Author Archive
“Istanbul” – The HPCWire Reader’s Choice
Posted by John Fruehe in 3:39 pm
Loading ...This week, at the SuperComputing 2009 event, AMD received the HPCWire Reader’s Choice Award for our Six Core AMD Opteron™ Processor (the one you know as “Istanbul.”)
When you consider that two of the largest High Performance Computing systems in the world (Oak Ridge’s “Jaguar” and the University of Tennessee’s “Kraken”) were recently and simply upgraded from their quad-core processors to six core processors and got a sizeable boost in performance, to put it mildly, it probably wouldn’t be a shock to hear that we were recognized by the HPC community.
What makes this award great is not that we are being recognized, but the fact that this is a reader’s choice award. When we get a press award, it’s great; but when the readers decide that we deserve recognition, that’s another story.
In the HPC world, flash and advertising won’t cut it. These are the men and women who slave over huge systems, trying to squeeze every ounce of performance out of them. They appreciate performance, but they also really appreciate consistency and simplicity – those help them focus on the task at hand – designing alternative energy sources, predicting weather and climate change, developing the next breakthrough drug, or analyzing crash data to make our transportation systems safer.
Knowing that these folks find our product outstanding means the world to AMD, because we build the AMD Opteron processor for them.
So, Margaret, be sure to bring that award home, we’ll try to clear some room in the trophy case. While we are in there, maybe we need to expand it a bit, because with 12-core processors with 4 channels of memory on the horizon, we might need some extra space.
John Fruehe is the Director of Product Marketing 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.
R2 is For You
Posted by John Fruehe in 8:01 am
I spent the last 2 weeks traveling in Europe and I can tell you that you can’t put enough emphasis on your companions. When you are on the road with someone 24/7, you appreciate a good fit. Whether it is the appetite for a good Schweinshaxe in Munich or the appreciation of a football game in London (sorry Liverpool, Fulham was on a roll), having good companions makes being thousands of miles from home tolerable. With 3 others on this trip, it was clear that we had the right fit.
Windows Server® 2008 R2 is also the perfect companion to the Six-Core AMD Opteron™ processor. With its emphasis on multi-threading and efficiency, how can you argue that this new state-of-the-art OS should deserve anything else.
And as AMD moves from the six-core world of today to the 12-core world planned for 2010, we expect Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 to work seamlessly. Whether it is virtualizing file, print or email services, or managing and analyzing your business critical data, the new OS is designed to tie in well with the features that we have integrated into our processors.
Microsoft has also integrated some new power management drivers to help take advantage of the new power management features in the AMD Opteron™ 6100 Series processor (currently codenamed “Magny-Cours”). We expect the new C1E power state to bring a new level of power efficiency, allowing the processor to power down the memory controller and HyperTransport™ technology links when not in use, and helping drive down idle power consumption.
If you are looking to consolidate hardware, the support of AMD Virtualization™ (AMD-V™) technology provides more flexibility to customers running virtual machines. For instance, moving an active virtual machine between two servers can be seamless with Microsoft’s Hyper-V; even if you are running between different versions of the Windows® OS on different generations of AMD processors. As a matter of fact, we have even demonstrated a live virtual machine running between one of our current generation of Six-Core AMD Opteron processor-based servers and a server based on the upcoming next-generation AMD Opteron 6100 Series processor to show how seamless the live migration can be for customers. Check out the video on the virtualization blog here.
Just like running a team of people through multiple countries, you need some policies to keep everyone in line. For us, it is the new rule that the hotel safe (and not your laptop bag) is where your passport needs to stay. For Windows Server 2008 R2, the policies can revolve around power savings and not around passports. Utilizing the AMD PowerNow!™ technology, group policies can be set for clients using Windows 7 (Windows 7 capable PC required), enabling clients to enter a “sleep” mode when not in use.
So, if you have to travel, make sure that your traveling partners are compatible, and when you are building out your data center, make sure that your hardware and software is compatible. If you are using Windows Server 2008 R2, there is no better platform, in my opinion, than an AMD Opteron processor-based server.
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.
Faster Supercomputing Cats Fueled by Six-Core AMD Opteron™ Processors
Posted by John Fruehe in 4:10 pm
In the June 2009 TOP 500 list, the Oak Ridge National Labs’ “Jaguar” system was #2, edging close behind the “Roadrunner” cluster and was the first wholly x86 system to achieve a petaflop in performance. Of course, both utilize AMD Opteron processors to reach their record shattering performance.
