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

[SocketMan]

Well, there's server affordable, and enthusiast affordable...

Your first statement makes me think it's over $700... the second makes me question that.

Fortunately launch is soon, so shouldn't take to long to find out.

I am not sure about the specific model numbers (for G34) but historically
there were 3 different Opterons for each family:2000,8000 and 1000
The 2000 runs on 2P and the 8000 would run on 2P,4P and 8P but would
cost much,much more (then 2000).

The 1000 is another story all together because of the "consumer" socket/pin
count.




Does AMD "allow" companies (like Asus,DFI,MSI,Gbyte etc) to make a 1P (or 2P) G34 consumer board?

[JF-AMD]

I am not sure about the specific model numbers (for G34) but historically
there were 3 different Opterons for each family:2000,8000 and 1000
The 2000 runs on 2P and the 8000 would run on 2P,4P and 8P but would
cost much,much more (then 2000).

The 1000 is another story all together because of the "consumer" socket/pin
count.




Does AMD "allow" companies (like Asus,DFI,MSI,Gbyte etc) to make a 1P (or 2P) G34 consumer board?

All bets are off as we move to 4000 and 6000.

I will allow anyone to build anything that sells more Opteron processors.

However, these processors are focused on the enterprise market, not consumer. You will not see support for consumer features and things like overclocking.

I generally recommend Phenom parts for consumers because you will get a better experience.

[Movieman]

All bets are off as we move to 4000 and 6000.

I will allow anyone to build anything that sells more Opteron processors.

However, these processors are focused on the enterprise market, not consumer. You will not see support for consumer features and things like overclocking.

I generally recommend Phenom parts for consumers because you will get a better experience.

I know and understand the thinking here but for what it's worth there is a pretty sizable market out there for us dual socket fans that also like to get the most out of our machines.
Just look at the interest there is in the new W555 dual socket 1366 board by EVGA and you'll understand.
Personally from what I've seen these Magny-Cours 12 core chips look to be very impressive and would love to see a board out there that could max them out.

[Frank M]

Opteron 6xxx series pricing -- source

Type Clock L2 cache L3 cache Cons. (ACP - TDP) List price
Opteron 6128 1,5 GHz 8 x 512 kB 2 x 6 MB 75 - 115 W €254
Opteron 6134 1,7 GHz 8 x 512 kB 2 x 6 MB 75 - 115 W €489
Opteron 6136 2,4 GHz 8 x 512 kB 2 x 6 MB 75 - 115 W €692
Opteron 6168 1,9 GHz 12 x 512 kB 2 x 6 MB 75 - 115 W €692
Opteron 6172 2,1 GHz 12 x 512 kB 2 x 6 MB 75 - 115 W €917
Opteron 6174 2,2 GHz 12 x 512 kB 2 x 6 MB 75 - 115 W €1078

8 cores for €254
Even the highest-end 12-core seems more than reasonable at €1078

[savantu]

Opteron 6xxx series pricing -- source

Type Clock L2 cache L3 cache Cons. (ACP - TDP) List price
Opteron 6128 1,5 GHz 8 x 512 kB 2 x 6 MB 75 - 115 W €254
Opteron 6134 1,7 GHz 8 x 512 kB 2 x 6 MB 75 - 115 W €489
Opteron 6136 2,4 GHz 8 x 512 kB 2 x 6 MB 75 - 115 W €692
Opteron 6168 1,9 GHz 12 x 512 kB 2 x 6 MB 75 - 115 W €692
Opteron 6172 2,1 GHz 12 x 512 kB 2 x 6 MB 75 - 115 W €917
Opteron 6174 2,2 GHz 12 x 512 kB 2 x 6 MB 75 - 115 W €1078

8 cores for €254
Even the highest-end 12-core seems more than reasonable at €1078

Well, that tells us a lot about it's relative performance to comparable Intel products. AMD would have surely asked for more if they held the upper hand.
So Opteron 6174 will more or less match a 6 core 3,33GHz Gulftown.

[Behemot]

Well, that tells us a lot about it's relative performance to comparable Intel products. AMD would have surely asked for more if they held the upper hand.

Or they just want to ruin Intel sales and gain far more market share...?

