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AMD Launches First 45nm Shanghai CPUs
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Thu Nov 13, 2008 11:07 AM
from the steady-progress dept.
from the steady-progress dept.
arcticstoat writes "The wait for AMD's next-gen CPUs is finally over, as the company has now officially launched its first 45nm 'Shanghai' Opteron chips for servers and workstations. 'AMD's move to a 45nm process relies on immersion lithography, where a refractive fluid fills the gap between the lens and the wafer, which AMD says will result in 'dramatic performance and performance-per-watt gains.' It's also enabled AMD to increase the maximum clock speed of the Opterons from 2.3GHz with the Barcelona core to 2.7GHz with the Shanghai core. Shanghai chips also feature more cache than their predecessors, with 6MB of Level 3 cache bumping the total up to 8MB, and the chips share the same cache architecture as Barcelona CPUs, with a shared pool of Level 3 cache and an individual allocation of Level 2 cache for each core.'"
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AMD Launches New Processor Socket Despite Poor Economy 215 comments
arcticstoat writes to tell us that despite a poor economic climate, AMD is moving forward with a new processor socket launch, although they are trying to make it as upgrade-friendly as possible. "As you probably already know from the AM3 motherboards that have already been announced, AM3 is AMD's first foray into DDR3 memory support. As Phenom CPUs have integrated memory controllers, it's more accurate to say that it's the new range of Phenom II CPUs (see below) that are DDR3-compatible. However, the new DDR3-compatible Phenom II range is also compatible with DDR2 memory. As the new CPUs and the new AM3 socket are pin-compatible with the current AM2+ socket, you can put a new AM3-compatible CPU into an existing AM2+ motherboard. This means that you can upgrade your CPU now without needing to change your motherboard or buy pricey new DDR3 memory."
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Unfortunate name (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Unfortunate name (Score:5, Funny)
I still find it funny that Apple computers now use intel Core 2 Duo processors.
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Making Me Feel Old (Score:5, Interesting)
The first computer that I was a primary operator on, a S/360-135 plug-compatible 2Pi, had 768KB when it was delivered and was eventually bumped to 1.25MB shortly before I moved on to programming.
The computer upon which I wrote my first professional (COBOL) program was an IBM 3033 with a (for then) eye-popping 4MB of physical memory.
The first computer I ever owned was an RCA COSMAC with 4KB of memory.
The first DIY computer I ever assembled completely from parts (about 15 years ago) had 4MB of interleaved DRAM and a 256KB SRAM cache and was considered somewhat amazing by everyone who saw how fast it ran OS/2. I eventually boosted it up to 16MB
Now you get 8MB of on die cache with your four cores... And I still can't get a decent flying car.
Re:Which to buy now? (Score:4, Informative)
This news is about a server/workstation chip, and I don't do any purchasing of those. As far as desktop chips are concerned, AMD was ALWAYS competitive on a price-performance basis. The key word there being price.
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Re:Which to buy now? (Score:5, Informative)
No, they weren't. For the past year Intel has boxed AMD in with chips at the same performance and lower price, or the same price and higher performance, or both.
And Intel has had performance segments (QX*) stretching well above AMD's, and pricing segments (Atom) well below AMD's.
AMD's short-lived price/performance superiority in the desktop sweet-spot in 2004 and 2005 has left many people thinking they're still in that position. That hasn't been true since Core 2 came out. HyperTransport gave them a slight edge in very-high-end servers for certain applications, but Intel stayed near them with reliably higher clock speeds, and is coming out with QuickPath in four days, wiping out those few use cases where AMD can make easy sales today.
What I'm saying is, right now you are likely to choose Intel in almost all situations, if you are objective.
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Re:Which to buy now? (Score:5, Informative)
cycles aren't everything in all cases... AMD still has more system bandwidth, which speeds up everything when talking about IO bound applications. FSB speeds up every aspect of the computer.
The applications where AMD is superior are IO bound applications like database servers, and music production.
Intel is better for video because you are dealing with a limited number of streams and it's computationally expensive, so is CPU bound.
With audio you can have hundreds of streams (often 4-6 per fader on the mixer), and at 24/96, will quickly overwhelm any intel based system. Since a lot of us use DSP cards ( think of it as GPU for sound) the data path capacity, especially to the DSP processors (PCI/PCI-e) is very important, and Intel simply can't touch AMD in this respect.
AMD architecture simply has untouchable plumbing. If you will notice, Apple is looking for a new chip vendor. This probably has a lot to do with it since most audio professionals use Apple gear.
If Jobs and Co. were smart, they'd offer both intel and amd architectures, depending on the job being done. Intel is fantastic for video and a lot of pro video peeps use Apple gear too. Those are two market segments that couldn't be more different in their requirements. To be the best of the best for multimedia, Apple needs to either build a new architecture or offer both AMD and Intel.
