System builders ready for high-performing, energy-efficient single socket AMD processors—
SUNNYVALE, Calif. -AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced significant support for the Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ 1300 Series processor from channel partners focused on enterprise and small and medium businesses as well as high performance computing (HPC) markets. The AMD Opteron 1300 Series processor provides the latest in enterprise-class performance and numerous energy efficient features for single processor servers and workstations, a key market focus for many leading system builders.
“Our technology partners depend on AMD to offer solutions that enable them to grow their business and provide value to their customers,” said Gary Bixler, director, North America Channel Marketing, AMD. “The AMD Opteron 1300 Series processor delivers quad-core computing in a stable socket and with a consistent power and thermal envelope that can help both reduce time-to-market for our channel partners and allow them to offer their customers a simple and efficient upgrade path for increased performance.”
Commercial channel customers will have the opportunity to engage with AMD authorized distributors to choose from a variety of motherboards with AMD Opteron 1300 Series processor support.
AMD also offers a robust Validated Server Program for commercial channel partners wishing to leverage barebones server platforms. These tested building blocks allow system builders to focus on the unique configurations their customers request and offer quick integration of new technology into their business. Learn more about AMD’s Validated Server Program at www.amd.com/vsp.
Advanced Clustering
"Advanced Clustering is proud to add the new Quad-Core AMD Opteron 1300 Series processors to our power efficient Pinnacle Server family. We believe that it will offer a great price/performance value for those wanting a Beowulf style cluster on a budget" - Shelly Kelley, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Advanced Clustering
ASA
“This new offering by AMD deepens our support for offering Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor-based servers and workstations. We are particularly excited to offer these high-performing, energy-efficient processors to customers who rely on this level of hardware to support critical applications.” - Arvind Bhargava, CEO, ASA
Colfax
“The new Quad-Core AMD Opteron 1300 Series processors create a great market opportunity for Colfax. This helps Colfax be well-positioned to provide entry level workstation and server offerings for businesses looking for smart solutions. We plan to offer systems with the new AMD Opteron processor.” - Gautam Shah, President, Colfax International
Microway
“The new Quad-Core AMD Opteron 1300 Series processors will enable our customers to achieve higher levels of performance and energy efficiency. Our WhisperStations-PRO workstation customers will enjoy the performance improvements of AMD’s native quad-core architecture" - Ann Fried, CEO, Microway
PSSC Labs
“PSSC Labs is pleased to introduce Quad-Core AMD Opteron 1300 Series processors into our PowerServe Centro A1400 and PowerStation Centro A1400 models. PSSC Labs continues to be impressed with AMD’s commitment to bringing high-performing, energy-efficient computing processors to market.” - Alex Lesser, vice president, PSSC Labs
Super Micro Computer, Inc.
“Super Micro is a leader in application-optimized, high performance server and workstation solutions and we have announced full support for the Quad-Core AMD Opteron 1300 Series processors on our latest single-processor A+ Servers, including the 1011M-UR and 1011S-MR2, currently on display at Computex Taipei 2008 in booths M619-726, 4th Floor" Alex Hsu, chief sales and marketing officer, Super Micro Computer, Inc.
Verari
“Verari plans to integrate the Quad-Core AMD Opteron 1300 Series processor into our rackmount server offerings. We are enthusiastic about this opportunity to continue to provide industry leading energy-efficiency and performance for our customers.” - Ed Holden, server product manager, Verari Systems
ZT Systems
“ZT Systems is proud to be selected by AMD to display new servers featuring Quad-Core AMD Opteron 1300 series processors at Computex. The ZT Systems 2102Ra Storage Server enables energy efficient performance and low cost of ownership for enterprise customers, and is just one example of ZT’s innovative AMD-powered server solutions for the datacenter.” - Bob Anderson, executive vice president, Business Development and Strategy, ZT Systems
Monday, June 9, 2008
AMD introduces four new Quad-Core AMD Opteron SE processors - Quick Facts
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD : News, Chart, Quote) revealed that it has introduced four new Quad-Core AMD Opteron SE processors to help IT managers to "scaling up" datacenter to address demanding enterprise-computing environments. Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor Models 2360 SE, 2358 SE, 8360 SE and 8358 SE achieved SAP-SD two-tier score in eight-socket x86 servers to drive more performance in demanding ERP environments.
