DailyTech - AMD Talks Octal-Core Opterons

Submit News

Hardware AMD Talks Octal-Core Opterons
Anh T. Huynh & Kristopher Kubicki - July 26, 2007 1:52 PM

E-mail

del.icio.us

61 comment(s) - last by TimberJon.. on Jul 31 at 4:18 PM

Slide previewing "Sandtiger" and third-generation Opteron platform (Source: AMD)

New eight-core "Sandtiger" set for 2009 on third-generation Opteron platform

AMD previewed its third-generation Opteron platform during the company’s Technology Analyst. The third-generation AMD Opteron platform is set for a 2009 debut with a new Sandtiger-core processor. AMD’s current Socket 1207 platform is the Opteron’s second-generation platform and designed to accommodate Opteron revision F, Barcelona and the 45nm die-shrink Shanghai processors.

Sandtiger ups the core ante with eight-cores. AMD will manufacture the octal-core Sandtiger on a 45nm fabrication process. Sandtiger introduces HyperTransport 3.0, or HT3, to AMD’s server and workstation platforms. The processor will have four HyperTransport links with a new Direct Connect 2 infrastructure.

Sandtiger will also support DDR3 memory. The third-generation AMD Opteron platform will be the first platform to support G3 Memory Extender, or G3MX, technology for larger memory capacities. The platform also supports PCI Express 2.0.

New server and workstation chipsets will accommodate the new platform. AMD makes no mention on socket compatibility of the third-generation Opteron platform, but AMD’s track record shows socket changes with a new platform.

Before Sandtiger, AMD has Shanghai up its sleeves. Shanghai will be the 45nm shrink of Barcelona. AMD has Shanghai on the roadmap for a 2008 launch to replace Barcelona. Shanghai will drop into existing second-generation AMD Opteron platforms.

Shanghai features minor improvements such as a 6MB L3 cache and IPC improvements. The core will continue to have 512KB of L2 cache per core with three HT1 links. Registered DDR2 memory continues to be the memory of choice for Shanghai.

Expect AMD to unveil its third-generation AMD Opteron platform with G3MX technology and Sandtiger core in 2009 and Shanghai around the second half of 2008.

Comments

Threshold

Username
Password
remember me

This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

Sweet!

By Duraz0rz on 7/26/2007 2:09:12 PM , Rating: 4

Awesome stuff from AMD recently. Although Intel has the upper hand as of now, AMD is developing great stuff and building up on it. If Barcelona does well, I think the future is going to look bright for everyone.

RE: Sweet!

By webdawg77 on 7/26/2007 2:13:42 PM , Rating: 2

That's a BIG if . And no, I'm not an Intel fanboi. I have 3 X2 3800s and 1 X2 4200 running at the house.

Parent

RE: Sweet!

By helios220 on 7/26/2007 2:27:44 PM , Rating: 5

Regardless of personal preference, success of future AMD platforms will ultimately be most beneficial to the consumer. Intel has really done well recently, but for a long time before that we saw AMD preaching that innovative architecture was the key to future development while Intel just kept upping the clock frequencies on existing 32-bit platforms.

Regardless of whether you love Intel enough to name your child Pentium, solid competition from AMD has been a driving force for Intel to innovate. If AMD withers away again ultimately it’s going to result in less innovative product lines for everyone.

Parent

RE: Sweet!

By Master Kenobi

(blog) on 7/26/07, Rating: 0

By Master Kenobi

(blog) on 7/26/2007 2:44:07 PM , Rating: 0

Need to clear up some misconceptions.

#1, Intel has had 64-bit longer than AMD. (See Itanium)

#2, Intel was the original X86 Architecture.

#3, AMD Copied the Intel design resulting in a legal tangle and the subsequent cross-sharing of IP between AMD and Intel.

#4, The only variation from the original Pentium architecture was P4, which flopped.

#5, Intel has superior process technology, and always has. This has enabled them to produce chips for less than AMD. Allowing them to make more money.

#6, Intel's shrink to 65nm over a year ago has allowed them to sell Core 2 processors at a nice price premium. The shrink to 45nm rolling out in volume in the next 3 months will further slash manufacturing costs of Intel, allowing them to futher slash prices if they want to and still make a profit, otherwise it's just larger profit margins.

