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.

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.

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.

With that in mind, NYSERDA, AMD, New York State, HP and GLOBALFOUNDRIES have all come together to address these issues head on, discussing them at the latest NY State Performance Computing Seminar on October 28.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), in collaboration with  AMD, have been instrumental in driving sustainable computing and business practices in New York.  Improvements in operating practices, coupled with installation of energy efficient systems, can enable significant energy savings and help reduce the strain information technology and data centers place on the electric grid while helping to ensure a reliable and affordable supply of electricity.  In addition, by improving the energy efficiency of data centers and working in synergy with NYSERDA and AMD, New York State and its IT businesses and data centers can make considerable strides toward achieving their respective energy and environmental goals, while supporting economic development in this growing industry.  More importantly, investments in energy efficient systems can help improve a data centers’ bottom line. 

NYSERDA’s Industrial and Process Efficiency program plans to invest more than $100 million over the next three years in new and existing manufacturing and data center facilities that help reduce energy consumption.  These funds can encourage sustainable load growth and help to significantly reduce the use of electricity and natural gas. 

For more information, visit www.nyserda.org

Sal Graven is a Technical Information Associate at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)

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.

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.

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 Opteron^TM processors today, there is already a planned upgrade to Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM 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 23^rd largest supercomputer in the world and the 4^th 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.

So let’s be perfectly clear about today’s announcement.

This is AMD’s platform value to our embedded customer:  a single stop for leading-edge processors, graphics and chipsets.  And of course, software from our software partners helps complete the package.  No other company can develop and deliver this level of silicon technology integration and its benefits to embedded customers, who are more pressed than ever to deliver high performing, low power and differentiated systems and do so in the shortest window of time to maximize revenue.   They know that an AMD embedded platform, whether it is client or commercial, can help give them an edge in walking that fine line between high-performance and low-power. 

But what else can we offer?  (I’m thinking of an infomercial – “But wait…there’s more!”)  It’s not just balanced system architecture with advanced energy efficiency – it’s also a strong line-up of AMD chipsets and graphics processors that can help take performance and even the end-user experience to the next level.  And like our colleagues on the server side of the house, we don’t compromise on the feature sets and we believe our variety of choice helps our customers develop targeted, differentiated products.

If you’re an embedded systems designer, I’d like to know your take on the value of a highly integrated platform.

Buddy Broeker is AMD’s Director of Embedded Computing Solutions.  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

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 Opteron^TM 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 HyperTransport^TM 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.

Which brings me to the news here.  Cray, one of AMD’s most strategic technology partners, has just announced a large, long-term contract with the Korean Meteorological Administration.  KMA is one of the world’s foremost weather forecasting and climate research centers. Included in the contract is  the Earth System Research Center (ESRC) – a cooperative program bringing together weather modeling expertise across the East-Asia Pacific region and exporting those learnings globally.  Certainly some of the challenges for forecasters are unique to this region, such as typhoon and tsunami prediction, while others are more broad – earthquakes and climate change.

HPC customers (and enterprise server customers for that matter) encounter something similar:  problems that are unique to their individual situation combined with the challenges that are universal to server computing.  I believe that Cray does a phenomenal job of helping their customers address each.  Their extensive line of supercomputers are based on the flexible, high-performing and low-power AMD Opteron^TM processor and the combined architecture delivers phenomenal sustained application performance, reliability and ease of management.

But Cray also looks at each customer individually and helps address their particular challenges and goals for the long-term.  With KMA, Cray has announced they will be providing services and application support.  With the “Jaguar” system at Oak Ridge National Lab, they are embarking on a significant upgrade, taking the world’s highest performing wholly x86 supercomputer to the next level with the new Six-Core AMD Opteron processor.

I congratulate my colleagues here in APAC, as well as Cray, KMA, and the ESRC on a technology partnership that along with AMD, advances global science.  I’ll be watching to see the developments of their research and near-term, I’m looking forward to learning new weather patterns that include some rain.

Ben Williams is AMD’s corporate vice president and general manager for AMD Asia Pacific. 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.