The company also added that by adding more cores to 4-socket and 8-socket x86 servers allow users to gain greater levels of performance and efficiency to handle database and virtualization applications.
The company also added that by adding more cores to 4-socket and 8-socket x86 servers allow users to gain greater levels of performance and efficiency to handle database and virtualization applications.
AMD extends Opteron lineup
Chip maker AMD is rounding out its quad-core Opteron portfolio with four new chips designed for high-end servers. The new processors include two new chips in the 2300 series designed for servers with one or two processors (the 2.4GHz Opteron 2358 SE and 2.5GHz 2360 SE), along with an additional two for the 8300 series aimed at systems with four or more processors (the 2.4GHz Opteron 8358 SE and 2.5GHz 8360 SE).
They’ll all contain the same 512KB of Level 2 cache per core as all the other Opteron processors while sharing 2MB of L3 cache between all four cores. The new chips will be priced from $873 to $1,865 in 1,000-unit quantities and available in systems from the usual suspects including Hewlett-Packard, Sun, Dell and IBM.
They’ll all contain the same 512KB of Level 2 cache per core as all the other Opteron processors while sharing 2MB of L3 cache between all four cores. The new chips will be priced from $873 to $1,865 in 1,000-unit quantities and available in systems from the usual suspects including Hewlett-Packard, Sun, Dell and IBM.
The Case for AMD’s Opteron in the Data Center
AMD today announced its latest round of quad-core Opteron chips, the processors formerly known as Barcelona. The new chips, called SE, are the highest performing Opterons; tests have shown them to run about eight percent faster than others in the Opteron line. Servers encasing these chips should start rolling out within the month: Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Dell and IBM have all committed to Opteron-based servers. (Sun’s new Sparc servers are already based on Opteron chips.)
One reason to think about the Opteron: according to Kishna Weaver, Opteron product manager, firms that upgrade from dual-core to quad-core servers can expect to see a 60 to 70 percent performance improvement, on average.
But why should Wall Street IT executives choose AMD’s quad-core versus Intel’s quad-core processor? Weaver offers some reasons:
First is AMD’s hardware-assisted virtualization, AMD-V. Although Intel has also introduced hardware-assisted virtualization, according to Weaver AMD’s has a few unique features. One is a “device exclusion vector,” built-in security in the form of a table that allows you to know which virtual machine is using which areas of memory, to protect it from an unauthorized virtual machine trying to use it.
A second AMD-specific virtualization feature is called Tagged TLB (TLB stands for Translation Look-aside Buffer). This is a table in the CPU that stores recently used virtual-to-physical memory translations – “tagged” means the data understands which virtual machine owns it. This provides faster access to certain data stored in memory for virtual machines.
A recently added AMD virtualization feature is rapid virtualization indexing (RVI), which takes some memory mapping formerly performed by hypervisor software and gives it to the chip hardware, enabling “faster, near native speeds,” according to Weaver.
Besides the virtualization features, Weaver says the Opteron chips are energy efficient and that the overall total cost of ownership, scalability and manageability of AMD processors is superior because new and old processors are compatible.
One reason to think about the Opteron: according to Kishna Weaver, Opteron product manager, firms that upgrade from dual-core to quad-core servers can expect to see a 60 to 70 percent performance improvement, on average.
But why should Wall Street IT executives choose AMD’s quad-core versus Intel’s quad-core processor? Weaver offers some reasons:
First is AMD’s hardware-assisted virtualization, AMD-V. Although Intel has also introduced hardware-assisted virtualization, according to Weaver AMD’s has a few unique features. One is a “device exclusion vector,” built-in security in the form of a table that allows you to know which virtual machine is using which areas of memory, to protect it from an unauthorized virtual machine trying to use it.
