Super Micro primes 'Magny-Cours' Opterons

[zalbard]

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

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.



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.

Some XS users might want to get one of these soon... Or did they get these already?!

[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/

[demonkevy666]

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

[Smartidiot89]

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

[Movieman]

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

No rude taken..
Yes, and to qualify I mean with the current dual 1366 boards.
Single socket SM does allow OC'ing..
I stand corrected!

[JumpingJack]

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.

[saaya]

wow thats an odd shaped socket alright...

[duploxxx]

just a few more days and time to play

[madcho]

Hope AMD is gonna make insane FX with dual chip !!!

[Chrono Detector]

Look at the size of that motherboard, CPU socket and do those RAM slots look longer as well?

[Origin_Unknown]

whats the release dates on these puppys?

[ajaidev]

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



Also is c32 compatible with g34??

[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!

[Mechromancer]

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



Also is c32 compatible with g34??

Both of these boards are G34. Also C32 is not compatible with G34.

[Nedjo]

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



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/

[duploxxx]

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 ) and depending on the launch of c32-g34 intel is launching westmere as soon as possible to counter this.

[hyc]

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...

[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.

[Lokinhow]

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.

[Mechromancer]

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.

[hyc]

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.

[poke349]

Awesome... 8 slots for a single socket?

I'm sold.

[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,,

[Movieman]

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

[poke349]

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

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...