AMD introduces 45nm quad-core "Shanghai" Opteron processors
Summary: Today AMD announces 45nm quad-core Opteron processors, codenamed "Shanghai" designed to deliver superior virtualization experience, performance and power efficiency.
Today AMD announces 45nm quad-core Opteron processors, codenamed "Shanghai" designed to deliver superior virtualization experience, performance and power efficiency.
The touted highlights of these new pieces of silicon are many and varied:
- Extending virtualization capabilities.
- Up to 35% more performance compared to "Barcelona" Opteron CPUs while having the same power envelope.
- The only x86 processor spanning 2, 4 and 8 processor servers while maintaining socket and thermal compatibility with previous generation processors.
- Approximately 35% less power usage at idle "Barcelona" Opteron CPUs.
A lot is being made of the virtualization capabilities of these new Opteron processors:
Here's an interesting video for those thinking about moving from Intel to AMD. It shows a live migration from Intel to AMD via Red Hat virtualization:
These new "Shanghai" Opteron processors deliver superior performance at a lower price point than Intel can deliver. For example;
- 6% better performance for two-processor servers at a 29% lower price point
- 24% better performance for four-processor servers at a 21% lower price point
Some more AMD vs. Intel comparisons:
When it comes to getting these processors out, AMD has partnered with big name OEMs such as IBM, Dell, HP, Sun and Cray to make sure that there are plenty of "Shanghai" Opteron-ready platforms.
What about price? AMD have priced the "Shanghai" Opteron processors to offer excellent performance-per-dollar.
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Talkback
Why do you love AMD so much?
I find it indicative of just how poorly AMD is doing that you aren't glowing about this product as much as you did about the failure that was Barcelona, and do about the ATI cards, which have suffered equally from the gross mismanagement at AMD.
It hurts me to even write anything bad about AMD, because I remember a time when what you were claiming was actually true, of both AMD and ATI. Even I was realistic enough to see that Hector Ruiz ran that company into the ground and sacrificed quality for time to market, and did so frequently enough that none of their offerings or the offerings of their acquisitions can compete.
Let's hope Dirk Meyer can rebuild some of that old AMD glory, and bring them back to being the mavericks of reverse engineering and once again start providing *better* products at a lower price. As it stands, I wouldn't invest a dime in them.
OMG
less than 3.2 3.6 3.8
every f**** ing MHz counts not "cores_ past(2)
good luck dying computer industry.....
And what's your opinion?
might have been for good reasons. However, you
do not tell us what's your opinion of Shanghai.
Will it allow AMD to compete better with Intel
or not? What's your opinion at this point about
that?
AMD Shanghai and Energy Effeciency
This'd be great for keeping good performance while keeping energy consumption low. Home automation server, database server, web server, Windows media streaming server, virtualized openSUSE 11, etc.
35W TDP ...
George Ou?
I'm busy with my day job and will get something Friday night
Desktop market is still owned by Intel's 45nm core 2 quad and i7 Nehalem-class processors. Then we have this monster of Intel Nehalem-EP coming up and that will make a MONSTER jump in performance, even bigger than the jump Intel made in desktop platforms. We're talking 50% jump on most benchmarks and 100% gain on SPECfp for high performance computing. The effect of that tripple-wide DDR3 memory architecture has little impact on desktop, but it takes Intel in to the stratosphere on server.
Barcelona turned out to be a fairly good chip, just that it came out a year late. Had AMD launched Barcelona on time in 2007, they would have had server lead all through 2008 but execution killed them. Ironically, Shanghai launch is even harder for AMD to pull off but they managed to do it on time.
Nehalem on server platform is taking a little longer than usual because it's a huge shift in the platform and the OEMs have to spend a lot longer validating their designs it's all new motherboards, sockets, DDR3 unbuffered memory, all new CPU. So shanghai will lead for 2 months but Nehalem-EP will dominate 2009 for 2P platform. Shanghai will have mixed results on 4P and 8P against Intel Dunnington and lead on some things but trail on others because Nehalem doesn't reach 4P/8P until end of 2009 or early 2010 time frame.
Timing is everything
AMD has a chance with Shanghai to grab some glory from Intel, but they have to be quick.
What worries me about AMD though, especially in the consumer market is that there's not a lot of innovation going on at the high end. AMD might be chasing the profits in the short term, but in the long term this approach could come back to haunt them.
The problem with 2nd place is that it drives down AMD's selling price
Now we're seeing AMD being forced to sell Shanghai parts at a discount compared to comparable Intel Penryn parts and that will get worse when Nehalem arrives.
Here you go
http://www.formortals.com/Home/tabid/36/EntryID/137/Default.aspx
Good Stuff!!!!
Wonder how Intel will fair in this economy with all their fab capacity to support?
With the scale that Intel operates at, having those fabs are necessary
savvy
when ATI releases the 4800 chipset
intel dead...
GO AMD! Yea baby!!!