-Viz
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Re:Which to buy now? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's been true in some price ranges, but Intel hasn't trumped AMD across the board any time recently. There's always been a couple price ranges - and usually the relevant ones like $120 to $150 - where AMD has a better product.
Geode?
I'm not trying to say that Intel hasn't been "the winner" for the past year or so, but it certainly hasn't been as one-sided as you're claiming. AMD has been selling chips, based on being the best choice for individual consumers, the whole time.
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Re:Which to buy now? (Score:5, Informative)
According to Anandtech's review, it's highly competitive for database servers. http://it.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3456 [anandtech.com]
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This bodes well for the company (Score:5, Interesting)
Just an off-the-cuff calculation on my part shows power consumption dropped over %50 over Barcelona, clock-for-clock.
This is good news, because when AMD moved from 90nm to 65nm, their leakage was so bad that the power consumption only dropped around %10 clock-for-clock. Combine this with better cache architecture (larger, and faster), and AMD may have a winner in the server space.
I'm not sure if they're going to take back the desktop anytime soon. Intel doesn't have the FBDIMM downside on desktop systems, and I'm fairly sure that Shanghai didn't add major microarchitecure changes, so a quad-core Core2, let alone an i7, should continue to dominate the desktop.
However, it is nice to know that the market once again will have a choice in processors. AMD's 65nm offerings were spanked in terms of performance and power consumption by Intel's lineup, but Shanghai will at least compete on the power front, if not the performance front. We shall see what happens when AMD releases their desktop version.
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Re:This bodes well for the company (Score:4, Insightful)
Power consumption is actually one of the areas where intel has been soundly beat, year after year.
Even 65nm processors from AMD use less power than Intel's 45nm procs, and Intel doesn't have an on-chip memory controller.
Add in the extra power consumption of an Intel northbridge, and intel's offerings are usually about double the power consumption of a similarly clocked AMD system.
AMD's real problems are in acheiving high clock speeds, and solving their fabrication process. If AMD's 45nm process is as improved as they say it is, and with their fabrication/design company split they should be able to get that side of their business under control.
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Oh please. (Score:5, Insightful)
The two companies take turns one-upping each other for the bleeding edge, but every time (10 years running) I've specced out a mid-range (home gamer, single CPU motherboard) to low-end (grandma's email/photo machine) machine, AMD's been the way to go. It's a lot like trying to decide which company's video boards to pick if you're trying to make a game machine without breaking the bank.
Some people are Intel partisans, some people AMD partisans. Benching them and looking at spec, I've consistently found that AMD's got faster chips (for the same $) up to the "sweet spot" in the curve where price starts shooting upwards during the times I've been buying, but I also know there were times I was not in the market when Intel had done a price cut and AMD hadn't caught up.
I'm not going to call someone an idiot for their CPU choice, as it's a long-term purchase decision that has to be balanced with other factors (motherboard choice, RAM, video board, power concerns, cooling solution, etc) anyways. In fact, I recommend consumers try to stay OFF the "bleeding edge" because they're basically throwing money away on it; even if you buy the latest, hottest chip right from the factory it's obsolete by the time you get it home. Your best bet is looking at the curve, because there's always a spot (usually between $150 and $250) where the price starts to jump up exponentially for only an incrementally "faster" product. Buy at the spot beyond which the relationship between price and performance fails to be linear and you'll turn out pretty happy.
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Re:Oh please. (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the C2D arrived, I've been going with Intel. I usually don't overclock, but the C2D handles it so well with such little effort that I based my purchase of a $200 ~2.2 GHz chip on that alone. With the addition of a $30 heatsink I had it at 3.4 GHz with temperatures under 60 C at load (below the temperature seen at stock speed with the stock cooler, implying good longevity), back when there were no 3.4 GHz Duos and the closest thing cost about $1000. I have several friends who had never OCed before who did the same thing, all ending up with 2.8-3.6 GHz chips that all are still working perfectly and speedily ~1.5 years later.
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Re:Oh please. (Score:4, Funny)
Do you really see a difference between 2ghz and 3ghz for anything other than encoding video?
Yes, it gives you more headroom for when your PC is bogged down with spyware and viruses!
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Re:Oh please. (Score:4, Informative)
What happens is that during normal operation of any RAM there is a small chance that a particular bit will get flipped. Cosmic rays are often blamed as the culprit; of course if you overclock and overvolt your memory you increase the chance of errors, but even good quality RAM running within spec will get an incorrect bit every so often. If you use non-ECC memory there is no chance to spot this error; it just returns the wrong data. The old parity memory added one extra check bit for every eight bits, so most of the time it could detect (but not correct) a one-bit error. ECC stands for error correcting code (look it up on Wikipedia) meaning that if one individual bit is corrupted it can recover the correct data. If you are really unlucky and two bits in the same code word get corrupted at the same time then you still have problems, but that is unlikely.
