Recently there have been some who have speculated that new server technology allows you to rip out older inefficient servers and replace them with sparkling new servers, making you "a hero at work."

Here’s a little secret for you: the real hero is the person that figures out how to get more performance out of their servers without having to tear those servers out of the racks.

If you bought AMD-based servers you have an opportunity to do just that. With our Direct Connect architecture, we engineered the platform to handle multiple generations of AMD Opteron™ processors. In August, 2006 we introduced the Socket F1207 to the world, initially with dual-core AMD Opteron processors. Later "Barcelona", our first quad-core processor was also able to plug into those sockets. Today’s "Shanghai" processors also fit in those sockets as well.

Later this year, when we plan to introduce the 6-core "Istanbul" processors, they will fit into many of these existing sockets, giving customers longevity in their platforms.

If you want to be the real hero to your organization, AMD-based servers are really the way to go. Changing a processor is a pretty fast and easy, as many of you probably found out when one of our internal training videos ended up on YouTube a few years ago. Typically, upgrading a processor is a pretty straightforward process; because of my job I have access to a number of pre-production parts and I swap them in and out of systems all the time. In 15 minutes you can go from dual core Rev F processors to the latest "Shanghai" quad-cores, giving you up to 200% more performance:

Best of all, because you still get to utilize the energy efficient DDR-2 memory, the upgrade is much more cost effective. Transitioning to a server based on DDR-3 memory is not necessarily a smart move as a 2GB DDR-2 DIMM is currently priced at ~$71 on www.crucial.com vs. a 2GB DDR-3 DIMM currently priced at ~$171. (Registered ECC DIMMs – what you would expect to use in a server.) In many cases the memory costs can be some of the highest component costs in the server.

Of course if you wanted to pull out your server and replace it with a new one, you do have to think about all of the cabling, brackets, slide rails and loose parts that you will have to deal with. If you do head down that path, it makes sense to choose an AMD Opteron-based platform instead, giving you some longevity with its common socket infrastructure.

So if you really want to be a hero in the data center, spend 15 minutes increasing (in some cases doubling) the performance in some of your servers. They’ll think you worked all night, but you’ll know the secret of being a data center hero. And your secret is safe with me.

Two-Socket SPECint®_rate2006:

http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/results/res2008q1/cpu2006-20071220-02913.html http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/results/res2008q4/cpu2006-20081024-05683.html

Two-Socket SPECfp®_rate2006:
http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/results/res2008q1/cpu2006-20071220-02910.html http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/results/res2008q4/cpu2006-20081024-05684.html

Two-Socket SPECjbb®2005:
http://www.spec.org/osg/jbb2005/results/res2008q1/jbb2005-20080130-00442.html http://www.spec.org/osg/jbb2005/results/res2008q4/jbb2005-20081024-00551.html

Two-Socket SPECweb®2005:
http://www.spec.org/osg/web2005/results/res2007q3/web2005-20070828-00079.html
http://www.spec.org/osg/web2005/results/res2008q4/web2005-20081203-00121.html

SPECint®, SPECfp®, SPECjbb® and SPECwe® are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation.

John Fruehe is the Director of Business Development for Server/Workstation products 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.