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 Opteron^TM 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 Opteron^TM 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 Opteron^TM 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.

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.

When Quad-Core AMD Opteron^TM processor Model 2384 was introduced less than a year ago, servers using this processor achieved a number of performance records (here and here) and a key reviewer concluded that “Right now, it is clear that the latest AMD Opteron is in the lead.” If you look at the performance of Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM 2419 EE processor-based servers, you see that servers using this new low-power processor are outperforming servers using the Quad-Core AMD Opteron^TM processor Model 2384. That’s pretty impressive.

And the energy savings from using low-power Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM EE processors (compared to 75W ACP Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM processors) are significant. When we replaced the 75W ACP Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM processors in a ZT Systems server with 40W ACP Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM EE processors, server power consumption at 100% load dropped by 124W (40%).

Surpassing the performance of Quad-Core AMD Opteron^TM processor Model 2384-based servers using extremely energy efficient processors is quite a feat. Achieving higher performance, while consuming less power, is even more impressive. To top it off, the Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM processor Model 2419 EE is being offered at the same price that the Quad-Core AMD Opteron^TM processor Model 2384 was sold for last year².

Higher performance. Lower server power consumption. Same introductory processor price. Wow!

As excited as I am about our current products, I can’t resist the temptation to mention the Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM EE processors (codenamed “Lisbon”) that we’re planning to introduce next year. These six-core processors are planned to have a rated power consumption of less than 40W – that’s lower than the rated power consumption of most of today’s quad-core mobile processors. A processor that combines the registered memory and RAS (reliability, availability, and serviceability) features of a server processor with the power consumption of a mobile processor?

I think that I’ll be typing “Wow!” again next year.

Whether you think of “flexibility” as the ability to host more virtual machines using a Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM 8400 Series processor-based server, or you view “efficiency” as the capability to achieve higher performance while consuming less server power using Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM 2419 EE processors, it’s clear that servers using AMD’s Direct Connect Architecture are ideal for the next generation of computing.

To find out more about AMD Virtualization^TM (AMD-V^TM) technology and AMD Opteron^TM processors, visit us at booth 1408 at VMworld or visit www.amd.com/virtualization.

                             Andy Parma is a Product Marketing Manager 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.

¹Based on 30 tiles x 6 VMs for 48-core HP ProLiant DL785 G6 server, as tested using the VMmark benchmark (http://www.vmware.com/products/vmmark/results.html).

²Pricing for Quad-Core AMD Opteron^TM processor Model 2384 reflects 1kU tray pricing on www.amd.com as of November 2008. Pricing for Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM processor Model 2419 EE reflects 1kU tray pricing on www.amd.com as of August 2009.

Back in April, when we introduced the Quad-Core AMD Opteron^TM 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.

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 Opteron^TM 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.

This week I am hearing a lot about the “cash for clunkers” program here in the US, where older cars can be traded in for newer more fuel efficient vehicles, with the government kicking in some rebate dollars to make it all happen if you are buying a more fuel efficient vehicle.  I’m not going to even pretend to think about this from a political sense (there is a reason I chose product marketing and not politics), but, from a business sense, this sort of activity is happening in data centers all over the world.  Even without the government assistance.

Are people changing out servers just to drive more efficiency?  Hardly.  But in a tough economy, they think about optimization, they think about efficiency and they think about virtualization when they have to make a change.

As customers look to pull the plug on older servers that are past their useful life -- either through warranty or lease expiration, or potentially due to a hardware failure that is too costly to repair -- they are looking to more power efficient servers as well as virtualization to solve their future computing challenges.

The migration to a new platform is costly, time consuming and full of interesting challenges. One way to overcome some of these challenges is to use virtualization to encapsulate the server, creating a virtual machine.  With the system image (software) now physically abstracted from the hardware, it can be moved anywhere around the data center, or around the world.

This new level of abstraction is great, but one of the real challenges is that a virtual machine has to take the “lowest common denominator” in order to move between two systems.  The flexibility to move virtual machines around, at will, is dependent on the underlying hardware.

