AMD announces availability of new 8- and 12-core x86 processors

[NeoGen]

SUNNYVALE, Calif. —3/29/2010 AMD (NYSE: AMD) announces availability of a new server platform featuring the world’s first 8- and 12-core x86 processor for the high-volume 2P and value 4P server market. The AMD Opteron™ 6000 Series platform addresses the unmistakable needs of server customers today - workload-specific performance, power efficiency, and overall value - while delivering more cores and more memory for less money.3 Leading OEMs including HP, Dell, Acer Group, Cray, and SGI are introducing new systems based on this highly scalable and reliable platform.
“As AMD has done before, we are again redefining the server market based on current customer requirements,” said Patrick Patla, vice president and general manager, Server and Embedded Divisions, AMD. “The AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform signals a new era of server value, significantly disrupts today’s server economics and provides the performance-per-watt, value and consistency customers demand for their real-world data center workloads.”
The new AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform features include:

• The industry’s only 8- and 12-core server processors performing at up to two times the level of AMD’s previous generation 6-core processors, including an 88 percent increase in integer performance and a 119 percent increase in floating point performance.
• Enhanced integrated memory controller supporting four channels of DDR3 memory for up to a 2.5x improvement in overall memory bandwidth.
• Thirty-three percent more memory channels per processor than competitive 2P solutions.
• 50% higher DIMM capacity compared to previous generations, with up to 12 per processor, increasing the available memory overall and improving virtualization, database and HPC applications.
• AMD 5600 Series chipset with I/O virtualization capability, HyperTransport™ 3.0 technology and PCI Express® 2.0.
• Removal of the “4P tax”, since the same processors can be used in both 2P and 4P designs, and 4P-capable processors are now the same price as 2P-capable processors, bringing greatly improved value to the 4P space.
• Unprecedented price/performance. In a comparison between a best-performing 2P competitive platform versus a similar best-performing 4P AMD-based platform, customers can recognize up to double the performance and more than 10% lower total processor price.
• Significant new power management features including a C1E power state to conserve energy when idle, the Advanced Platform Management Link allowing APML-enabled platforms to be remotely monitored for power and cooling, and AMD CoolSpeed technology, which automatically reduces p-states if a specified temperature limit is exceeded.
• A wide range of power and performance options with no compromise on the available feature sets.
• A legacy of consistency and stability. The new AMD Opteron platform is chipset- and socket- compatible between 2P and 4P and will be compatible with the planned processors based on the next-generation AMD server processor core, code-named “Bulldozer”.

Full press release here: http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases...29mar2010.aspx

[Ototero]

That's good timing because Intel have a six out that is available here in the UK.

[Jason1478963]

It sure would be nice to replace my pharm with one or two of these. A quad socket board with four 12 core CPU. I would imagine there would also be some savings on the electric bill. I like the sounds of 48 cores in one machine. Who's gonna be the first to build one or two of these for crunching?

[Ramjet]

Anybody interested in the performance of a 48 core cruncher can view this thread:http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/fo...d_thread,28926 . The guy had a few issues getting boinc to acknowledge all 48 cores, but has since resolved the issue and posted some benchmarks.

[NeoGen]

Woow... I just love the look of that task manager.

It is a pretty thing, and I wish I had one, but in this day and age all these cores can be easily beat in performance by a few GPUs only.

[liuqyn]

that may be true, but most projects are still CPU only.

[NeoGen]

Given the evolution of things I find it hard to believe that the average user (not DC aware) needs this many cores. I mean, for the person that just uses the computer for the occasional browsing, emailing, or doing stuff on the office every now and then, is it really necessary that many cores? I think not even the hardcore gamers need this many cores for playing the latest games. And since the trend is to keep increasing the number of cores on every new generation of processors, I think most people will just be paying for unnecessary computing power on their new PCs. I guess in the past we always lived on the software-needs-better-hardware race, but now the roles have changed and the hardware is way ahead of the software's current needs.

[vaughan]

Sorry NeoGen but I disagree.

That's a bit like saying that the most common use of a computer for "Joe Average" is for Office (Word and Excel) and the occasional web browsing and e-mail so all they need is a single core Athlon XP or Celeron. Or its like saying you only need an economical buzz box to drive from point A to point B. We both know that having multiple cores helps some applications and we know that driving a V8 or turbo or supercharged 6 is more "fun" than a bog standard commuter car. Give me the multi cored or extra horsepower any day. I'll pay for the priviledge (within reason) and enjoy myself.

[AMDave]

You are not Joe Average :D
If I were not DCing yes I too would want that extra grunt that I get from SMP

However, there is now an entire market of cheap low-power single-core machines (Atom, Geode, ARM etc) being snapped up by Joe Average which do the bare minimum in 0.5GB RAM as NeoGen implies.
They are causing a support headache too with everything on the mobo, a fault means replace the mobo *every* time which means extended repair delays for back-orders and delivery.
I came across one recently that could not be upgraded. 1 RAM slot. That was it. I closed it back up and gave it back.

The 'Joe Average' software is not parallel and so processes files in serial (picture or video effects) so they don't know that it could be better or that they could be processing multiple video streams whist watching a web movie and recording another one at the same time as keeping an eye on the email for the notification of the next release.

BUT...when the get their ADSL2+ or faster connection and the games look slow and jumpy and conversion of their home video to DVD takes 2 days to process and they do start to realise that their pseudo-PC won't keep up, they are in for a whole new PC with more grunt.
It is a niche price-point competition.
And it is working.
The PC manufacturers have worked out how to 'hook' them with a 'cheapie' and get them to come back for a bigger 'hit'.

If they get any cheaper I could use a dozen or more of them to build a cpu grid.
The GHz / $cost inc. elec power is getting better. LOL
I wonder how that GHz/$cost compares with the GHz/$cost of the many-core-many-cpu machines above?

[Jason1478963]

Who is gonna get a couple 48 core setups for the team?