However, this summer, Oak Ridge embarked on a project to increase their capacity and performance – an upgrade of the 37,000 processors in the cluster to Six-Core AMD Opteron processors.
Because of AMD’s consistent platform strategy, with processor commonality and common sockets, the task was remarkably simple. It took approximately 5 minutes per 8P server module to do the upgrade. (Watch the upgrade here.)
When we developed the Socket F (1207), we anticipated a long life for the socket. As a matter of fact, we anticipate that socket living through the end of 2010. Customers who have standardized on products based on those processors will probably want some consistency across their data centers. And customers that have built out capacity on those platforms might want to upgrade, something that is easy and painless for our customers. Contrast this with our competitor’s “tick tock” approach – which threatens a continual pace of disruption.
With this upgrade, “Jaguar” now takes a new spot in the TOP500 list. First. That is one fast cat – and it is purring along on AMD Opteron technology.
Researchers were quickly back online and with this additional performance they now have the ability to solve complex (frankly, mind-boggling) problems faster, in addition to tackling more projects, some that have previously been out of their reach.
To get an understanding of Oak Ridge National Labs’ scientific research and their take on the TOP500, take a look at this video.
John Fruehe is the Director of Product Marketing 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.
AMD Opteron Processor – Delivering True Value, Not Just Benchmarks
Posted by John Fruehe in 4:39 pm
(10 votes, average: 4.80 out of 5)I left the office yesterday at 5:00, headed to the trail for my weekly ride. Because of the recent rain, we shifted to City Park, one of the most technical mountain bike trails in Austin. If you just looked at us and our bikes in the parking lot, you’d notice that the older guy with the borrowed bike (because I finally broke my frame after 4 years) would probably not fare well against better riders, younger riders or newer bikes.
But looks can be deceiving. While I didn’t have the flashy skills or the newest ride, I did have a dedication and a lack of technical problems that actually allowed me to finish the ride ahead of others. Sometimes the outcome isn’t always as obvious.
Too many people get caught up in the benchmarks and think that is the end of the story. Benchmarks can be important as an indicator, but they don’t tell the whole story. As a matter of fact, they really only tell a portion of PART of the story. In my opinion, making a decision based on benchmark alone is like buying a car because you like the color. That is great if all you care about is a red car, but so few of us really think that way in the real world.
One of the things that I have been telling customers is that they need to step out of the “socket” world and start thinking more about the work that needs to get done when assessing the platforms. Sometimes the answer is not obvious.
The non-obvious thread for today started this morning when I went to check out the latest review on AnandTech.com of the AMD Opteron processor vs. our competitor’s processor (which my colleague Margaret Lewis also discusses here). We sent them a review system recently and during their testing, they came up with some interesting comments.
Comparing a 2 socket Intel server to a 4 socket AMD server, you start to see that if you step outside of the raw performance area, there are plenty of other places to be looking, like threading and efficiency, not just clock speed. Here is what AnandTech had to say when comparing our six-core 2435 to a higher clock speed quad core:
“If your application scales well, two 2.6GHz Opteron 2435 will offer 15% better (and sometimes more) performance than a 2.9GHz Opteron 2389 with the same power consumption.”
More performance, at the same power envelope and lower clock speed. Not always the most obvious answer, but clearly a great choice for threaded applications. (And don’t think that applications will be less threaded in the future.) Memory is another area less than obvious. Here is what AnandTech had to say:
“Using relatively ‘old’ technology such as DDR2, the hex-core Opteron based servers are very affordable, especially if you compare them with similar Xeon servers.”
Yeah, I was the old guy on the trail, but that didn’t mean I was the last. I can think of a couple of younger guys finishing after me – so sometimes “newer” doesn’t me “better”. Again, not the obvious answer, but until the prices of DDR-3 come in line with DDR-2, this is our secret weapon. And in a tough economy, who doesn’t want to be smart with their IT budgets.
We have tremendous consistency, but people expect that. And they expect that all processors in the family will have the same features. That is obvious, right? Here’s how AnandTech saw it.