#7, Barcelona was promised back in late 06. It STILL has not materialized, although we are expecting a September/October timeframe to see these hit market. AMD does not have a good track record of delivering on target right now.

#8, a 45nm shrink for AMD is a ways off and I think the 2009 timeframe sounds reasonable. That's about the time Intel is talking a shrink to 32nm.

Parent

RE: Sweet!

By KristopherKubicki

(blog) on 7/26/2007 3:01:13 PM , Rating: 3

To AMD's credit, I think 45nm is going to happen a lot faster than its 65nm ramp. The company put too many eggs in one basket with that ramp, but Fab 36 is not the only plans for 2008.

Parent

RE: Sweet!

By AMDfreak on 7/26/2007 3:08:21 PM , Rating: 5

quote:
#1, Intel has had 64-bit longer than AMD. (See Itanium)

This is true, but it should also be noted that AMD was the first to do 64-bit on x86. It is also notable that Intel copied AMD's 64-bit x86 solution.

AMD is having trouble with getting Barcelona's to run fast, and as a company seem to be floundering a bit. I hope they come back stronger than ever, but i don't see a light at the end of the tunnel yet.

As for me, I have succumbed to the Dark Side and have a G0 Q6600 on the way...

Parent

RE: Sweet!

By KTLA on 7/26/2007 3:09:17 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
#1, Intel has had 64-bit longer than AMD. (See Itanium)

There's no misconception. Everyone knows that Intel developed IA64 before AMD invented AMD64.

Everyone also knows that AMD64 won that fight, despite being released much later.

One may argue that IA64 is "better" that AMD64, but one CANNOT argue that AMD was the company that moved 64-bit from a miniscule fraction of chips to an everyday feature.

Parent

RE: Sweet!

By FITCamaro on 7/26/2007 3:18:08 PM , Rating: 3

IA64 does not have anything to do with x86-64. It is a true 64 bit design that can not run 32-bit code. Now of course though Intel has added backwards compatibility with 32-bit code but that originally was not the case.

x86-64 is the complete opposite being an extension of the x86 architecture that allows 64-bit code to be run.

IA64 was nothing new as true 64-bit chips were already in existence. It was just Intel's first try at it. It is also not even in the same category being mainly used for high end mainframes and supercomputers and cost over $1000 even for the lowest end models.

Parent

RE: Sweet!

By S3anister on 7/27/2007 5:27:02 PM , Rating: 2

NINTENDO SIXTY FOURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Parent

RE: Sweet!

By miker75 on 7/29/2007 7:27:33 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
It was just Intel's first try at it. It is also not even in the same category being mainly used for high end mainframes and supercomputers and cost over $1000 even for the lowest end models.

True, but that wasn't Intel's original plan..
I remember reading years ago (when I was excited about the Itanium), that Intel was planning first to implement the Itanium on the server end, then to deploy cut-down versions into desktops and workstations...

But then as we all know, that changed when AMD brought out AMD64..

Parent

RE: Sweet!

By jconan on 7/31/2007 2:03:08 AM , Rating: 2

Before IA64 Intel did the same thing with IA32 x86-32 on Pentium II. PII was not very compatible with 16 bit applications and ran 16 bit code slow it did not sell very well. Hence Pentium III was born and as for the IA64 Intel probably forgot about the lessons from PII and it may be one of the reasons of Itanium's slow adoption into the marketplace and why x86-64 is successful.

Parent

RE: Sweet!

By Chadder007 on 7/26/2007 3:52:43 PM , Rating: 2

I just wish that companies would take more advantage of x64 than they have been. Hasn't there been only like 2 games that take advantage of anything a 64bit OS has to offer? Also, Adobe is going to be a few more years also in releasing an x64 suite of its products.

Parent

RE: Sweet!

By FITCamaro on 7/26/2007 3:09:40 PM , Rating: 2

They may have had a true-64 bit chip before AMD, but AMD was the first to have an x86 compatible 64-bit chip on the market which is what was needed to bring 64-bit computing to mainstream. Its not there yet really but if not for AMD pushing it, it likely wouldn't even be where it is now. Intel only added 64-bit extensions to compete with AMD, not the other way around.

And Sun had 64-bit chips over a decade before Intel. Not to mention IBM.

Parent

RE: Sweet!