A second AMD-specific virtualization feature is called Tagged TLB (TLB stands for Translation Look-aside Buffer). This is a table in the CPU that stores recently used virtual-to-physical memory translations – “tagged” means the data understands which virtual machine owns it. This provides faster access to certain data stored in memory for virtual machines.
A recently added AMD virtualization feature is rapid virtualization indexing (RVI), which takes some memory mapping formerly performed by hypervisor software and gives it to the chip hardware, enabling “faster, near native speeds,” according to Weaver.
Besides the virtualization features, Weaver says the Opteron chips are energy efficient and that the overall total cost of ownership, scalability and manageability of AMD processors is superior because new and old processors are compatible.
AMD claims quad core Opteron SE increases server densities at low total cost
The quad core Opteron SEs processors are meant to allow businesses to scale up datacenters by moving to servers with enterprise-class functionality at industry-standard pricing by adding more cores to 4- and 8-socket x86 servers than can handle database and virtualization applications, AMD said.
To help IT managers scale up datacenters to address enterprise-computing environments rather than investing in traditionally large and expensive enterprise-class proprietary hardware, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based microprocessor company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) today rolled out four new quad core Opteron SE processors.
AMD said the quad core Opteron SEs processors are meant to allow businesses to scale up datacenters by moving to servers with enterprise-class functionality at industry-standard pricing by adding more cores to 4- and 8-socket x86 servers than can handle database and virtualization applications.
This announcement follows AMD’s launch last week for three quad-core Opteron 1300 series processors for one-socket servers and workstations.
OEMs such as Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Dell and IBM will offer systems based on the Opteron SE processors, AMD noted.
“For many customers, the concept of ‘scaling up’ a datacenter has meant a sizeable financial investment in new hardware to gain satisfactory performance during peak workloads. Today, the performance benefits of the new quad core AMD Opteron SE processor built on AMD’s Direct Connect Architecture and HyperTransport technology can help IT managers improve application performance and scalability of memory and data intensive workloads at a fraction of the cost. This is a significant benefit for customers looking to consolidate their datacenter or those interested in moving from proprietary hardware to x86 servers for mission critical software, such as database applications,” commented Patrick Patla, director for AMD’s server and workstation business, in a statement.
Further, AMD pointed out that as the industry rallies around the scaling up of datacenters, Microsoft is at the forefront to help make sure that mid-market and enterprise customers seeking to improve server utilization can take advantage of 64-bit environments.
“A flexible and scalable datacenter that meets the dynamic demands of doing business in a global economy is more important than ever for organizations of all sizes. As we prepare for the general availability of Microsoft SQL Server 2008, we are excited about our work with AMD to provide our mutual customers a state of the art data platform for their business critical workloads such as ERP, Web, Business Intelligence, and Data Warehousing,” explained Dan Neault, general manager of Microsoft’s SQL Server.
Opteron models 2360 SE (2.5 GHz), 2358 SE (2.4 GHz), 8360 SE (2.5 GHz), and 8358 SE (2.4 GHz) are available now.
As for the market AMD is playing into, recently, market research company IDC reported that factory revenue in the worldwide server market grew 3.5% year over year to $13 billion in Q1, despite slowing economic growth in the US, and marking the eighth consecutive quarter of positive revenue growth and the highest Q1 revenue in the worldwide server market since 2001.
More than 2 million servers were shipped for the second consecutive quarter and unit shipment growth of 7.8% year-over-year in Q108 demonstrates that worldwide demand for servers has remained healthy, even as virtualization technology is being adopted worldwide, IDC noted.
“The server market continues to experience solid growth as businesses of all types focus on expanding and refreshing their IT infrastructures for both traditional and emerging cloud-based workload,” noted Matt Eastwood, group VP of enterprise platforms at IDC, in a statement.