AMD has designed an amazing consistency in our architectural design, allowing a server to have backwards and forwards consistency in moving virtual machines -- a feat that is much more challenging on other’s platforms unless you really scale the virtual machine back to a very simple configuration.

Here, we actually demonstrate taking a virtual machine from an old dual core, to a newer six-core platform, and then move that virtual machine to our future AMD Opteron^TM 6000 processor-based platform.

As you look to optimize your data center, utilizing AMD Opteron processors can help keep your environment humming along, with the ability to load balance and drive incredible efficiency through virtualization.  The fact that we can deliver such flexibility across the board shows that AMD understands the challenges that you face, and we tailor our products to meet those needs.

Not only can we help you drive better efficiency by moving from older AMD platforms to AMD’s newer, more power efficient platforms, but our common socket strategy allows many of the AMD Opteron^TM based-platforms to be easily upgraded from dual core to quad core, or even six core, virtually without having to change out any other hardware. It’s an instant upgrade in performance, all within the same general power and thermal ranges.

These are just two more ways that AMD is helping you drive more efficiency in the data center.  Maybe we can’t hand back “cash for clunkers”, but we can help get you back on the road to recovery, and that’s where we all want to be these days.

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.

First, let’s take a closer look at how IT managers are actually using four-socket servers. It’s very rare for four-socket servers to be used strictly as a way to increase compute density. Appro and SGI have twin servers and half-depth servers to serve this purpose. In most cases, four-socket servers are used for applications that require a single server to have access to large amounts of memory. These applications typically consist of database, virtualization/consolidation, and some high performance computing applications. With the ability to support 32 memory DIMMs per server, optimized virtualization features such as AMD Virtualization^TM (AMD-V^TM) technology, and unique energy efficiency features (AMD-P), Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM 8400 series processors are ideal for these applications.

When comparing the feature sets of Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM 8400 series processors and Intel Xeon 7400 series (”Dunnington”) processors, the feature set consistency of the AMD Opteron^TM 8400 series processors is in stark contrast to the Intel Xeon 7400 series offerings. Four items about the Xeon 7400 series stand out:

• The feature set differs dramatically between each of the seven models in the Xeon 7400 series
• No Xeon 7400 series processor includes RVI or Tagged TLB virtualization features
• The low-power Xeon L7445 and L7455 do NOT include the same energy efficiency features as the highest performance Xeon X7460
• All Xeon 7400 series processors use Fully Buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) memory

The feature set consistency of the AMD Opteron^TM 8400 series processors gives customers a more predictable approach to data center planning and helps capacity planning, software image development, and validation efforts.

What about the performance and value of servers using these processors? If servers using Intel processors are clearly superior, then the differing feature sets won’t matter, right?

While the 46% VMmark performance advantage that a four-socket AMD Opteron^TM 8400 series processor-based server has over the top-performing four-socket Intel Xeon 7400 series processor-based server is impressive, I think that the performance of energy efficient Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM 8425 HE processor-based servers is even more impressive. This comparison shows that, depending on benchmark, a server using low-power Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM processors can provide nearly double the server performance of a server using low-power Hex-Core Intel Xeon L7455 processors at nearly half the processor price. Servers using low-power Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM 8425 HE processors even significantly outperform servers using the highest performance, highest power Hex Core Intel Xeon X7460 processors, again at nearly half the processor price.

When combined, all of these advantages (superior performance, energy efficiency, virtualization features, and pricing) make the Six-Core AMD Opteron 8400 series processors the ideal solution for four-socket servers.

Now, let’s go back to my original analogy about the hybrid SUV. In theory, the reason that people buy an SUV is because they need to move a lot of stuff, whether that’s people, groceries, or furniture. It’s the same way with four-socket servers – people buy a four-socket server because they need lots of memory to process lots of stuff, whether that’s database applications, virtualization/consolidation, or processing large datasets in high performance computing applications. Why shouldn’t you able to process lots of “stuff” and get energy efficiency too?

