AMD Demos First Six-core Opteron Processors Codenamed Istanbul

[malware]

AMD today gave the first working demonstration of its six-core Opteron processor codenamed "Istanbul." The 45nm Istanbul server chips will succeed current "Shanghai" Opterons. Istanbul processors will use 6MB of L2 cache, and support HyperTransport and two channels of DDR2 memory per socket. The chips will fit into Socket F server motherboards. First live demonstration of Istanbul was performed on two server systems, one running four processors (24 cores total), and the second running with two processors (12 cores). AMD plans to release a full lineup of six-core Opterons based on Istanbul, including low-power HE versions and high-performance SE models, sometime in the second-half of 2009. Read the full story here.



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[Fatal]

Wow six cores that CPU must cost an arm and a leg. Thanks for the info I like to hear good news on new products.

 

[jagass]

Thanks for the info man...

 

[PVTCaboose1337]

So uh... did they utterly fail 8 core, and have a 6 core, or did they actually make a 6 core on purpose.

 

[ShadowFold]

Anyone know if these are gonna go to the desktop market? I might grab a black edition when I get my summer job

 

[FordGT90Concept]

So uh... did they utterly fail 8 core, and have a 6 core, or did they actually make a 6 core on purpose.

It's a hexa-core intentionally. They developed this to compete with Intel's recent hexa-core (Dunnington) processors. Intel is supposed to have octo-core server processors out soon based on Nehalem (16 threads).

 

[HolyCow02]

Anyone know if these are gonna go to the desktop market? I might grab a black edition when I get my summer job

These are socket F... you will be able to buy them... but they will be insanely expensive. Socket F mobo's are very expensive.

thanks for the info though. glad to see they made it to Istanbul testing so fast!

 

[Deleted member 3]

It's a hexa-core intentionally. They developed this to compete with Intel's recent hexa-core (Dunnington) processors. Intel is supposed to have octo-core server processors out soon based on Nehalem (16 threads).

Too little too late I guess. It will probably be nice against Dunnington, it'll hae far less of a FSB/memory bottleneck. Specially considering it can work on dual socket boards as well.
Though likeyou say, he Nehalem based chips won't have these bottlenecks either so will fly straight past them. And to be fair, in this market nobody cares about paying $1000 more.

 

[cdawall]

these still wont beat the intel's unless the intel's get stuck on a dualie server for a while cause 4 chips and 6 cores will still beat 2 chips with 8 cores and HT

 

[Imsochobo]

Socket F mobo's are Incredible cheap! i bought one at 1/3rd of the price of an am2+ 790 chipset series mobo.
Cpu's on other hand is expensive! dual socket boards are cheap, however cpu's are expensive.

 

[Deleted member 3]

these still wont beat the intel's unless the intel's get stuck on a dualie server for a while cause 4 chips and 6 cores will still beat 2 chips with 8 cores and HT

It's not as black and white as you suggest. Core2 based servers are severely bottlenecked by memory. In memory intensive applications the Opterons could probably win. Raw processing power, sure Intel wins.

 

[adrianx]

fan boys and girls (yammy)

amd do the 6 core simple because the architecture is designed for multi core

the hypertranport interface can connect from cpu and chipset, or one cpu core with many cpu core, also can be used to adder device. so the simple ideea is not why the amd make a 6-8 core now, but the real ideea is were the 6-8 core will arrive on market (soon as the market require )

like a paralel any of you can read this

frist the cell procesor

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1727&page=1


http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/11/intel-demonstrates-80-core-processor/

 

[Easy Rhino]

hrm...i think in this economy i would just pay less for a four core machine OR pay more for an 8 core that would last me an extra year or two.

 

[cdawall]

It's not as black and white as you suggest. Core2 based servers are severely bottlenecked by memory. In memory intensive applications the Opterons could probably win. Raw processing power, sure Intel wins.

i'm still thinking that a dualie i7 board would loose to a quad socket F with 6 core chips

 

[spearman914]

what's next???? a dodeca-core intel??

 

[FordGT90Concept]

It's not as black and white as you suggest. Core2 based servers are severely bottlenecked by memory. In memory intensive applications the Opterons could probably win. Raw processing power, sure Intel wins.

Sure it isn't latency caused by the FB-DIMMs and not bandwidth? FB-DIMMs are high bandwidth but because the Advanced Memory Buffer has to grab the memory requests, there is a delay. This obviously hurts in applications where memory requests are made rapidly; however, it also has its advantages (helluva lot of memory).

 

[trt740]

Too little too late I guess. It will probably be nice against Dunnington, it'll hae far less of a FSB/memory bottleneck. Specially considering it can work on dual socket boards as well.
Though likeyou say, he Nehalem based chips won't have these bottlenecks either so will fly straight past them. And to be fair, in this market nobody cares about paying $1000 more.

I'm not so sure, with the economy the way it is, $1000 maybe something someone might care about.

 

[Flyordie]

what's next???? a dodeca-core intel??

Intel can only fit up to 8 (maybe 10 if they drop some cache..) cores per die. AMD can fit up to 12 cores per die. This is using 45nm techno.

Intel's CPUs are HUGE when compared to AMDs. So you won't see anything bigger than 8 core from Intel until they drops to 32nm.

32nm will be AMDs sweetspot for cores... Up to 20 cores. (16 more than likely as it will mean they can make a 20 core CPU, but have a certain amount of cores ready as "repair cores" and later down the road with the stocked "good" 20 core CPUs release them as a high end model..)

 

[fenurch]

I truly don't understand why make a new core with a new socket. I would understand if like, P4 had different socket from C2D but i7 has a completely different one, it's probably because it's some 1337 tech or something but it's actually quite a bit of expensive non-sense

 

[Mr.President]

gg info mate, thanx for sharing

 

[Hayder_Master]

it is most sexy picture when i see 24 cores run in windows

 

[Sara]

Istanbul Demo Video and Blog

Check out two videos of Istanbul's demos. The first video indicates the consistency of AMD's architecture and upgrade from the Quad-Core AMD Opteron Processors to Six-Core AMD Opteron Processors (Istanbul). The second video shows Istanbul running on a 2P virtualization platform, highlighting Istanbul's virtualization capabilities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLbGQ8oraKg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D11uY5dOE2c

Also see Istanbul images here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amd_unprocessed/

Plus view a blog post written by John Fruehe, Director of Business Development for Server/Workstation products at AMD here: http://blogs.amd.com/work/archive/2009/02/24/istanbul-not-constantinople.aspx