HP and IBM finished Q1 in a statistical tie for the number 1 position in the worldwide server market with 29% and 28.1% share respectively. Dell grew factory revenue 9.4% year-over-year and moved into the number 3 position in the market holding 12.3% share for Q1, while Sun’s revenues declined 1.8% year-over-year in Q1, ending with 10.5% revenue share as the number 4 vendor. Fujitsu/Fujitsu-Siemens maintained its fifth-place standing in terms of factory revenue, with 6.3% market share in Q1.
IDC also reported that x86 server market decelerated slightly in Q1, growing 4.4% year-over-year to $7 billion worldwide, its slowest growth rate in seven quarters. Unit shipment growth also continued with a gain of 8.5% to 1.9 million servers.
“The efficiency advantages of virtualization in enterprise servers is apparent across the industry and has led to continued demand for capable x86 solutions,” offered Daniel Harrington, research analyst with IDC’s enterprise server group. “Geographically, the growth in the market was driven by the EMEA and Asia/Pacific regions, while the U.S. actually showed negative revenue growth in the x86 segment for the first time since the dot-com bust of the early 2000s.”
To help IT managers scale up datacenters to address enterprise-computing environments rather than investing in traditionally large and expensive enterprise-class proprietary hardware, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based microprocessor company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) today rolled out four new quad core Opteron SE processors.
AMD said the quad core Opteron SEs processors are meant to allow businesses to scale up datacenters by moving to servers with enterprise-class functionality at industry-standard pricing by adding more cores to 4- and 8-socket x86 servers than can handle database and virtualization applications.
This announcement follows AMD’s launch last week for three quad-core Opteron 1300 series processors for one-socket servers and workstations.
OEMs such as Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Dell and IBM will offer systems based on the Opteron SE processors, AMD noted.
“For many customers, the concept of ‘scaling up’ a datacenter has meant a sizeable financial investment in new hardware to gain satisfactory performance during peak workloads. Today, the performance benefits of the new quad core AMD Opteron SE processor built on AMD’s Direct Connect Architecture and HyperTransport technology can help IT managers improve application performance and scalability of memory and data intensive workloads at a fraction of the cost. This is a significant benefit for customers looking to consolidate their datacenter or those interested in moving from proprietary hardware to x86 servers for mission critical software, such as database applications,” commented Patrick Patla, director for AMD’s server and workstation business, in a statement.
Further, AMD pointed out that as the industry rallies around the scaling up of datacenters, Microsoft is at the forefront to help make sure that mid-market and enterprise customers seeking to improve server utilization can take advantage of 64-bit environments.
“A flexible and scalable datacenter that meets the dynamic demands of doing business in a global economy is more important than ever for organizations of all sizes. As we prepare for the general availability of Microsoft SQL Server 2008, we are excited about our work with AMD to provide our mutual customers a state of the art data platform for their business critical workloads such as ERP, Web, Business Intelligence, and Data Warehousing,” explained Dan Neault, general manager of Microsoft’s SQL Server.
Opteron models 2360 SE (2.5 GHz), 2358 SE (2.4 GHz), 8360 SE (2.5 GHz), and 8358 SE (2.4 GHz) are available now.
As for the market AMD is playing into, recently, market research company IDC reported that factory revenue in the worldwide server market grew 3.5% year over year to $13 billion in Q1, despite slowing economic growth in the US, and marking the eighth consecutive quarter of positive revenue growth and the highest Q1 revenue in the worldwide server market since 2001.
More than 2 million servers were shipped for the second consecutive quarter and unit shipment growth of 7.8% year-over-year in Q108 demonstrates that worldwide demand for servers has remained healthy, even as virtualization technology is being adopted worldwide, IDC noted.
“The server market continues to experience solid growth as businesses of all types focus on expanding and refreshing their IT infrastructures for both traditional and emerging cloud-based workload,” noted Matt Eastwood, group VP of enterprise platforms at IDC, in a statement.
HP and IBM finished Q1 in a statistical tie for the number 1 position in the worldwide server market with 29% and 28.1% share respectively. Dell grew factory revenue 9.4% year-over-year and moved into the number 3 position in the market holding 12.3% share for Q1, while Sun’s revenues declined 1.8% year-over-year in Q1, ending with 10.5% revenue share as the number 4 vendor. Fujitsu/Fujitsu-Siemens maintained its fifth-place standing in terms of factory revenue, with 6.3% market share in Q1.