Andy Parma is a Product Marketing Manager 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.

If you have additional questions or subjects you’d like me to address, let me know and we’ll play another round of “20 Questions.”   

Are there any plans to support the HyperTransport^TM Technology High Node Count (HNC) Specification in future CPUs?

HyperTransport^TM technology is a key cornerstone of the AMD Opteron^TM processor and is expected to be integrated into future AMD Opteron processors. HyperTransport High Node Count (HNC) is a very interesting new specification that supports the development of highly scalable systems.  HyperTransport technology is an open industry standard and the HNC specification was developed in conjunction with various HyperTransport consortium members.  While not integrated into our public roadmaps at this time, it is a technology in which we see potential.

Is there any news on Torrenza?

Torrenza was an umbrella for a wide range of programs, many of which continue today under our Accelerated Computing initiative.  Accelerated Computing takes into account the hardware and software evolution necessary for new combinations of integrated and discrete products designed to deliver a superior user experience across a broad range of usage scenarios.  Utilizing the GPU for certain computationally intensive workloads via ATI Stream is an example of that, as are new software development tools like OpenCL that makes it easier to take advantage of the CPU and GPU capabilities in a system.  Many of the initial Torrenza technologies were based on the Socket F, so as we move to new sockets (G34 and C32) with Accelerated Computing, we may see different implementations, whether it is socket-based or not. Just like the rest of the market, AMD continues to evolve as we learn more about how customers want to solve computing problems.

Does AMD foresee convergence of desktop and server products/platforms in the future, perhaps when CPU power is no longer the limiting factor in software progress?

Actually, we are seeing the opposite.  The biggest driver for change in servers that we are seeing is the need for lower power consumption, not higher power parts.  As we look at future processors, we expect to continue to see the divergence of the desktop and server roadmaps. In a desktop, the impact of a higher power processor is less profound than in a server where multiple CPUs can be consuming much more electricity.

Are there plans to release the current Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM processor in a quad-core variant in the future? 

There are currently no plans, but there are plans for quad-core models of the C32 processor in the first half of 2010.

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.

But let me share a secret – many of those gaming machines folks pass on the way to baggage claim, the buffet or the blackjack table feature an AMD processor.  Slot machines are one category of many so-called embedded systems that require massive compute power, extreme reliability and absolutely must be efficient to design, manufacture, and operate.

As Vegas has gone electronic, along with our cars, calendars and airport check-in, the number of CPU encounters the average person has in a day is astounding and growing.  And many of those processors behind the curtain are of the same power-sipping AMD variety as the processors found in servers in your office or the laptop at home. 

AMD has played a significant role in the embedded world since its inception and with input from our customers.  We’ve developed a roadmap of high-performance processor, GPU or chipset options that can power everything from a six nines reliability telecom server to a notebook rugged enough to use on an oilfield platform, to a control switch on an assembly line.

Today, we have announced two new dual-core options for our ASB1 BGA platform.   They deliver superior performance to an embedded platform that is already being deployed in thin clients, digital signage and you guessed it – gaming machines. 

In my 20+ years working in various embedded markets, I’ve learned that a valuable dialog is one to one with system designers.  So I look forward to sharing more on this blog about AMD’s role in the embedded realm and especially hearing from the embedded design community on how we can help you achieve a vision for the next ubiquitous, game-changing product.  Hit me in the comments.

Buddy Broeker is AMD’s Director of Embedded Computing Solutions.  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.

When we went out to test market the idea with focus groups, they all saw the pictures of a full rack and said “No, these are like mainframes.  They are much more powerful than servers – they are supercomputers.”  And we actually tried to convince them that these weren’t supercomputers, they were the same servers they were used to buying – we’re talking x86, after all.

Then we realized the smart person should play up the idea of being more powerful, because that is what the customer expects. “x86 Supercomputers” -a phrase that we all joked about back in 1994.  Fast forward 15 years and what we see now are x86 supercomputers – and the AMD Opteron^TM processor has had a large hand in leading the change.