“If you chose the Xeon platform, you should be aware of the fact that Intel’s low end is much less interesting: the best Xeon 55xx CPUs have a clock speed between 2.26 and 2.93GHz. The low end models, the 5504 and 5506 are pretty crippled, with no Hyper-Threading, no Turbo Boost, and only half as much L3 cache (4MB). These crippled CPUs can keep up with the quad-core Opterons at about 2.5GHz, but they are the worst Xeons when you look at idle and full load power. The performance per Watt of the Xeon EE550x is pretty bad compared to the more expensive parts.”
You’ve heard me talk a lot about “no compromises” in our products, and this is what we are talking about. Just because you can’t afford to buy the most expensive processor in the stack shouldn’t mean that you have to compromise so much. Cutting the cache in half? That is not obvious to the typical customer.
When you step back and take a look at all of this in full, you see what was obvious before – 2P servers are the best value for most workloads – is becoming somewhat less obvious. And as we get into 2010, the value that AMD will bring to market will blur the lines even more. It’s time to stop looking at the world of sockets and start looking at the workload, the power consumption and the cost. Only then, does everything become obvious.
Otherwise you’ll just be like that young guy tonight, standing on the trail as the old guy blew past him. Sometimes the obvious answer isn’t always the only answer.
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.
AMD Opteron Processors Scale the Alps
Posted by John Fruehe in 10:49 am
Nestled just north of the Italian border, in southern Switzerland, you will find CSCS, the Swiss National Supercomputing Center. Long known for chocolate and breathtaking Alpine landscape, Switzerland is also known in the supercomputing circles as an HPC powerhouse.
We traveled to Manno, just north of Lugano to meet with some of the brightest minds in HPC, as well as unveil their latest supercomputer, Monte Rosa – named after the Swiss mountain, the tallest in the regional border with their Italian neighbors.
Monte Rosa is based on a Cray XT5 platform, which is quite popular with the supercomputing crowd because of its massively scalable architecture and high-throughput interconnects. Monte Rosa features 14,762 processors, capable of delivering up to 141 teraflops of peak performance.
To complement the huge number of processors, 29.5 terabytes of main system memory are available for computation. Of course you need somewhere to store all of the results, so a 290 terabyte storage system holds the results from processing runs.
With reported performance of nearly 10 times that of its predecessor, the new Monte Rosa is liquid cooled, allowing it to fit in the same physical space, helping to optimize the center’s floorspace.
The system was installed in record time in May of this year, thanks to Cray’s modular engineering efforts, allowing the center to begin immediately reaping the rewards of the system. Within only a few days of bringing the system online, it was already being utilized near its full capacity.
The productivity seen with the new system is expected to help a variety of industries within Switzerland. While this system is based on Quad-Core AMD OpteronTM processors today, there is already a planned upgrade to Six-Core AMD OpteronTM processors before the end of the year, bringing the total performance to over 200 teraflops.
While some computing centers focus on building out capacity, CSCS likes to focus on the applications. They’ve built up an impressive staff of technologists who can not only focus on optimizing the supercomputer platform, but also, spend most of their time in the applications, where they believe they can deliver their true value-add. Science and engineering applications such as climate, weather, biology chemistry, physics and material sciences are all aided by this new cluster.
But that is not to say that they haven’t built out some amazing capacity. Monte Rosa is now the 23rd largest supercomputer in the world and the 4th largest in Europe according to the June 2009 Top 500 list.
With the performance that they are seeing using Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors, we can’t wait to see what happens when they are able to increase capacity with the Six-Core AMD Opteron processors.
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.
AMD Opteron Processors + AMD Chipsets = the Whole is Greater than the Sum of the Parts
Posted by John Fruehe in 10:00 pm
It’s a cloudy afternoon here in London, which is great because yesterday I was soaked while trying to see customers. Clouds trump rain any day in my book. A little known fact (outside of this country) is that the city of London is actually 2 cities, the City of London and the City of Westminster.
For London, “the the whole is greater than the sum of the parts” is very true, especially when morning hits and the tube traffic swells the population of the city.
For AMD, our new server platform, the combination of AMD OpteronTM processors and the new AMD chipsets show that the whole is larger than the sum of the individual parts as well.
