On June 1 we launched our Six-Core AMD Opteron™ processor, formerly code-named “Istanbul”. Here are some of the early highlights from some of the industry’s most-respected hardware reviewers.

AnandTech:  AMD’s Six-Core Opteron 2435

“It is out of the scope of this article, but it is clear that even if the CPUs cost the same, the AMD based server will be less costly.”

“Our power consumption data is preliminary. We really have to double-check all the power data. Very roughly, we find that the Opteron 2435 machine consumes about 35-45W less than the Xeon X5570. On a total of slightly more than 300W, that is about 10 to 15%. Idle power seems to be slightly in favor of the Xeon “Nehalem”.

“There are two types of applications where we feel that the AMD six-core deserves your attention: decision support databases and virtualization. . . .  Of course, performance-critical applications are by definition more demanding when it comes to processing power. That is exactly what vApus Mark I measures: how well do performance-critical applications perform when they are virtualized? This is a relatively “new” market where the AMD 2435 shines. The new Opteron 2435 at 2.6 GHz was a pleasant surprise on vApus Mark I: it keeps up with more expensive Xeons on ESX 3.5 update 4 while consuming less, and offers a competitive performance/watt and performance/price ratio on vSphere 4. The six-core Opteron is about 11 to 30% slower on vSphere 4 than the 2.93 GHz Xeon X5570 but the overall cost of the Istanbul platform is significantly lower (DDR-2 versus DDR-3) and the 2.6 GHz 2435 consumes less power in a virtualized environment (*). On the condition that you optimize your hypervisor well to take advantage of the six cores (cell size is for example one critical optimization), we feel that the six-core Opteron is a worthy opponent for the Xeon “Nehalem” in this market. We tested only the 2435 versus the X55xx series.”

(*) Virtualized servers do not run idle very often

Tech Report:  “AMD’s ‘Istanbul’ six-core Opteron processors / We crack open a six-pack”

AMD Executing Early:  “AMD had originally planned to introduce this product in the October time frame, but the first spin of Istanbul silicon came back solid, so the firm pulled the launch forward into June.

“The most notable change, though, is probably the addition of a feature AMD calls HT Assist. HT Assist is essentially a probe filter intended to reduce the overhead required for the synchronization of cached data across CPUs in multiple sockets. HT Assist reserves space in each processor’s L3 cache, in which it stores an index of where that CPU’s cache lines are being used system-wide. The CPU then becomes “host” of the cache lines stored in its directory. If any CPU needs an update about a particular cache line, it will often know which CPU is the correct host to probe for that information. This reduction in probe traffic can yield big gains in available system bandwidth, as we reported when we saw AMD demo a 4P system whose Stream bandwidth increased from roughly 25GB/s to 42GB/s with the addition of Istanbul processors with HT Assist.”

“Yet Istanbul should be a clear improvement over Shanghai for many workstation-class workloads and most server-class workloads—i.e., those that are essentially parallel and widely multithreaded. The Opteron 2435 manages to deliver this higher performance not just within the same power envelopes, but quite empirically with almost the exact same measured power consumption as the Opteron 2389.”

“This combination yields a nice increase in power efficiency, which was enough to put our Istanbul-based test system in the same territory as our Xeon X5550 system. The competition between the two was remarkably close in SPECpower_ssj, and the Istanbul system required notably less energy to render the Cinema 4D sample scene in Cinebench. So despite that fact that Intel leads in outright performance, the Opteron 2435 is entirely competitive on the power-efficiency front, with lower peak power draw, to boot. Those who evaluate systems strictly on this basis would do well to keep Opterons in the mix.”

“And if you have existing, compatible Socket F servers, the Istanbul Opterons should be an excellent drop-in upgrade. They’re a no-brainer, really, when one considers energy costs and per-socket/per-server software licensing fees.”

ZDNet:  “AMD Istanbul: Field Upgrade Only If Your Hands are Nimble”

Unlike Intel’s Nehalem, which requires entirely new and unproven mainboards, systems, chipsets and sockets, the “Istanbul” is based on existing, mature AMD chipsets and uses the existing 1207-pin Socket F, allowing current Quad-Core Opteron systems to be field upgraded rather than requiring entirely new server purchases. . . . .  The 24xx and 84xx series CPUs are actually compatible with systems going back four Opteron quad-core chip generations, ever since the 2000 and 8000 series were introduced in August of 2006. . . . . AMD also was able to engineer and manufacture the Istanbul during a period in which it also spun off its entire manufacturing capacity as a separate company, GlobalFoundaries, so the fact they were able to get this product out in record time (six months ahead of schedule, according to the company) to compete with Intel’s Nehalem is a significant achievement.”

Phil Hughes is a senior public relations manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.