IDC also reported that x86 server market decelerated slightly in Q1, growing 4.4% year-over-year to $7 billion worldwide, its slowest growth rate in seven quarters. Unit shipment growth also continued with a gain of 8.5% to 1.9 million servers.
“The efficiency advantages of virtualization in enterprise servers is apparent across the industry and has led to continued demand for capable x86 solutions,” offered Daniel Harrington, research analyst with IDC’s enterprise server group. “Geographically, the growth in the market was driven by the EMEA and Asia/Pacific regions, while the U.S. actually showed negative revenue growth in the x86 segment for the first time since the dot-com bust of the early 2000s.”
AMD Steps up Quad-core Opteron Shipments
Advanced Micro Devices is shipping four more versions of its quad-core Opteron server chip, adding more performance to the company's product line.
The four quad-core processors now available are the 2.5GHz Opteron 2360 SE, 2.4GHz 2358 SE, 2.5GHz 8360 SE, and 2.4GHz 8358 SE.
These are the high-performance versions of the quad-core Opteron line. The SE attached to each model number signifies that it's a "frequency optimized" chip, meaning the chips are meant for applications where performance is a priority over power consumption.
The 2360 SE and 2358 SE are designed for servers with one or two processors, while the 8360 SE and 8358 SE are for systems with four or more processors. They are priced at US$1,165, $873, $2,149, and $1,865, respectively, in 1,000-unit quantities, a standard way of quoting chip prices.
The chips are now available in servers from Hewlett-Packard, Dell, IBM and Sun, AMD said.
The four quad-core processors now available are the 2.5GHz Opteron 2360 SE, 2.4GHz 2358 SE, 2.5GHz 8360 SE, and 2.4GHz 8358 SE.
These are the high-performance versions of the quad-core Opteron line. The SE attached to each model number signifies that it's a "frequency optimized" chip, meaning the chips are meant for applications where performance is a priority over power consumption.
The 2360 SE and 2358 SE are designed for servers with one or two processors, while the 8360 SE and 8358 SE are for systems with four or more processors. They are priced at US$1,165, $873, $2,149, and $1,865, respectively, in 1,000-unit quantities, a standard way of quoting chip prices.
The chips are now available in servers from Hewlett-Packard, Dell, IBM and Sun, AMD said.
AMD Completes Opteron Portfolio
The chip maker is now shipping quad-core processors for high-end four- and eight-way servers.
Advanced Micro Devices is rounding out its quad-core Opteron portfolio with new chips designed for high-end four-socket and eight-socket servers.
The chip maker will start shipping two more processors in its 2300 series and an additional two for the 8300 series June 9. Since January, AMD has been looking to make up the ground it lost in 2007 when the first batch of quad-core Opterons were found to have a design flaw in the silicon.
Since then, the AMD quad-core Opteron, or “Barcelona,” processor has been picked up by all four tier one OEMs and a number of small server vendors. The company has also started shipping Opterons for lower-end one-socket systems.
The new processors include the Opteron 2358 SE (2.4GHz) and the Opteron 2360 SE (2.5GHz), along with the Opteron 8358 SE (2.4GHz) and the 8360 SE (2.5GHz). Each of the chips will contain the same 512KB of Level 2 cache per core as all the other Opteron processors, and all four cores will share 2MB of L3 cache.
All four processors will work with a 95-watt thermal envelope.
While AMD has released Opteron chips for MP (multiprocessor) servers before, Steve Demski, an AMD marketing manager, said these new chips are specially designed for customers building high-performance computing environments running applications that require floating-point calculations. Demski also sees a market for businesses looking to run database or other backend applications on x86 hardware, as opposed to a mainframe or Unix-based system.
