As usual the Opteron range is first to benefit from AMD’s technological advances. The Athlon producer has today launched the Shanghaï chips, the first 45 nm processors to use K10 architecture. Their desktop equivalent, the Deneb, is expected on January 8, 2009.
This finer engraving on SOI type wafers has been achieved using immersion lithography. This technique, co-developed with IBM and which will also be used for the creation of 32 nm chips, enables a reduction in the wavelength of light used for engraving by passing it through a refractive fluid.
From an architectural point of view, the changes are minor, but AMD has nevertheless brought in some improvements in terms of pre-fetching memory and virtualization. The most remarkable of these is the increase in Level 3 cache, jumping from 2 to 6 MB! Because of the fineness of the engraving, die size has been reduced from 283 to 263 mm². DDR2-667 has been moved up to DDR2-800, and the Shanghai will also include HyperTransport 3. It will moreover be more useful on the Opteron than on the Phenom because of chip-to-chip connections that will ensure cache coherence and allow CPUs access to the available memory at the heart of NUMA architecture.
Another advantage of this new 45 nm C2 stepping compared to the previous 65 nm B3 stepping is that it is easier to increase clock speed. The clock ceiling will be raised from 2.5 GHz to 2.7 GHz on the launch of these Opterons. What’s more these speeds have been achieved at lower power consumption. Average CPU Power, an AMD measurement that corresponds to average consumption during TPC-C, SPECcpu2006, SPECjbb2005 and STREAM benchmarks, has been announced at 75W whatever the frequency. Previously an equivalent ACP reading on B3 steppings could only be achieved at a clock of 2.3 GHz. 2.4 and 2.5 GHz took the ACP above 105W.
The new Opterons are still compatible with the current Socket F platform, a big advantage for OEMs and those wanting to update their servers. The same goes for the Istanbul, the 6-core processor expected for the end of 2009. Note that AMD will launch its own Opteron platform in mid-2009, based on its SR5690, chipset, still with Socket F, while awaiting the new Socket, the G34, that will use the same chipset and be designed with the forthcoming Mgny-Cours and Sao Paulo in mind (12 and 6 cores respectively!).
The new Opterons will be launched at clock speeds ranging from 2.3 to 2.7 GHz for the 2000 series, designed for bi-socket machines, to be sold at between $377 and $989. The 8000 series chipsets, designed for 4 and 8 socket machines, are clocked at between 2.4 GHz and 2.7 GHz and will come in at between $1165 and $2149. AMD is now readjusting prices for the whole range, with for example the 2380 at 2.5 GHz going at $689, when previously the 2356 65nm at 2.3 GHz cost $690.
The first database-oriented tests from
AnandTech show that the Opteron 2384 at 2.7 GHz manages to close the gap with and sometimes even outdo the Xeon 5472 at 3.0 GHz. It’s above all in power consumption and performance/watt ratio that the AMD platform impresses, with Intel platform results severely undermined by the FB-DIMM. Going from 4 to 8 modules on the Opteron for example takes consumption at rest up by 7 watts… compared to 49 watts with the FB-DIMM!
