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Back in April, when we introduced the Quad-Core AMD OpteronTM EE processors, Gordon Haff of Illuminata had this to say in his blog:
“Opteron EE is therefore not just your basic low-end-of-the-frequency-scale parts. Rather, they’re explicitly targeted for cloud computing and Web 2.0-in other words, the type of uses and customers who explicitly value power efficiency.”
Gordon points out that these processors are “not simply the fall-outs at the low end of the frequency range as lower power processors have often been historically.” We are specifically targeting low power consumption because we understand the power needs that customers have. We understand the environments and are targeting processors to meet those needs.
Those quad-core processors that were launched in April have an ACP of 40 watts, so if you do the very simple “watts per core” math (ACP / cores) you have ~10W per core. Of course that is not a scientific measurement (that would require much more complex testing because the simple math does not comprehend that there are components besides the cores in the processor).
Now, today, we introduce new Six-Core AMD Opteron EE processors that have the same 40W ACP. Again, the simple math says 40W ACP / 6 cores = ~6.67W per core. Does anyone remember the world before AMD introduced the first AMD Opteron processor?
Server state-of-the-art, B.O. (Before AMD Opteron), was Prestonia, a single core processor with configurations of up to 58W max TDP just one core! A mere six years later, the new Six-Core AMD Opteron EE processors have six times the number of cores and dramatically lower power per core.
We really have come a long way, with as much as 58 watts of power for a single core (2.0GHz), to today’s new standard of single digit ACP per core. With the shorter pipelines and better efficiency of today’s AMD Opteron processors, I am guessing that a single 2GHz Opteron core is going to be much more efficient than the legacy NetBurst cores in Prestonia, and the fact that the power is so much lower means that we are really heading in the right direction.
Next year, we plan to introduce the “San Marino” platform, featuring our “Lisbon” (C32) processor. We expect to have a platform that is specifically tuned to the needs of these very low power environments. It may not be a stretch to say that with next year’s optimized platforms, we may be able to provide even lower total power consumption than we see today with these AMD Opteron EE processor-based platforms.
Now, the question is “how low can you go?” Well, only the future will know. Well, that and our design engineers.
If you’re interested in a deeper dive on our Six-Core AMD Opteron EE processor, check out the presentation below.
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.
#1 by Game_boy - August 31st, 2009 at 05:44
What does the 0-100% scale represent on Slide 6?
#2 by John Fruehe - September 2nd, 2009 at 08:39
That is percent of functionality.
#3 by Datsun - August 31st, 2009 at 06:28
I don’t see direct comparison in benchmark between six core AMD Opteron EE and Intel Xeon Nehalem EP based processor except in features and DRAM prices. I think if AMD Opteron EE featured mor advanced Hypertransport 3 and RDDR2-1066 it will become more competitive in performance.
#4 by John Fruehe - September 2nd, 2009 at 08:42
The EE processors do feature HyperTransport 3.
As for the 1066 memory, in the cloud/low power space, we actually see customers downclocking the memory to try to get lower power consumption, because in this space, power savings is far more importnat than performace. In talking to most of the customers who are the target for the EE processors, performance is actually about 6th or 7th on the list of things that they care about. To some degree performance is viewed as a compromise because higher performance generally signals higher power consumption.
#5 by GM - August 31st, 2009 at 11:42
How about taking one of those super efficient 45 nm cores, take off the L3 cache and half of the L2, give it a fancy name and have an Atom killer?
#6 by John Fruehe - September 2nd, 2009 at 08:49
The challenge there is that in this market, low power and density go hand in hand. A ~6-7W core still has the integrated memory controller and other associated circuitry. If you break that 6 core into 6 individual single core processors, you end up with 6 northbridges and other circuits, so the aggregate is >40W. The beauty of a platform like this vs. a specialized server with Atom or Via Nano processors is that, for cloud and dense computing, you are getting 12 cores in 1U. Or with “twin” platforms, you get 24 cores in 1U. With Atom and Nano, you are probably not getting that degree of density into a 1U form factor. Plus you are adding significantly more management and infrastructure overhead into that scenario.
#7 by Joe - September 1st, 2009 at 09:33
Well then just make one single core 6.67 Watt CPU and get us rid of the Atom trash.
#8 by John Fruehe - September 2nd, 2009 at 08:54
These products are targeted at server applications. I will let the client team respond about Atom. I traveled to Japan on vacation this summer with my wife. She borrowed an Atom-based netbook from a friend for travel. While it was a nice small form factor, the boot up time and performance hardly made up for the difference in weight. My Fujitsu S2020 with a dual core Turion and 2 batteries actually had better life, a larger screen and better overall experience. Atom-based devices just have too many compromises to make them mainstream compting devices. My blackberry has similar web performance, at 1/10th the weight and 5X the battery life.
#9 by animation tutorials - September 21st, 2009 at 06:47
It is well written thread. I had also seen the slides but I got confused in slide 2 and slide 6. Can you please give little explanation on it??
#10 by John Fruehe - September 22nd, 2009 at 10:47
Slide 2 shows that there are 2 big trends in IT today – the drive towards more performance and scalability and the drive towards better value/lower power. Our 6-core products handle the first need and our 4 core products handle the second.
On slide 6 we are showing the “% of capability” for our processors vs. our competitor. As you can see, for them to deliver low power solutions to the market, they have to make some substantial compromises. Not sure whether these are technical limitations (which would be bad) or whether these are marketing limitations (which would be worse). The key is that the things you would expect to find in an Opteron are virtually the same, regardless of the power band.