lose in wprime :-)
Magny cours vs server Gulftown

I am sure there will be no 3Ghz "stock" 12 core from AMD but there will be a X5680 which has 3.33ghz stock from Intel.

But then again the prices matter, Intel will start its 6 cores from 2.66ghz to 3.33Ghz. AMD will start of its 12 core cpu from 1.9Ghz till 2.3Ghz and the 8 cored ones from 2.0Ghz till 2.4Ghz.

I dont think the AMD 8 core cpu would be much of a match for a Intel six core 2P but Intel quads even the ones based on Gulftown are in danger.

This is the way i see it:

Hex Lisbon 2P < Quad Gulftown 2P < Octa Magny Cours 2P < Hex Gulftown 2P < Dodeca Magny Cours 2P < Octa Magny Cours 4P < Octa Beckton 4P ~ Dodeca Magny Cours 4P < Octa Beckton 8P

JF-AMD can you pls tell if the Octa Magny Cours is based on two shanghai cores or something new?

[JF-AMD]

No, based on 2 lisbon dies. Shanghai is 2 steps back from MC.

[ajaidev]

No, based on 2 lisbon dies. Shanghai is 2 steps back from MC.

Since MC seems to be around much before lisbon its hard to keep perspective

If one thinks about it all the cpus for 2010 are somehow based on lisbon. Thuban is based on Lisbon and MC 8/12 are both McM's of Lisbon. All AMD had to do was to create a Lisbon, Istanbul must have helped out a lot.

The result AMD can offer comparative performance in 1P, 2P and 4P for a bit more die size and core count and the after effects is the cpu engg. team can devote their time to bulldozer its a very good plan in fact.

Because AMD can offer comparative performance as Intel in 1P 2P and 4P for similar/lower price the stock will not get much effected and AMD stays a float till BD arrives

[clo007]

Oh, and my name is not Jeff.

Yeah, it's John lol

[alfaunits]

I was with our power lab guys on Friday and they said "same power, idles lower."

That was a platform statement though because you have different chipset, different memory and some platform level things.

Sounds quite good - 12*2.3 vs 6*2.6 at same power.

[EniGmA1987]

Hey JF-AMD, Why not release a bios with a couple overclocking options? Its not like OEMs would ever touch them and it would be great for up people who really like having dual socket computers but also love to overclock. The thing I miss most since I went dual quads is the fact that Im stuck at 2.6GHz

Maybe release a single model of these new CPUs as an "OC" model that when the bios detects it a few new options get unlocked? That way the OEMs can still get their normal CPUs and no one has to worry about someone touching something they shouldnt, and those of us that want to push these CPUs can still have our fun too

[haylui]

Sounds like an impressive chip, now my questions are:
How did AMD get ahead of Intel in the cores count? (Or why did Intel slow down?)
How's Intel going to answer to this?

6 core Gulftown has got 12 threads
virtually, it didn't look different in Windows Task Manager...lolz

[clo007]

Hey JF-AMD, Why not release a bios with a couple overclocking options? Its not like OEMs would ever touch them and it would be great for up people who really like having dual socket computers but also love to overclock. The thing I miss most since I went dual quads is the fact that Im stuck at 2.6GHz

Maybe release a single model of these new CPUs as an "OC" model that when the bios detects it a few new options get unlocked? That way the OEMs can still get their normal CPUs and no one has to worry about someone touching something they shouldnt, and those of us that want to push these CPUs can still have our fun too

That's a nice idea

[InSanCen]

I have a Question if you are allowed to answer JF.

I have a Client that has a renderfarm. He is currently turning away work as he is limited in floorspace for his racks (Vertically is not a problem, but become unmanageable over 64U). He is literally crying out for more power in the available space.

Can you give me a *rough* idea on how these things will crunch through 3D animation and raytracing? I know You can't go into detail until launch. I just want to know if it will work out more throughput/$ than the other company's hex-core. I am not sure on the software, but I can find out if it helps.

If it helps, and the numbers stack up, he's looking at ~960 units (Assuming 4P boards are available in short order post launch).

Fitting into the same TDP as Istanbul is great, No need to eat up more of the capacity in his cooling plant.

[JF-AMD]

Hey JF-AMD, Why not release a bios with a couple overclocking options? Its not like OEMs would ever touch them and it would be great for up people who really like having dual socket computers but also love to overclock. The thing I miss most since I went dual quads is the fact that Im stuck at 2.6GHz

Maybe release a single model of these new CPUs as an "OC" model that when the bios detects it a few new options get unlocked? That way the OEMs can still get their normal CPUs and no one has to worry about someone touching something they shouldnt, and those of us that want to push these CPUs can still have our fun too

These processors are focused on enterprise workloads. In these markets, overclocking is not desired, it is actually a problem. If an IT guy overclocks the server and it crashes, people lose their data. If you ask someone if they want 10% more performance or 10% more stability, they will take stability every time.