By TomZ on 7/26/2007 10:28:43 PM , Rating: 2

No, the real reason that 64-bit has such small market share is that, on the desktop, there is no need for it today for most people. There will be in the near future, and there is need today in servers and HPC, but for desktop, there's not much need for it. I realize there are exceptions to that rule, but I'm talking about the 95% of desktop computers out there - there's no benefit to 64-bit.

AMD created AMD64 as a marketing diffentiator, one that paid off. They created something pretty far ahead of market need, which was pretty smart, although it was technically unnecessary at the time. Kudos to AMD for that.

Parent

RE: Sweet!

By Calin on 7/27/2007 4:09:02 AM , Rating: 2

People bought the AMD64 based on performance, not only on 64-bitness. True, in Enterprise market the Opteron was faster than Netburst Xeons, used less power and the 64-bit was put to use. However, now as games start to push the 32-bit addressable memory, transition to 64bit should happen soon at high end and invade the lower end also

Parent

RE: Sweet!

By mdogs444 on 7/26/07, Rating: 0

By mdogs444 on 7/26/2007 3:10:28 PM , Rating: 0

quote:
#1, Intel has had 64-bit longer than AMD. (See Itanium)

Wrong.

During much of its history, AMD has developed and produced processors patterned after Intel's original designs, but in a twist of computing history, Intel found itself in the position of adopting AMD's x86-64 architecture, which AMD had created as an extension to Intel's own x86 processor line. As AMD later renamed its architecture to AMD64 (which includes Athlon, Opteron, Sempron, etc), Intel in turn has renamed their implementation Intel 64. It is used in newer versions of Pentium 4, Pentium D, Pentium Extreme Edition, Celeron D, Xeon, and Pentium Dual-Core processors, and in all versions of the Core 2 processors.

quote:
#3, AMD Copied the Intel design resulting in a legal tangle and the subsequent cross-sharing of IP between AMD and Intel.

Correct, but also note that Intel was forced to copy AMD's 64 bit computing based off the x86 architecture as well.

quote:
This has enabled them to produce chips for less than AMD. Allowing them to make more money.

Not necessarily. Their chips are not cheaper to produce because of their processes. Being on the cutting edge - with intel releasing new smaller designs faster also means they have to pay much more to perfect the process, but in the long run is a cheaper manufacturing process. They make more money because they sell more Processors. Their margin is greater than AMD's, and they sell more to the large retailers/consumers - Dell (was only Intel up until recently), HP, Acer, Lenevo, Gateway. AMD's margin is smaller, because to compete, they have to price their items less than intels in order to sway consumers. AMD is cheaper or similar cost to produce, but needs to sell for lower price. Intel sells more quantity, and has a higher margin, resulting much much higher sales $'s.

quote:
#7, Barcelona was promised back in late 06. It STILL has not materialized, although we are expecting a September/October timeframe to see these hit market. AMD does not have a good track record of delivering on target right now.

You know, up until about 1.5 yrs ago, AMD was ahead of the game, just as Intel is right now. Thats when Intel was promising items (Pentium D) that would blow AMD out of the water as well. This is a game that goes back and forth. Its not that they are promising something they cannot deliver, it has to do with the competitor coming out with something new since the inital announcements back in 06. THey need to be able to compete against what is out there now, not what was expected to be out there.

quote:
#8, a 45nm shrink for AMD is a ways off and I think the 2009 timeframe sounds reasonable. That's about the time Intel is talking a shrink to 32nm.

The article just said they both run on 2 year cycles. Its mid 2007, and the 45nm's aren't even full out yet. What makes you think that all the sudden 32nm will be out? I think mid-late 2010 is more feasible. Remember, the smaller they go, the longer it will take to perfect the manufacturing process.

Parent

RE: Sweet!

By omnicronx on 7/26/07, Rating: 0

RE: Sweet!

By evildorf on 7/26/2007 5:05:13 PM , Rating: 4

quote:
it will probably take intel longer to perfect their manufacturing process below 45nm, just because they lack AMD/IBMS soi process, amd could play some catch up here.

You always to seem to bring up SOI in these discussions. The technology is widespread and by no means exclusive to AMD/IBM. Intel simply hasn't incorporated it because it adds significantly to manufacturing costs. If they saw a need for it, they would use it, and it's my understanding that it is much more easily implemented (cost excluded) than many other process technology modifications. This isn't to say that AMD/IBM aren't going to catch up, it just most likely won't be because of SOI.

Parent

RE: Sweet!