AMD introduced 3 new chipsets this week, the SR5690, SR5670 and SR5650. And just like the different neighborhoods here in London, each has their own unique characteristics, yet each shares a lot in common with each other. They are all built around the same silicon, with the same socket, same programming interface and same drivers. Sound familiar? But they have different numbers of PCI Express® lanes, different power consumption and different pricing, allowing our partners to customize their platforms around these different offerings.
And just like the swelling tube traffic this morning, these new chipsets have 2 features to help the system handle large amounts of traffic. They feature HyperTransportTM 3 Technology allowing for high speed interconnection between the processors and the I/O devices. In addition, once you get to those devices, you’ll find that our support for the new PCI Express® Gen 2 technology allows for high speed peripherals, like Quad Data Rate Infiniband, to be included in the servers. If you are in an HPC environment or other clustering environment, having a high performance and low latency interconnect can really swing performance in the right direction.
And if you are into virtualization, these chipset provide the hardware support for I/O Virtualization, an emerging virtualization technology for increased performance and security. If you want to get a peak at these chipsets in action – check out the AMD Virtualization blog “AMD Showcases Virtualization Innovation at VMworld Conference” for recap of the demos we did at VMworld.
These new platforms will also include a new platform specification from AMD called “Kroner.” Kroner is a nod to those in the cloud computing space who are looking for ultra-high levels of power efficiency. Optimized around best practices in power efficiency, the first Kroner platform, the Tyan S8208 is a single 1U system with two “twin” Kroner boards, able to deliver that impressive performance while only “sipping” the power at the wall. After hearing a customer tell me that they have a 4KW limit for their racks and can only put 10 servers in each, a platform like Kroner can go a long way towards helping optimize space in the data center.
With these new introductions, AMD is moving much more towards a platform company and not just a supplier of microprocessors – this was a key driver for the acquisition of ATI. We’ve seen the fruits of that on the client side, and now we are seeing it on the server side. Customers live the idea of an integrated platform with processor and chipset from the same company because that allows for much tighter integration of technology. Just like London and Westminster.
The whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts.
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.
The Scorecard
Posted by John Fruehe in 9:43 am
There’s an old saying in baseball - “you can’t tell the players without a scorecard.” In this age of always-connected information, that scorecard is the internet. It’s amazing how accurate that information can be. And not be. All at the same time.
I am constantly asked about our different products, both existing and future. Clarification of what the AMD Opteron TM processor products are and where they are targeted is a common request, so I thought it might be a good idea to put it all down in one place; a “cheat sheet” for the IT professional. When it comes to the future products, you might see a lack of details. This is on purpose, as there is some information that we don’t release until we launch the products. (When we discuss the target markets, we are speaking in general terms, because, depending on applications, actual processor choices could vary. That is why we recommend talking to your OEM or system integrator to choose the best solution.)
The Current lineup:
Quad-Core AMD OpteronTM processor (formerly codenamed “Shanghai”) – This is a 45nm quad-core processor with a 6MB level 3 cache. It fits into all of the existing Socket F (1207) systems and is targeted at current workloads like web services, network infrastructure, departmental applications, technical workloads, and those applications that favor clock frequency over thread count. It is productized as the AMD Opteron 2000 Series processors (2P) and AMD Opteron 8000 Series (4P and 8P) processors.
Six-Core AMD OpteronTM processor (formerly codenamed “Istanbul”) – This is also a 45nm design that is based on the same core as the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor, but the design includes 6 cores, not 4, teamed up with the 6MB L3 cache, and plugs into the Socket F (1207) systems. Because of the higher number of cores (12 cores in a 2P system and 24/48 cores in a 4P/8P system), customers typically use these processors for workloads like cloud computing, virtualization, database and HPC where workloads can be very threaded.
Quad-Core AMD OpteronTM processor (formerly codenamed “Suzuka”) – This is the single socket version of the “Shanghai” die, focused on 1P servers that are typically utilized for web serving, remote locations or running small businesses. You’ll see all of the same features of the “Shanghai” processor, with the exception that it is available only in the standard power band (which is by far the most popular choice for AMD Opteron 1000 Series processors.)
The Future Lineup:
In Q1 2010 we plan to introduce the “Maranello” platform, featuring the processor variant currently codenamed “Magny-Cours.” This is a new socket (G34) and the processor is expected to merge both the top end of the 2P market with the 4P/8P market, all conveniently in a single processor, the AMD Opteron 6000 Series processor. Core choices are expected to be 8 and 12 cores, with massive memory scalability through the 4 channels of DDR-3 memory per processor. By utilizing the same processor for both 2P and 4P designs, the AMD Opteron 6000 Series processor should enable several very interesting and flexible platforms with scalability of 16 cores through 48 cores. Clearly this processor is targeted at virtualization, HPC, database and business applications.