I'll let the client guys deal with the overclocking, it's just not for us. We focus on the enterprise.

[JF-AMD]

6 core Gulftown has got 12 threads
virtually, it didn't look different in Windows Task Manager...lolz

Yes, you'll see Intel talk out of both sides of their mouth on this one. They'll call gulftown a 6 core when they are trying to compare performance (we already see them talking about "single core performance" as if you could buy a 1 core model...)

We both have philosophical differences on how we approach design, so I recommend that customers ignore the cores and ignore the threads.

What is the price, what is the power consumption and what is the performance. Then buy the best part.

It will be Opteron.

[JF-AMD]

I have a Question if you are allowed to answer JF.

I have a Client that has a renderfarm. He is currently turning away work as he is limited in floorspace for his racks (Vertically is not a problem, but become unmanageable over 64U). He is literally crying out for more power in the available space.

Can you give me a *rough* idea on how these things will crunch through 3D animation and raytracing? I know You can't go into detail until launch. I just want to know if it will work out more throughput/$ than the other company's hex-core. I am not sure on the software, but I can find out if it helps.

If it helps, and the numbers stack up, he's looking at ~960 units (Assuming 4P boards are available in short order post launch).

Fitting into the same TDP as Istanbul is great, No need to eat up more of the capacity in his cooling plant.

I am hammered with meetings all week, but PM me with your contact info and we can discuss some things.

[Nedjo]

I have a Question if you are allowed to answer JF.

I have a Client that has a renderfarm. He is currently turning away work as he is limited in floorspace for his racks (Vertically is not a problem, but become unmanageable over 64U). He is literally crying out for more power in the available space.

Can you give me a *rough* idea on how these things will crunch through 3D animation and raytracing? I know You can't go into detail until launch. I just want to know if it will work out more throughput/$ than the other company's hex-core. I am not sure on the software, but I can find out if it helps.

If it helps, and the numbers stack up, he's looking at ~960 units (Assuming 4P boards are available in short order post launch).

Fitting into the same TDP as Istanbul is great, No need to eat up more of the capacity in his cooling plant.

this might give you some clue: http://www.expresscomputeronline.com...estudy02.shtml

[tool_462]

intel has no non es hex

Xeon 74xx are 6 core 45nm chips and have been around since 2008.

[JF-AMD]

Well, 24 cores with a single memory controller and front side bus? They don't talk a lot about that one.

[lutjens]

The fact that the CPUs were already on sale makes this a moot statement by AMD. Having a 12 core CPU is impressive, but the reduced clock speed of these processors is a definite drawback to implementations that don't fully exercise all the cores. Intel's Turbo is a very nice feature and it's a shame a similar feature isn't present on Magny-Cours, that would disable/deep idle some cores and boost clock speeds in appropriate situations. I think that Beckton, when Intel finally decides to grace us with its presence, will be more than competitive though.

I think its like a mandatory thing isn't it to be called "proper" member of a DC Team here on Xs :p

I remember when we where running D2OL and R@H here the Dual Xeon 1.6Ghz LV ones, clocked and modded to.... 2.8Ghz where the thing to have, and everyone had'm


So no one say Dual Socket boards are not for consumers... I'm NEVER going back to a single core.

Dual CPU's for the win

Amen to that...it's like going from ground beef to filet mignon...once you try it, it's very hard to go back...

However, Westmere will negate many of the advantages of Gainestown, as it has been shown that Westmere UP@4.00GHz is very close to Gainestown@~3.00GHz in multi-threaded apps. Westmere DP will open the gap again, but only for those applications capable of exercising all those cores. My main motivation for getting and continuing to use a DP system is the dual chipset feature of the 5520 chipset and the extra PCI-E lanes provided by this configuration, without any bridge chip entanglements/concerns. The massive I/O bandwidth is nice too...

[InSanCen]

The fact that the CPUs were already on sale makes this a moot statement by AMD. Having a 12 core CPU is impressive, but the reduced clock speed of these processors is a definite drawback to implementations that don't fully exercise all the cores. Intel's Turbo is a very nice feature and it's a shame a similar feature isn't present on Magny-Cours, that would disable/deep idle some cores and boost clock speeds in appropriate situations. I think that Beckton, when Intel finally decides to grace us with its presence, will be more than competitive though.

There servers that will be built using these chips are unlikely to be idle for very long, on any number of cores. To my mind, that's a desktop feature rather than something I would include when speccing out a server. If cores are Idle, something is wrong with the system as a whole (No numbers being fed to it to crunch), or you have hugely over-specced the system.

[gallag]

Well, 24 cores with a single memory controller and front side bus? They don't talk a lot about that one.