But no company has explored and delivered on the idea of x86 supercomputing more so than Cray, the company that is synonymous with supercomputers.  

If you take a look at recent IDC data on the $3M+ segment of the supercomputer market, what you see is that Cray has the leadership position, with 35% of the market. Their penetration into defense, academia and research is legendary, but Cray is increasingly present in the corporate world as well. With the XT3, XT4 and now XT5 systems, Cray has been able to build highly scalable, highly parallel supercomputers by innovating around industry-standard components like AMD Opteron processors. 

Through their high speed bus architecture and meticulous engineering, they have managed to achieve key wins on the worldwide Top 500 supercomputer list year after year., with one third of the Top 15, all based on Cray systems featuring AMD Technology:

• #2 Oak Ridge National Laboratory
• #6 National Institute for Computational Sciences/University of Tennessee
• #11 NERSC/LBNL
• #12 Oak Ridge National Laboratory
• #13 NNSA/Sandia National Laboratories

Of course, the folks at Cray will tell you (and they’d be right) that the most important aspect of these systems – and all the others they have deployed through the years around the globe – is the real-world work that’s achieved when they’re in action.

This week Cray announced two major pieces of news.  First, the #2 supercomputer in the world, the “Jaguar” system at ORNL will be upgraded to a 2 Petaflop system by replacing the existing quad-core processors with AMD’s latest six-core processor. A total of around 225,000 processor cores if you are doing the math.  In addition, NERSC, the holder of the current #11 system, will also be adding a new Cray XT5 system with 1 Petaflop of performance.

Congratulations to the team at Cray, their execution in the world of supercomputing is second to none.

When I look back on those Compaq customers that were telling me that the shiny new racks of x86 servers were really supercomputers, I have to admit that they were 100% right.  They just didn’t know how visionary they were back then.

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.

In the past, proprietary programming models like CUDA limited target platforms to those from a single vendor.  This may have been fine for students experimenting with a new approach, but mainstream ISVs and other large-scale developers need the flexibility inherent in industry standards.  With a standard, cross-platform API, developers can deliver solutions on multiple vendors’ hardware while streamlining their development processes and timelines.   This is what they’re waiting for – we hear it every day.

Of course no application runs entirely on the GPU.   Beyond the obvious need for CPUs to drive execution, most mainstream applications are heterogeneous in nature.  They have some functions that accelerate well on multicore CPUs, and others that are perfectly suited for a GPU’s data parallel architecture.  A good development platform needs to take that into account – this is the difference between GPGPU as a niche accelerator and GPGPU as a new baseline feature, ready for tomorrow’s systems and applications.

Today, AMD is delivering the first beta release of an OpenCL implementation for the CPU.  Managed by the independent Khronos Group, OpenCL addresses the need for a cross-platform, industry standard approach to development for heterogeneous architectures.   This can enable more developers to take advantage of GPGPU acceleration in their applications, but what is even more compelling is the opportunity to build applications that leverage all of the system’s compute resources – CPUs and GPUs – to provide a superior user experience.   As the only company that designs and delivers both high-performance GPUs and x86 CPUs to the market, AMD is uniquely qualified to help application developers drive full resource utilization forward without feeling the need to force-fit workloads onto one technology or the other. 

With the new OpenCL implementation for the CPU, application developers can begin realizing the promise of heterogeneous computing.  A video of a 4P Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM processor-based system (24 total cores) running an OpenCL-based, fluid/particle simulation can be seen here; for a developer-focused look at how OpenCL forms the basis of an evolving parallel programming ecosystem, see my colleague Margaret Lewis’ blog, Making the Universe Parallel.

Patricia Harrell is Director of Stream Computing at AMD.

Her postings are her 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.

When AMD pushed further into “Cloud\VM” computing there was talk of enabling GPUs as APUs in “future” sockets. Where is that initiative and where is it going?

Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) are essential to AMD’s product strategy and roadmaps.  We still continue to see the potential for GPGPUs handling certain types of server workloads. However, this technology faces some challenges before becoming “the next big thing” for cloud clusters. The first is the programming model. One way we plan to address this is through the work that our ATI Stream team is doing around OpenCL, (ATI Stream technology is key in merging the GPU and CPU to form an APU)a framework for writing applications that execute across heterogeneous platforms consisting of modern multi-core CPUs, GPUs, and other processors

The second challenge is the power and cooling aspect of the solution.  Customers are moving towards lower power solutions, especially in cloud, and CPUs are now approaching levels of performance/watt that still make them the leading choice for mainstream applications. The final area is the prioritization aspect.  GPGPU is an emerging technology for servers. Integration into client processors has a much greater benefit for both customers and AMD so you will see much more emphasis on client integration first. 

How will AMD address Green Computing?

We plan to continue to deliver low power processors, such as our HE and EE power bands. A new planned platform definition for Socket F, codenamed “Kroner” is focused as a “best practice for power management and design.” We expect to see a future “Kroner” follow-on platform that continues that thread. The C32 processors are really targeted at customers who want power efficiency, but we also plan low power options for the G34 processors as well.  We are also planning enhancement to our AMD-P feature set with new technologies that are expected to help increase the power efficiency at the processor level, the platform level, and even at the data center level. 

AMD has several initiatives targeting “cloud computing” and virtualization. Doesn’t this reduce the market for AMD products, since customers would buy only one server where they would have bought several?

Back when we are all in a single core world, everyone expected that dual-core would reduce the number of servers.  It didn’t happen. Neither did the transition to quad-core. As virtualization and cloud computing help make IT more efficient, this can free up dollars for more investment in other areas.  In any IT shop you’re likely to find that for every project that they are working on, there are dozens of other that they can’t fit into their budget. Add to this fact that world Internet usage is probably less than 25% today. As use of the Internet as a vehicle to deliver applications, data, and services continues to increase throughout the world, there is an obvious continued need for servers to power web and cloud clusters.

While AMD has made progress in the area of energy efficiency (e.g. AMD Opteron^TM EE processors, Cool’n'Quiet^TM technology), does AMD feel there is more room for improvement in this area?

There is always room for more improvement. Power efficiency will continue to be an important focus for us.

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.

I received more than 20 in this first round and for the purpose of this post, I’ll focus on five questions related to our upcoming server platforms.  Look for more posts that address questions around virtualization/cloud computing and future technologies in the coming days and weeks. Because these questions are around future platforms, some data won’t be available until launch. 

Is Socket C32 being designed to be backwards compatible with the existing Socket F?

No. Socket F is a DDR2 design and C32 is DDR3.  Having interchangeable processors and memories would mean a massive test matrix that OEMs might find difficult to support.  Eventually you’ll have to switch over to the new design.  Based on the fact that we expect Socket F to end up with ~5 years of life in it from 2006 to 2011, we feel it has served the market well and we don’t want to be focusing the new generation of processor into a 4 year old platform.

Are you going to allow a C32 socket to accept 8-core or 12-core CPU, or a G34 socket to accept 4-core or 6-core CPU?

We do not have plans to support this.  The C32 and G34 sockets are different form factors with different sizes and pin counts and are targeting workloads with different needs in terms of computational capabilities. The C32 and G34 platforms address different form factors and customer workloads.  Our goal is to introduce product features (including core counts) that are best aligned to those customer needs.

Does AMD plan to scale into the >100 thread 8P market with G34 systems?

The G34 systems planned for 2010 are expected to offer scalability to 4 sockets each with 12 cores per socket; that represents a total of 48 cores for a 4P platform.  The challenge in moving beyond that level for many mainstream business applications can be that the scalability of the software becomes a bigger challenge than the scalability of the hardware. (Specialized HPC-style applications may be another story altogether.) The market for single systems with 96 cores appears to be very limited at the moment, and new technologies like HPC, cloud and developments such as the HyperTransport HNC specification all represent ways of getting greater scalability in a scale out mode vs. scaling the systems up.

Will AMD be the single chipset source for server main boards in the long term?