[JF-AMD]

Well, that tells us a lot about it's relative performance to comparable Intel products. AMD would have surely asked for more if they held the upper hand.
So Opteron 6174 will more or less match a 6 core 3,33GHz Gulftown.

I beg to differ on that one. Our pricing stacks are put together based on the market and customers, not the compeition.

At any performance level you will see a much better price on AMD. Plain and simple.

[informal]

Well, that tells us a lot about it's relative performance to comparable Intel products. AMD would have surely asked for more if they held the upper hand.
So Opteron 6174 will more or less match a 6 core 3,33GHz Gulftown.

In the intended workloads(throughput) for the 12 core Opteron,the 6 core Westmere at 3.3Ghz is going to get beat... You can't fight 12 10h cores @ 2.2Ghz with even a 3.3Ghz 6 core Nehalem with a bit more of cache.Plain and simple.

[-Sweeper_]

I beg to differ on that one. Our pricing stacks are put together based on the market and customers, not the compeition.

At any performance level you will see a much better price on AMD. Plain and simple.

oh rly?

you better price X6 lower than U$280 then

[JF-AMD]

I don't do client processors, I do server processors.

[savantu]

Or they just want to ruin Intel sales and gain far more market share...?

One of the major cash cows for AMD was its server CPUs, more importantly the 4P segment where it held the performance lead over in 2004-2009. Selling the same CPUs you had on desktops for $99 for $1800 surely had a positive impact on margins.
Now they eliminate the segmentation. Good or bad ? Depends on who will have the performance crown and more features.

I believe it's mostly targeted at 2S price levels, because that's where their performance will be. Beckton has enough oomph and scalability features to ask for a premium at 4 and 8S.

In the intended workloads(throughput) for the 12 core Opteron,the 6 core Westmere at 3.3Ghz is going to get beat... You can't fight 12 10h cores @ 2.2Ghz with even a 3.3Ghz 6 core Nehalem with a bit more of cache.Plain and simple.

Same number of threads, 50% more frequency, 50% more cache. Are you sure ? I think they will be really close.

There was a Prime benchmarks shown around here, 2P MC with 24 cores and 3GHz was 15% faster or something like that than a 2P Gulftown with 12 cores and 3.6Ghz. And we're talking best case scenario SW wise to load a CPU.

I beg to differ on that one. Our pricing stacks are put together based on the market and customers, not the compeition.

At any performance level you will see a much better price on AMD. Plain and simple.

I hope you aren't saying that with a straight face; I still remember people paying $400 for A64 3800+ and $2200 for an 8xxx Opteron back in 2005.

Your pricing is where you can sell enough stuff to make some money and keep FAB utilization to an acceptable level, so fixed costs won't ruin you. And that level is mostly set by where the competition is performance wise.

If possible, you would gladly start pricing Magny Cours from $1800. Unfortunately, it overlaps quite a bit in performance with 2S Nehalems/Gulftowns, that is the $250-$1300 range, which is exactly where your price is btw.

[accord99]

In the intended workloads(throughput) for the 12 core Opteron,the 6 core Westmere at 3.3Ghz is going to get beat... You can't fight 12 10h cores @ 2.2Ghz with even a 3.3Ghz 6 core Nehalem with a bit more of cache.Plain and simple.

Except Nehalem typically gets 50% or more throughput per core so Westmere with a 3:2 clockspeed advantage is going to be capable of matching or exceeding Magny Cours in throughput, except for things like Linpack.

[informal]

AMD is not targeting a small wprime application with its 6100 series... In the intended workloads these chips will be great and the price will be even better. What's evident is that AMD is executing perfectly since Shanghai and this is an indication of what we will see with BD launch.

Except Nehalem typically gets 50% or more throughput per core so Westmere with a 3:2 clockspeed advantage is going to be capable of matching or exceeding Magny Cours in throughput, except for things like Linpack.

Make that a 60%,or wait 90%... Dream on man.
MC is a DDR3 based platform and there will be more to come in terms of power efficiency and clocks . If AMD is doing this with its current 45nm cores what will happen when they launch 16 core Bulldozers next year,in the same infrastructure ?

[accord99]

Make that a 60%,or wait 90%... Dream on man.

So, current 4 core Nehalems don't already match or exceed the throughput of 6 core Opterons?

