NVIDIA nForce Professional Brings Huge I/O to Opteron
by Derek Wilson on January 24, 2005 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
We can't wait to get our hands on a board. Now that NVIDIA has announced this type of scaling I/O with HyperTransport connections, we wonder why we haven't been pushing it all along. It seems rather obvious in hindsight that using the extra HT connections processors would be advantageous and relatively simple in an Opteron environment. This is especially true when all the core logic fits on a single chip. Kudos to NVIDIA for bringing the 2200 and 2050 combination to market.
Though much of the nForce Professional series is very similar to the nForce 4, NVIDIA has likely made good use of those two million extra transistors. Though, we can't be exactly sure what went in there - it's likely the TCP/IP offload Engine, and possibly some server level error reporting routines. But for this, nForce Pro is exactly the same as the nForce 4.
The creativity that the nForce Pro 2050 MCP will offer vendors is unfathomable. We've already seen what everyone has tried with the NF4 Ultra and SLI chipsets, and now that we have something made for scalability and multiple configurations, we are sure to see some ingenious designs spring forth.
NVIDIA mentioned that many of their partners wanted a launch in December. NVIDIA also told us that IWill and Tyan are already shipping boards, but we aren't sure how widespread availability is yet. We will have to speak with IWill and Tyan about these matters. As far as we are concerned, the faster that NVIDIA can get nForce Professional out the door, the better.
The last thing to look at is how the new NVIDIA solution compares to its competition from Intel. Well, here's a handy comparison chart for those who wish to know what they can get in terms of I/O from NVIDIA and from Intel on their server and workstation boards.
| Server/Worstation Platform Comparison | |||
| NVIDIA nForce Pro (single) | NVIDIA nForce Pro (quad) | Intel E7525/E7520 | |
| PCI Express Lanes | 20 Lanes | 80 lanes | 24 |
| SATA | 4 SATA II | 16 SATA II | 2 SATA 1.0 |
| Gigabit Ethernet MAC | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| USB 2.0 | 10 | 10 | 4 |
| PCI-X Support | No | No | Yes |
| DDR/DDR2 | DDR | DDR | DDR2 |
Opteron boards with NFPro can have PCI-X support when combined with the proper AMD-8000 series chips, but NVIDIA didn't build in PCI-X support. It's obvious how well beyond Lindenhurst and Tumwater (E7520 and E7525) that the nForce Pro will scale with dual and quad Opteron solutions. Even in a single MCP configuration, NVIDIA has a lot of flexibility with its configurable PCI Express controller. Intel's solutions are locked into either 1 x16 slot + 1 x8 (E7525) or 3 x8 (E7520). The x8 connections to the MCH can run 2 physical devices instead (up to 2 x4). Also, if the motherboard vendor includes Intel's additional PCI hub for more PCI-X slots, either 4 or 8 of those PCI Express lanes go away.
Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot more that we can say until we get our hands on it for testing. Professional series products can take longer to get into our lab, so it may be some time before we can get a review out, but we will try our best to get product as soon as possible. Of course, boards will cost a lot, and the more exciting the board, the less affordable it will be. But that won't stop us from reviewing them. On paper, this is definitely one of the most intriguing advancements that we've seen in AMD-centered core logic, and could be one of the best things ever to happen to high end AMD servers.
On the workstation side, we are very interested in testing a full 2 x16 PCI Express SLI setup, as well as the multiple display possibilities of such a system. It's an exciting time for the AMD workstation market, and we're really looking forward to getting our hands on systems.
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SDA - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
Thanks, Kris, but I do know that PCI-X != PCI-Express.. a lot of people use it to mean that by mistake, though, so I'm not sure what the author meant by PCI-X on the last page of the article.Also, technically, PCI-X isn't quite 64-bit PCI. 64-bit PCI is, well, 64-bit PCI; the main difference between it and PCI-X is that PCI-X also runs at a faster clock (133MHz, or 266MHz for 2.0). Obsolete PC technology is one of the few things I have any knowledge about, heh.
REMF - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
my mistake Derek, got the diagram muddled up with those hideous dual boards that connect all the memory through CPU0 and route it via HT to CPU1.mixed up memory with IO, silly me.
DerekWilson - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
nf pro supports ncq and not tcq ...I also updated the article ... MCPs are more flexible than I thought and NVIDIA has corrected me on a point --
one 2200 and 2 2050s can connect to an Opteron 150. dual and quad servers are able to connect to 4 MCPs total (2 each processor for dual and 1 each for quad).
With 8-way servers, it's possible to build even more I/O in to the system. NVIDIA says their mostly targeting 2 and 4 way, but with 8 way systems, there are topographies that essentially connect 2 4-way setups together. In these cases, 6 MCPs could be used giving even more I/O ...
#21 ---
Every Opteron has 3 HT links ... the difference between a 1xx, 2xx, and 8xx is the number of coherent HT links. In a dual core setup, either AMD could use one of the 3 HT links for core to core comm, or they could add an HT link for intra core comm.
pio!pio! - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
If I'm reading this correctly...with all those PCI Express slots and multiple MCP's and multiproc's...the number of traces in the mobo should be astronomically high..I wonder how expensive the motherboards will bejmautz - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
Please correct my memory/misunderstanding...I thought the reason AMD could make a dual-core Opt so easilly was because they attached both cores via the unused HyperTrasport connector. Doesn't that mean there is no availible HyperTrasport conencters on to attch the 2050? (at least on the 22x models).
Thanks.
DerekWilson - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
#18capable of RAID 0, 1, 0+1 ... same as NF4. The overhead of RAID 5 would require a much more powerful processor (or performance would be much slower).
#15
Quad and 8-way scientific systems with 4 video cards in them doing general purpose scientific computing (or any vector fp math app) comes to mind as a very relevant app ... I could see cluster of those being very effective in crunching large data science/math/engineering problmes.
#12/#13
NUMA and memory bandwidth has nothing to do with NVIDIA's nForce 4 or nForce Pro, or even AMD's chipsets.
Each Opteron has it's own on die memory controller, and the motherboard vendor can opt to impliment a system that would allow or disallow NUMA as they see fit. What's required is a bios that: has APIC 2, no node interleaving, and can build an SRAT. Also the motherboard must allow physical memory to be attached to each processors' memory controllers. It's really a BIOS and phsyical layout issue.
The NVIDIA core logic does do a lot for being single chip. But we should remember that it doesn't need to act as a memory controller as Intel's northbridge must. The nForce has no effect on memory config.
tumbleweed - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
The Tech Report mentioned that the nForce Pro supports TCQ instead of just NCQ - is that wrong, or was that just not mentioned here?Doormat - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
Perhaps I missed it, but what RAID modes is it capable of? 0/1/5? I'd love to have a board with 8 SATA-II ports and dual opteron processors and run RAID 5 as a file server (with 64b linux of course). Let the CPUs do the parity calcs (since that'd be the only thing its used for). Mmmm... 8x400GB in RAID-5.jmautz - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
Thanks I see that now. When I missed it the first time I went back and looked at the summery specs on page 3 and didn't see it listed.Thanks again.
ProviaFan - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
#14 / jmautz:On page 2 of the article, there is this statement:
"NVIDIA has also informed us that they have been validating AMD's dual core solutions on nForce Professional before launch as well. NVIDIA wants its customers to know that it's looking to the future, but the statement of dual core validation just serves to create more anticipation for dual core to course through our veins in the meantime. Of course, with dual core coming down the pipe later this year, the rest of the system can't lag behind."