AMD Begins Tape-Out of first Dual Core Opteron
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 14, 2004 4:15 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
AMD's Dual Core Roadmap
AMD also provided us with an updated roadmap, now including the new Dual Core parts:
You can see that Egypt, Italy and Denmark are all dual core versions of the 90nm Opteron 800, 200 and 100 series of processors. We'd assume that they will be just dual core versions of their single core 90nm counterparts, Athens, Troy and Venus (which if you will remember from our previous roadmaps are basically smaller 90nm versions of the current Opterons, with no major architectural changes). AMD will offer both full and low power versions of their Opterons in dual core configurations, just like they do today.
The dual core Opterons are expected to hit in the middle of 2005, then later in the 2nd half of 2005 we'll see the first dual core Athlon 64 FX. In 2006 we're expecting AMD to offer dual core versions of other CPUs in their AMD64 lineup as well
We'll update you with more information about AMD's dual core strategy as we receive it.
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Anemone - Monday, June 14, 2004 - link
It's worth reiterating that this is OPTERON chips. AMD has stated several times that it has NO plans at the moment to bring dual cores to the desktop. Since you can well imagine what a double FX chip would cost I think you can easily see why...So yep exciting news, but none of this is for a 939 socket, even with a single memory controller.
eRacer - Monday, June 14, 2004 - link
AMD confirmed in the Infoworld article below that the dual core CPUs will only have one memory controller.http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/06/14/HNamddua...
"AMD's dual-core server processors will share a single memory controller, Weber said. This won't create a bottleneck because a server with two Opteron chips, and therefore two memory controllers, already has more than enough memory bandwidth required to run that system, he said."
Doormat - Monday, June 14, 2004 - link
The article is here...http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=13344
Pumpkinierre - Monday, June 14, 2004 - link
I'm still wondering about that P4 720 3.73Gig and 2Mb of cache, lumped in with the banias and dothans in the roadmap, that's supposed to be coming out before year's end. I get the feeling that both companies are pushing their dual core R&D at highest priority.Doormat - Monday, June 14, 2004 - link
If I remember right, I saw many stories around the web saying every opteron's memory controller had two imput ports to the memory controller from the CPU. Thus, you can go dual core and NOT need to redesign the memory controller at all, and you wont need to change the pinout on the socket. Thus you could take out a single core S940 opteron and put in a dual core opteron. Power issues are the only thing complicating it I believe.quanta - Monday, June 14, 2004 - link
I suspect the Opteron 8xx's can do a lot more than 16-way processing. Opteron 8xx has 3 HyperTransport ports that can connect to 3 other CPUs. If the HT ports are connected differently from what was suggested by AMD, it can theoretically run an infinitely long chain of processors.As interesting as 2x128-bit memory controllers are, having to install 4 memory modules is a little excessive to most, and most likely requires registered DIMM or Intel's FB-DIMM to work. Hopefully there will be 256/288-bit memory modules when dual core Opteron arrives.
AtaStrumf - Monday, June 14, 2004 - link
It could get the No.1 spot in folding in about 2 days :)Runamile - Monday, June 14, 2004 - link
dang, 16 way proccessing on one board? I assume i'm reading the roadmap right. Saying the 1xx series, dual core, is actually 2 proccessors. That would mean the 8xx series supports 16. Just think what a Rackable stand with 80 servers, each with 16x854's Optrons can do. 1280 Optrons working an parallel on one rack. Holy Cow.GokieKS - Monday, June 14, 2004 - link
It would be, but I imagine AMD might save that as their trump card if they really do need it, especially since the whole S940/939 fiasco already managed to annoy people, and another socket change would go even furthur in that.~KS
Nighteye2 - Monday, June 14, 2004 - link
Are those all implications? If AMD does decide to activate both memory controllers, it would have big advantages in UMA-enabled operating systems like Longhorn will be. You'd have twice dual-channel memory bandwidth in that situation, which is potentially a big advantage compared to Intel's dual-core offerings.