In Q2, we plan to introduce a new platform for web, cloud and infrastructure applications – the “San Marino” platform, featuring the 4-core and 6-core processor variants currently codenamed “Lisbon” in the C32 socket. With low core counts, these processors are expected to be a favored choice for applications that scale well up to 8-12 threads. The platform choices around “San Marino” are expected to help OEMs optimize their C32 systems for low power consumption and low cost. We believe these AMD Opteron 4000 Series processors will have the potential to help users achieve new levels of price/performance and performance/watt. When you walk through a data center and see rack after rack of servers, it’s clear that reducing the cost and power footprint of the “workhorse” servers can have a huge impact on the bottom line. Two channels of DDR-3 memory help provide the right level of scalability for these 1P/2P designs while contributing to low power consumption and cost.
Best of all, while the C32 and G34 sockets are physically different, the chipsets, cores and main BIOS core functions are expected to be common across both of these platforms, helping enable OEMs to develop platforms around AMD offerings, and contributing to easier deployment and management by end users.
The consolidation of 1000/2000/8000 to the 4000/6000 product line is expected to reduce the number of overlapping platforms, increase commonality and flexibility for customers, and reduce the overall SKU count for OEMs – contributing to more flexibility and cleaner scalability from 4 cores to 48 cores. Truly a re-definition of the server market that focuses on how industry partners take products to market and customers deploy instead of how processor manufacturers see the world. Customer-centric innovation.
Power Bands:
Customers have a variety of needs, and it would be foolish to think that one processor can solve all of your processing challenges. So, just as we have different models (1000/2000/8000 today and 4000/6000 in the future) we have different power bands to meet specific power needs.
By far the most popular model is the “standard power” with a 75W ACP (average CPU power), which doesn’t even have a designator. This is “Opteron classic” if you are filling in your score card, the choice for price/performance. In addition to this model, there are 3 specialty power bands:
SE – for those that want relatively higher raw performance. By driving to a 105W ACP, we can increase the clock speed for customers running frequency-dependent applications.
HE – Delivering a lower ACP (55W), the HE processors focus on delivering great price/performance/watt for environments where power may be constrained/more expensive or where density is an issue (like with blades)
EE – This is the specialty processor that delivers absolutely the lowest power consumption of any AMD Opteron processor, with a 40W ACP. Customers, like cloud/web 2.0, look for processors like the EE to help reduce the total power per rack because they are in extremely dense environments.
The “Maranello” platform is expected to support SE, Standard and HE power bands, and the “San Marino” platform is planned to support Standard, HE and EE power bands.
So, there you are, a full lineup of heavy hitters – it should be a great game. With this score card you’ll be able to tell who is at bat and who is on deck, so sit back and enjoy the game.
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.
Under the Influence
Posted by John Fruehe in 12:31 pm
NetworkWorld recently released its list of the 11 Most Influential Microprocessors of All Time. I have to agree that the AMD OpteronTM 240 Series processor is one of the most influential processors because it is the singular reason that I left my last job of almost ten years – I came to AMD specifically to work on the AMD Opteron processor because I realized the game-changing potential of this technology.
The list is a relative “who’s who” of the microprocessor world. Every processor clearly had a huge impact on the market, and it is an honor to be included in the list. Most importantly, we are the only processor in the list that was released after 1993. AND we are the only one that is still in the market today in any reasonable volume (somehow, somewhere, somebody is probably utilizing the others because they were such strong designs).
Back in 2002, a year before the launch of the AMD Opteron processor AMD and Microsoft announced a cooperative effort to develop 64-bit version of windows for AMD 64-bit processors. We were the first mainstream processor to enable 64-bit, and our shared vision was that 64-bit computing would drive the data center of the future. I guess you could say that we helped influence the move to 64-bit.
In 2003, there was no such thing as a “low powered server processor.” Enterprise-class processors were big, hot and power hungry. Now look at where we are today. The new AMD Opteron EE processor delivers six cores in a single processor, with a 40W ACP. Power is one of the biggest concerns in the data center today, and we influenced the market with the introduction of power efficiency for servers back before people realized how important power would be.