AMD plans to release the SR5690 chipset later this year.  That will be utilized with existing Socket F processors as well as the future “Maranello” and “San Marino” platforms.  We can’t speak to the plans of other companies, but we welcome any additional chipset products from other vendors; competition always breeds the best innovation.

AMD has placed a great deal of emphasis on the fact that all of the new Six-Core AMD Opteron^TM processors (formerly codenamed “Istanbul”) fit within the same TDP/ACP as the previous Quad-Core AMD Opteron^TM processors (formerly codenamed “Shanghai”). Can we expect this trend to continue with “Magny Cours” and “Interlagos” despite the increasing core count?

Because we are moving to a new platform (codenamed “Maranello”), there is not a need to have exactly the same TDP/ACP as past processors. We do recognize that customers are very comfortable with the power/thermal bands that we have established and we plan to continue to use power bands that are very similar to what we use today. In general, we plan to continue the approach of allowing a single platform to be able to support more than one generation of processors (though not mixed in the same system of course), sharing a common power/thermal envelope.  Just as the Socket F (1207) allowed us to support Rev F dual -core, “Barcelona,” “Shanghai” and “Istanbul,” we believe that “Maranello” will support both the “Magny Cours” processors as well as the “Interlagos” processors. We expect the “San Marino” platform to support the “Lisbon” processor as well as its follow-on, the “Valencia” processor.

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.

What a once in a lifetime opportunity, the chance to witness the beginning of what may become the epicentre of technology and innovation in the United States: the ground breaking of Globalfoundries, Fab2 in Malta, NY, USA.

In the quaint and quiet town of Malta, NY stands a small technology park, known as a technology park only by the sign which clearly states it, is the US home of Globalfoundries.  Ask a “local” about Globalfoundries and you will receive animated adulation and excitement, not to mention an awe inspiring sense of opportunity and welcome.  This became very apparent to me when I was in a taxi from the hotel to the Globalfoundries offices, my taxi driver was no more than 22 years old, and he gushed at the chance to talk to me about applying to the Globalfoundries Training Program for the Fab2 project.  He mentioned that he did not want to be  a taxi driver forever and that Fab2 presented a  once in a lifetime opportunity.  In speaking to other locals, I received the sense that our young taxi driver was not alone; the whole county of Saratoga is abuzz in anticipation.

The locals have lots to be excited about; the current estimate is that Fab2 will generate up to 1400-1500 direct jobs and up to an additional 5,000 in-direct jobs totaling more than $300 million dollars in payroll a year for Fab2.  In today’s economy, this is all very good news.

The location is not by happenstance, it’s a clever master strategy by the State of New York and its many private partners over many years.  If you were to draw a line through NY State you would fine IBM’s East Fishkill complex to the south, the College of Nanoscale Science & Engineering in the middle and now, Globalfoundries 28nm/22nm Fab2 just north of Albany.  A masterfully designed Technology Centre of Excellence.

Prior to the groundbreaking ceremony I had the opportunity to sit down with the former Chairman/CEO/President of AMD and currently the Chairman of Globalfoundries Hector Ruiz:

Hector Ruiz has been the main champion behind the creation of Fab2 but could only have achieved this monumental milestone through the hard work of many local and federal politicians and technology partnerships with companies like AMD and ATIC. Just before the groundbreaking event started, I caught up with Dirk Meyer President and CEO to AMD to get his thoughts on the epic day:

Dirk sums it up well, Fab2 is made possible by collaboration, and Hector and Dirk both graciously reiterated the significant role “People” played in making this all happen; the list of VIP’s attending the event is second to none, here are some highlights: NY State Governor Patterson NY State Senator Schumer Congressman Murphy Former NY State Governor Pataki

shovels hitting the ground

And it's official, Globalfoundries Fab2 is ready to be built

The event attracted huge attention locally and nationally, CNBC, Good Morning America, CBS News and a host of local broadcasters were on-site to witness history in the making, as did 400 local participants.  One of the highlights was when former Governor Pataki stepped up on stage to sum up what the groundbreaking meant to him. He and his fellow politicians have been working towards this day for over 15 years; he bestowed a heartfelt thanks to Senator Joe Bruno for his vision and tenacity to drive this project forward as well as Dr.Alain Kalyeros who has been instrumental in the local technology scene. With one quick slice of the shovel it was over, or rather just beginning. Fab2 becomes a reality after many years of focused effort and hurtling multiple obstacles. AMD is once again at the forefront of innovation and enabling technology for the future!