MC is a DDR3 based platform and there will be more to come in terms of power efficiency and clocks . If AMD is doing this with its current 45nm cores what will happen when they launch 16 core Bulldozers next year,in the same infrastructure ?

Underclocking and Undervolting isn't that hard of a game to play.

[Wiggy McShades]

Intel is focused on hyperthreading to get to that core count. But hyperthreading is never a good replacement for real cores.

They'll get there in core count, but I haven't heard them explain in public that they will get there ahead of us. Sandybridge is their next architecture, but we will be at 16 cores by then, pretty sure they will still be in the single digits.

What are you thoughts on a higher performance core versus core count? I'm not sure what part of amd you work in, but I'm just curious if the market these guys are targeted at truly have applications that can take advantage of the core count to make up for a slower cores.

[informal]

So, current 4 core Nehalems don't already match or exceed the throughput of 6 core Opterons?


Underclocking and Undervolting isn't that hard of a game to play.

Current Opterons are DDR2 only and work at lower frequency. Current single Opteron core is 15.6mm2 while current single Nehalem core is 24.5mm2,so it would be embarrassing for it to not perform (per core) better than 10h.

Underclocking and Undervolting is not what I'm talking about.It's AMD's CTI.

[ajaidev]

So, current 4 core Nehalems don't already match or exceed the throughput of 6 core Opterons?


Underclocking and Undervolting isn't that hard of a game to play.

Yes quad Nehalems do but 6 core AMD's are priced similarly and you will notice that in a whole platform the AMD system has a edge price wise

Underclocking and Undervolting is a very hard game to play in server world. Going away from specified perimeters voids the warranty on any server chip and worst than that insurance will not cover the chip anymore and you dont want to do that.

I know about examinations that are carried out by TATA insurance company "India" once a month to insure that the server is treated rite.

[hollo]

let magny IPC = 1, magny frequency = 1, let's say a westmere core with hyperthreading = 1.3 magnycour cores (?), and compare 3.33ghz westmere to 2.2ghz magny

magny performance = 12 (cores) * 1.0 (relative IPC) * 1.0 (relative frequency) = 12
westm performance = _6 (cores) * 1.3 (relative IPC) * 1.5 (relative frequency) = 11.7

?

[god_43]

hmm it seems as if that would be correct.


http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis...urs_Chips.html

[zalbard]

let magny IPC = 1, magny frequency = 1, let's say a westmere core with hyperthreading = 1.3 magnycour cores (?), and compare 3.33ghz westmere to 2.2ghz magny

magny performance = 12 (cores) * 1.0 (relative IPC) * 1.0 (relative frequency) = 12
westm performance = _6 (cores) * 1.3 (relative IPC) * 1.5 (relative frequency) = 11.7

?

That's about right, yeah, the IPC different isn't that big, though.
Remember that Westmere pricing will probably be higher for 2-4 socket platforms.

[mstp2009]

Lord those clocks SUCK.

Many cores vs. better clocks. In the end, they will probably be on par in performance. And if not, I would suspect Intel's 32nm 6-cores have some headroom in clock frequency even at the server TDPs (my own experiences show this to be true).

[ajaidev]

AMD will offer 6 core for 35w

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis..._Platform.html


Now since Thuban may share similar internals as this we can expect lower watts thuban also? That would be sweet when single core is used ramp it up otherwise when all cores are used return to stock.

[JF-AMD]

What are you thoughts on a higher performance core versus core count? I'm not sure what part of amd you work in, but I'm just curious if the market these guys are targeted at truly have applications that can take advantage of the core count to make up for a slower cores.

Server customers look at total CPU throughput, so more cores is a better thing. We went from single to dual, dual to quad, quad to hex and nobody ever looked back.

Client, on the other hand, may be more predisposed to fewer cores at higher clocks. Many client aplications are not as threaded, so clocks are more important.

[hollo]

AMD will offer 6 core for 35w

not sure what to make of this wording?

AMD Opteron 4160 EE and 4158 EE chips will be clocked at tremendously low clock-speeds – 1.60GHz and 1.50GHz – however, this makes us hope that the microprocessors will also consume dramatically low amount of power – up to 35W.

[Manicdan]

that 4160EE is on 45nm right? if so thats very impressive. would beat a 3ghz tri-core using laptop like power consumption, if every program scaled perfectly of coarse.