What about price? If you can remember the pre-AMD processor Opteron days (or the “dark ages” as I like to call them), there was little competition in x86 server processors. Price/performance was a very limited concept, your price/performance came at the platform level, not really at the processor level. Prices were significantly higher than they are today. AMD influence? Check.
Remember the world of single core computing? It may be hazy for most of you because for the past 4 years, almost every server processor sold was probably a multi-core. And who had the first multi-core X86 processor? Yep, the influencer.
So what does the server processor of 2009 look like? Well, let’s take a look at the profile:
- Multi-core
- 64-bit x86
- Integrated memory controller
- Low power options
- High performance per watt
- High price performance
- Hardware-based virtualization capabilities
When you put the list together, it is clear that AMD has had a significant impact on the server processor market. Regardless of which processors you are deploying, what you enjoy today in your X86 data centers are either AMD Opteron processors, or processors that have been heavily influenced by our technology decisions. Some would say that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” I like to call it influence.
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.
How Low Can You Go?
Posted by John Fruehe in 10:19 pm
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.
Master of My Domain
Posted by John Fruehe in 4:08 pm
Recently I blogged about AMD OpteronTM processors in the world’s largest supercomputers. But what about the other end of the spectrum?
Like many of you, I have a second job as the network administrator for a small network – at home. The pay is non-existent but the working conditions are flexible. We all come home from our jobs, and as the de facto technical person in the house, it is my responsibility to keep it all running.
Over time I have managed to assign 16 different IP addresses on my home network. Consolidating print services on to a NAS allowed me to retire one print server this weekend, simplicity reigns supreme. When everything runs fine, it is a well oiled machine; but it generally always chooses the day I have just left for Asia to come tumbling down.
Here is what I grapple with when I get home at night:
The complexity of the network has grown over the years. The first server was NetWare 3.11, followed by Windows NT Server. Eventually it simply became Windows Vista on the server, again, in the need for simplicity and commonality with the other OS’s (and not needing an enterprise-class OS at home.)
What I have noticed about the network is that everything is purpose-driven. There isn’t anything that has just been added for the heck of it. I scrutinize IT purchases just like you, because they add complexity to my life.
Commonality is really important. The 2 NAS devices (one for data, one as a mirror backup) are identical models with the same drive models. Disaster recovery is simply changing the IP from the primary to the secondary.
I shoot for commonality on the motherboards so that when I have to update drivers, I can take care of all of those chores at one time. It’s funny that I talk to customers all the time who talk about the importance of commonality in their data centers, and even on a personal level, on a home network, it makes sense. They love the commonality of the platforms based on AMD OpteronTM processors and I can see why. Being able to count on the same driver to update different generations of AMD-based servers is a huge reduction in the amount of time spent managing the update process.
This past weekend I decided to build up another system and load Windows Home Server to see how the experience was. Deploying a new server, especially one with a new technology is always a challenge.
I am adding this server because I want to be able to allow my wife to have a universal file storage – with remote file editing (without having to deal with “upload/download.”) If I can figure out how to enable this functionality on the current system, then I would probably want to consolidate some of the functions with an HP MediaSmart Server because I really love that compact form factor.
Working with the WHS software presented an interesting challenge when it came to power consumption. The software is based on Windows Server 2003 but it was not very clear which drivers you need for power savings. I have the whole system around 45W in idle (where is sits most of the day), which is probably about $.10 a day in power (it consumes roughly a kilowatt hour and we pay ~$.10/KwH here in Austin). While that might not seem like a lot, consolidating down to the HP system would hopefully drop the consumption even more.
Walking around the house with a power meter, and doing some quick math, it looks like the network is drawing ~$10/month in power (based on that rough estimate of $.10/KwH). Sleep mode helps cut that number down a bit, but don’t let it fool you, even when sleeping, devices are pulling power.
The lessons I learned this weekend probably sound very similar to what you deal with:
1. Commonality is good
2. Consolidation reduces your management tasks
3. Software is never as easy as it appears
4. Power efficiency is very critical
Hopefully, by spending some time with WHS I can build the application that I need and then can consolidate some of the functions down to 1 box. Ah, the life of a network administrator.
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.