Cheers!

Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton

Ian McNaughton is senior manager of advanced marketing 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.

Courtesy of StudioGPU

For professionals working in 3D CAD, Digital Content Creation and Engineering, waiting for designs and images to render is standard operating procedure. While technology has vastly improved over the last several years, many professionals are still waiting several minutes or even hours for large and complex models to render — thankfully rendering overnight is becoming a thing of the past.

In addition, every time a change is made to the model you have to wait for it to render again. While render times are getting shorter, those minutes of waiting can really add up throughout the work week, impacting creativity and productivity.

Considering the human brain works faster than the fastest computer, working at 100 million MIPS (millions of instructions per second), having a computer that could work at the speed of thought would free up professionals to focus on their creation by enabling real-time workflows and rendering.  Artists want their creativity to flow with no impediments.  The computer should be a tool that responds with interactivity, and the user should not need to wait for the computer to catch up or interrupt their creative flow. While the concept may seem futuristic, there are companies out there making it a reality today.

StudioGPU, an AMD customer, is reinventing 3D visualization workflow by putting the power of real-time graphics processing and rendering on the desktop. Its MachStudio Pro software complements existing design, modeling and animation software by significantly reducing the time and cost to produce CG images. With MachStudio, users can render complex models, scenes and images incredibly quickly – in just a few seconds in many cases.

The benefits of real-time workflows and rendering are significant. Not only can professionals focus on creating, they can get more work done in a shorter period of time. Real-time rendering can also allow professional firms to show customers how proposed changes to a model will look/interact in real-time. And it can enable more accurate designs before moving onto full-scale production, which can help save time and money.

Janet Matsuda is Senior Director, Professional Graphics at AMD
Her postings are her 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.

Truthfully, 100F translates to ~37C or so, which is very close to the 35C spec that is so common in the computer industry.  We spec our processors to run at a maximum temperature of 35C, which means that there is a lot of heat being generated inside those boxes.  Blades, twins and 1U servers aren’t helping the situation because their form factors are driving greater heat density.

Many are starting to investigate things like liquid cooling racks or other proprietary schemes to drive lower temperatures.  The reason for this is that the chillers used to keep the server room at a lower temperature are very expensive.

Everyone is trying to avoid “the million dollar server.” That is the last server that breaks the camel’s back and forces you to upgrade the AC units. Power is generally a continuum – add another server and your cost go up marginally (as long as you don’t need to pull another circuit to the rack.)

But with cooling, it is not quite as linear.  There is both a variable cost for each server, as well as a large step-function jump when you have to add new equipment.

The two big challenges that are hitting the data center when it comes to cooling the data center with proprietary methods are cost and risk.

Cost is always a driver with any type of proprietary system.  It will be a driver until the system hits critical mass.  Even then, if there are complicated manufacturing methods, even widespread market adoption might not drive the cost curve down fast enough.  If some proprietary intellectual property is included in the system, expect royalties to continue to take their bite.

The other factor is risk, but it is not risk in the classic sense.  It is the risk of making the wrong decision.  If you choose the new technology too early, you might miss some innovation that helps drive the cost down somewhat.  And if you guess wrong, well, we don’t need to say how that story ends, we’ve all see the movie.

Cost and risk are driving a lot of customers to investigate more non-standard cooling technologies, but that process is not happening fast enough for some companies. Air cooling is not only the traditional method, but even with new technology, it remains the predominant method.

I’m very interested in your cooling strategies.  Post a comment with what you are doing to combat “global warming” in your own environment.

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.