At least 95% of the market would not have cared about that, Right?

[kl0012]

this might give you some clue: http://www.expresscomputeronline.com...estudy02.shtml

How exactly does this relate to what he asked?

Kumar said, “In this test actually, we didn't compare AMD quad core with any other machine because no other vendor was having quad core processors at that time. We did our benchmark with Dual core Intel Xeons against AMD dual core machines.” ...

Wow! Really impressive comparision... I would not be surprised if they used the old P4 Xeons.

[Behemot]

There servers that will be built using these chips are unlikely to be idle for very long, on any number of cores. To my mind, that's a desktop feature rather than something I would include when speccing out a server. If cores are Idle, something is wrong with the system as a whole (No numbers being fed to it to crunch), or you have hugely over-specced the system.

+1

Virtualization rule the world, most customers will just hapilly run more virtual machines on less physical machines, keeping most of cores utilized.

If there is somebody who will use only one core most the time, he probably won't buy 12core. Still some kind of Turbo could help sometimes, even more if it could overclock e.g 4 cores of 12.

[lutjens]

There servers that will be built using these chips are unlikely to be idle for very long, on any number of cores. To my mind, that's a desktop feature rather than something I would include when speccing out a server. If cores are Idle, something is wrong with the system as a whole (No numbers being fed to it to crunch), or you have hugely over-specced the system.

You're quite right, but I was considering the implications of Magny-Cours on my little workstation-y world and how such a processor would slide into it (poorly).

One could also argue that, while such a processor may find a home in a server that will likely be heavily loaded during normal hours, periods of less than full usage are possible during off hours. The reduced load at times like this, and the resulting TDP headroom (and bin or two of Turbo speed that would occur), would provide additional alacrity for the active tasks on the CPU.

[duploxxx]

At least 95% of the market would not have cared about that, Right?

have you ever worked with those 4s 73xx and 74xx bandwidth starving servers?

95% of the market, no rather 5% of the intel server market and most bought by fouls thinking they buy the right server while it is total junk equal to the pentium xeon era.

I am sure there will be no 3Ghz "stock" 12 core from AMD but there will be a X5680 which has 3.33ghz stock from Intel.

But then again the prices matter, Intel will start its 6 cores from 2.66ghz to 3.33Ghz. AMD will start of its 12 core cpu from 1.9Ghz till 2.3Ghz and the 8 cored ones from 2.0Ghz till 2.4Ghz.

I dont think the AMD 8 core cpu would be much of a match for a Intel six core 2P but Intel quads even the ones based on Gulftown are in danger.

This is the way i see it:

Hex Lisbon 2P < Quad Gulftown 2P < Octa Magny Cours 2P < Hex Gulftown 2P < Dodeca Magny Cours 2P < Octa Magny Cours 4P < Octa Beckton 4P ~ Dodeca Magny Cours 4P < Octa Beckton 8P

beckton is a whole different story, aiming for other market share (RISC - sparc) and to expensive to compare against 4P magny cours, not to mention already 1-2 years delayed, sounds like itanium

[ajaidev]

have you ever worked with those 4s 73xx and 74xx bandwidth starving servers?

95% of the market, no rather 5% of the intel server market and most bought by fouls thinking they buy the right server while it is total junk equal to the pentium xeon era.



beckton is a whole different story, aiming for other market share (RISC - sparc) and to expensive to compare against 4P magny cours, not to mention already 1-2 years delayed, sounds like itanium

Yes thats true but since beckton is x86 it can run quite a few x86 based network app's that magny cours can also do.

The impression of HT in such app's is not at 0%, dont think people will not buy beckton 4P systems for things like virtualization, cloud, etc. The 4P based on beckton will in no way be a slouch and may give the 4P magny cours a very bad fight.

I know people who run a cloud center and they use mostly quad nehalems in 2P sets connected via stream data cable. If they got their hands on a 4P based on Beckton that would equal about 4 * 2P "Nehalem" in performance if we take it as scalier which both do not.

The 4P Beckton will give them more energy efficiency and effectiveness. Also the software will not need to be modified much its a win win scenario.

[informal]

@ajaidev

The price is the key factor when it comes to Beckton.The thing is huge and uber expensive ,plus the platform as a whole will cost an arm and a leg(not in MC league,neither in regards to the price nor market segment).

[JF-AMD]

The 4P Beckton will give them more energy efficiency and effectiveness. Also the software will not need to be modified much its a win win scenario.

I will take the "over" on this bet. 1 4P Beckton actually has the potential to be more than double the power consumption of 2 Nehalems.

Each memory channel had an integrated buffer that adds cost, power and heat. Combine that with a price that is 2X the cost of Nehalem on the processors and I doubt you will see anyone in cloud heading in that direction.

Don't forget that Beckton is only 45nm.