If you are using non-ECC RAM then may be getting corrupted from time to time, but you don't notice.
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Re:Oh please. (Score:5, Insightful)
I tend to agree. The honest truth is that and AMD 780G motherboard and one of the low power X2s makes a great system for most users. If you want to play games throw on a 3870 or if you really need it a 4850.
I just built a system for my wife with an ASUS 780G motherboard, X2 and 4 Gigs of ram. Total cost was under $200 and it runs very well.
If you not into high end gaming then AMD seems like a great choice.
I can hardly wait for 45nm AMD desktop CPUs to start showing up. I really want one.
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Re:Future proofing? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Future proofing? (Score:5, Funny)
If you're buying "bleeding edge" you're not going to be satisfied with your purchase 2-3 years from now (about my replacement cycle for my personal box, and even then a lot of my components like hard drive / sound card / DVD drive tend to last through 3-4 iterations), unless your tastes suddenly radically change and you're no longer interested in the "bleeding edge" games you were trying to run.
Plus, consider the following two options:
#1 - "Bleeding edge" rig. Blow $900 on processor, $1200 on dual video boards, $400 on RAM, $800 or so on miscellaneous other components. Total system cost around $3000.
#2 - "Decent Gaming" rig, single $300 video board, $200 processor, etc. Total cost: $900 if you really push your luck.
I'll take my $2000, buy more games, take girlfriend to dinner, stick some in a rainy-day fund, etc. One of these years you need to run the numbers and then you'll figure out that the "savings" you claim are there from buying at bleeding edge aren't really there at all. Even if I spend $900 every 2 years upgrading my PC, it takes me 5-6 years to equal the cost of your rig, and I guarantee you're going to turn around and want to rebuild to get back to the bleeding edge because you'll be "disappointed" that your 2-3 year old "bleeding edge" machine is only getting 15 fps in the timedemo mode of CallOfUnrealCrysisDoomQuakeTournament 3: Yet Another Non-Scaling Tech Demo Masquerading As A Game.
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Re:Oh please. (Score:5, Funny)
Hah! that's priceless about the power strip.
Everyone knows you're supposed to sit perfectly still, holding your breath, squeezing your sphincter while any BIOS update goes through. Anything less than that shows disrespect resulting in consequences like yours.
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Re:Which to buy now? (Score:4, Funny)
It is always best to do your research when buying a new chip so you don't get shanghaied.
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Re:Which to buy now? (Score:5, Insightful)
AMD is still doing OK on price to performance, but what I think is hurting them is that the margins are not the same, because CPU's as a whole are just so cheap now. I remember back when an ENTRY LEVEL off-brand chip like a Cyrix (or, AMD) cost $150. "Intel Inside" cost $350 or more starting out. We'll call that a 50% ratio. The AMD (and certainly not the Cyrix) chips were not quite as fast as their Intel competition, but to a high school student who was making $50 per week part time, I certainly didn't mind that small gap in performance.
Now today, the ratio has changed. AMD still beats Intel in price to performance, but not by the same ratios, and the margins are much different. If a $40 AMD chip is slightly slower than a $65 Intel chip, then that's great, but the difference is only $25. A lot of people are going to be pretty quick to drop the couple of extra $$ for the Intel chip. Particularly now that I've noticed that, quite often, when you go over to the motherboards, Intel compatible motherboards are often coming in just a bit cheaper than AMD motherboards.
Now personally, when I can, I still buy AMD at least 50% of the time, but the only reason I do that is because I remember the days when Intel's competition wasn't as tough, and I remember those days of $350 chips from them. I only support their competitors to ensure that that situation doesn't repeat itself. For people without such a goal though, Intel is certainly tempting.
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Re:Congratulations! (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're hinging your comments on the wafer size, you're blinded by Intel propaganda. Take a look at AMD's SPECjbb numbers, their cost per socket/core, and their threading for virtualization. Then perhaps you'll stop being an Intel shill.
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Re:...and so? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:...and so? (Score:4, Interesting)
So you're advocating Windows? I'd love to do H.264 decoding on the GPU in Linux, which driver and which video card do that for me?
I use XBMC, we're stuck with using the CPU for now but at least we can use both cores. So far the AMD CPUs haven't fared well with that software for full 1080P H.264 decoding either.
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Re:...and so? (Score:5, Interesting)
I also downgraded my speakers. My old Klipsch 5.1 surrounds sound speakers sounded great, but they drew something like 45 watts. I replaced them with a generic set of 2.1 speakers that don't sound as good, but are more than adequate for the purpose, and I am now only drawing 2 watts.
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Re:Clock (Score:5, Insightful)
Comparing two CPUs based on clock speed alone is like comparing the speed of two cars by measuring only the RPMs of the tires. It won't get you anywhere ... you need to know the size of the tires as well!
Thus concludes my first /. car analogy. Thank you.
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