“The guys that are looking to by the SE series are looking for maximum performance,” said Demski. “What we are talking about is scaling up. In the past, you might need a mainframe or a high-end Unix box, and we now believe that we are providing that same level of performance with these four- and eight-socket systems. The difference is that the cost of the hardware and the cost of the system are much reduced.”
The chips that AMD will ship June 9 represent some of the company’s last 65-nanometer models for servers before the company switches to a new 45-nm manufacturing process later this year. Those processors, dubbed “Shanghai,” will offer a bump in clock speed—perhaps by as much as 20 percent at the launch as the company tries to keep up with Intel—while keeping the thermal envelopes the same.
The MP space is important to AMD as it provides good margins for their products. Hewlett-Packard, Dell, IBM and Sun Microsystems are each expected to release servers built around the new SE models.
For years, AMD had an advantage in this market, compared with Intel, with chip technologies such as integrated memory controller, which allows for better bandwidth. Intel plans to update it offering for the MP space later this year with a new chip called Dunnington, which will have six processing cores and 16MB of L3 cache.
After Dunnington, Intel will release its Nehalem microarchitecture, which will be the first chips to offer the company’s own integrated memory controller as well as other new features.
The prices for the new Opteron models are $873 for the 2358 SE, $1,165 for the 2360 SE, $1,865 for the 8358 SE and $2,149 for the 8360 SE. These prices reflect shipments of 1,000 units.
Advanced Micro Devices is rounding out its quad-core Opteron portfolio with new chips designed for high-end four-socket and eight-socket servers.
The chip maker will start shipping two more processors in its 2300 series and an additional two for the 8300 series June 9. Since January, AMD has been looking to make up the ground it lost in 2007 when the first batch of quad-core Opterons were found to have a design flaw in the silicon.
Since then, the AMD quad-core Opteron, or “Barcelona,” processor has been picked up by all four tier one OEMs and a number of small server vendors. The company has also started shipping Opterons for lower-end one-socket systems.
The new processors include the Opteron 2358 SE (2.4GHz) and the Opteron 2360 SE (2.5GHz), along with the Opteron 8358 SE (2.4GHz) and the 8360 SE (2.5GHz). Each of the chips will contain the same 512KB of Level 2 cache per core as all the other Opteron processors, and all four cores will share 2MB of L3 cache.
All four processors will work with a 95-watt thermal envelope.
While AMD has released Opteron chips for MP (multiprocessor) servers before, Steve Demski, an AMD marketing manager, said these new chips are specially designed for customers building high-performance computing environments running applications that require floating-point calculations. Demski also sees a market for businesses looking to run database or other backend applications on x86 hardware, as opposed to a mainframe or Unix-based system.
“The guys that are looking to by the SE series are looking for maximum performance,” said Demski. “What we are talking about is scaling up. In the past, you might need a mainframe or a high-end Unix box, and we now believe that we are providing that same level of performance with these four- and eight-socket systems. The difference is that the cost of the hardware and the cost of the system are much reduced.”
The chips that AMD will ship June 9 represent some of the company’s last 65-nanometer models for servers before the company switches to a new 45-nm manufacturing process later this year. Those processors, dubbed “Shanghai,” will offer a bump in clock speed—perhaps by as much as 20 percent at the launch as the company tries to keep up with Intel—while keeping the thermal envelopes the same.
The MP space is important to AMD as it provides good margins for their products. Hewlett-Packard, Dell, IBM and Sun Microsystems are each expected to release servers built around the new SE models.
For years, AMD had an advantage in this market, compared with Intel, with chip technologies such as integrated memory controller, which allows for better bandwidth. Intel plans to update it offering for the MP space later this year with a new chip called Dunnington, which will have six processing cores and 16MB of L3 cache.
After Dunnington, Intel will release its Nehalem microarchitecture, which will be the first chips to offer the company’s own integrated memory controller as well as other new features.
The prices for the new Opteron models are $873 for the 2358 SE, $1,165 for the 2360 SE, $1,865 for the 8358 SE and $2,149 for the 8360 SE. These prices reflect shipments of 1,000 units.
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