RSSAMD: 12-core server CPUs in 2010, 16-core in 2011
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published April 22, 2009, 2:04 PM
During a press webcast Wednesday afternoon, AMD server business unit VP Pat Patla verified yesterday's news revealed during the company's quarterly earnings call yesterday, but then added one big component: In addition to six-core "Istanbul" Opteron server CPUs for 2P, 4P, and 8P servers available as soon as this June -- moved up from the second half of the year -- the first of AMD's 45 nm 12-core Opteron server CPUs will become available next year.
The "dodeca-core" processor will be made possible through an upgraded version of AMD's Direct Connect Architecture, now numbered 2.0. Patla showed off an accelerated roadmap for future server CPUs, which from here on out divides Opteron series into two families -- the general-performance 4000 series and the higher-performance 6000 series -- featuring 16-core "Valencia" and "Interlagos" architecture 32 nm CPUS, respectively, as soon as 2011.
After that time -- at this point, sometime in 2012 -- the company will be unveiling what it's calling the next "iteration" of its x86 architecture, implying that this could be when we see the first implementation of 28 nm architecture. This architecture was announced last week, when IBM announced that its alliance (including Global Foundries, which produces chips now for AMD) took advantage of Intel's timing adjustment by casting light upon a possible roadmap for jumping over Intel's 32 nm leadership within the next three years.
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Depending upon your focus, individual desktop or server, there are of course many considerations.
But AMD might be wise to keep their development cycles a little closer to the vest instead of undercutting the current release product they are trying to hype and promote as they announce orders of magnitude greater product for anticipated release in the near term!
In their rush to promote the capabilities of their company, they are undercutting the effort to market current offerings!
Yup, folks! Rush out and buy our whiz bang product today that will be eclipsed in price and performance in 6-9 months! What a deal!
Or, buy our energy efficient car that gets 20 miles to the gallon...as they plaster the showroom with product announcements touting their 40 mile per gallon models available for approximately the same price points in 6 months!
Yup, give me two of those 20 mile per gallon models TODAY!!
And consolidated/virtualized servers require backup hardware for redundancy! As attractive as a more dense multicore platform may be, one common point machine failure now has the potential to take down the equivalent of MANY servers. So there is much more to redundancy and disaster recovery planning than simply saving money on buying one instead of many servers!
But that said, if this has to be explained, then you are not the party who should be making any recommendations in this area of market opportunity.
Score: -3
|all the need then is a trade in program but 6 cores today get 12 cores free in 6 months j/k
Score: 0
|I lean towards Foxfyre... at least for personal usage - the home market has barely made inroads to 64 bit operating systems with any good amount virtualization across multiple cores or processors...
Sure in a professional enviroment, especially one that isn't pinned to using M$ software... you've got potential... but then again it's just micronization... switching to multiple servers or server farms to intergrated multi-cores.
And the problem for now will remain cost... if you can do this with plenty of old hardware, why spend $$$ on the new stuff? Not only that put in the case of reducing your 6 physical servers... - currently if you encounter hardware failure, you'd hopefully have some measure of redundancy... if you "bet the farm" and "put all your eggs in one basket" you'll have less redundancy and more downtime.
Yes, progression is good... but let's remember that the hands of Corporate IT are generally tied by the hands of the Accounting department. It's expected to get every LAST drop of processing power from every asset... then scrap that asset for every working part you can use from it to keep other old assets running.
I doubt I'm going to see one of these in my line of work any time soon... And honestly, like Foxfyre said... there's little point in me upgrading my dual core to a quad if I know by this time next year 6 or 8 core processors will be out (and probably cheap if 12 cores are being launched)
Score: -1
|You are a Pro Geek... (since you like those 3 periods, I thought I would use them...)
I love your cool use of the M$. That is so new and original. It really makes your comments seem truly interesting and unbiased... Please post again as I am sitting here waiting for your next fantastic read.
Score: 1
|So, in other words, as so much software doesn't yet optimally take advantage of multiple CPUs, and as we wait for the release of more capable bare metla hypervisor/virtualization support, the market has more time to wait for application development as the prices will drop to accomodate still greater CPU densities in a year or two.
Yet one more great reason to rationalize holding off the purchase of an interim gap multi-CPU machine now.
Gee AMD, that's one hell of a sales pitch.
...any other encouraging news?
Score: -3
|huh? youre on track with the virtualization, but more cores is definitely better in every way. our next server upgrade cycle, hopefully next year, could reduce our ~6 physical 2P servers into 1 1P or 2P unit.
Score: -1
|Congrats nitwit, you just supported my point!
So why exactly should you run out and buy their just released 6 core CPU machines with substantially greater CPU density/capability available for almost the same price point available within ~6-9 months?????????
Score: -3
|I had considered putting one of these if my socket F motherboard will support it. I just put 2 of the 4 core opterons in my box I play WoW on (ok I am a tad bit insane perhaps) but used to be a FX-74 in there.
Score: 0
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