AMD Demonstrates 6-Core Istanbul

Tech Report looked at a demo of the 6-core Istanbul Opteron.

AMD showed several demonstrations of Istanbul silicon in action. The first was a simple showing of Task Manager on the Windows Server 2008 desktop, in which the utility showed activity indicators for each of the 24 cores in a quad-socket system.



The second demo was conducted on a dual-socket system with 12 cores. The main OS was Windows Server 2008, but the system also hosted three separate virtual machines: one each for Windows Server 2003, Red Hat Linux, and SLES 11 x64. Each VM had four cores dedicated to it.

The third demo was the most interesting for a couple of reasons. First, because it was intended to show how Istanbul can serve as a drop-in upgrade for Socket F systems. The only requirements: the system must support split power planes, and it must have a BIOS upgrade to operate with the new processors. Second, the demo was impressive because it included a performance test. Two otherwise-identical systems were situated side by side: one with a quartet of Shanghai Opterons, the other with four Istanbul chips. Both systems were running with HyperTransport 3 active—a capability coming soon to Shanghai Opterons but not yet available in current products. To illustrate the performance difference between the two boxes, the AMD tech ran a Stream benchmark. The 16-core Shanghai system produced throughput numbers in the range of 25,000 MB/s. The 24-core Istanbul box, by contrast, hit about 42,000 MB/s.

Shanghai:

Istanbul:


Scheduled to launch in the second half of this year, “Istanbul” is expected to be the only x86 six-core processor available for two and four-socket systems and higher.

This video indicates the consistency of AMD's architecture and upgrade from the Quad-Core AMD Opteron Processors to Six-Core AMD Opteron Processors (Istanbul):



The second video shows Istanbul running on a 2P virtualization platform, highlighting Istanbul's virtualization capabilities:



Thanks to a reader who informed me about those videos :-)

AMD Desktop Roadmap Update Feb 2009

Here we provide the latest AMD Desktop Roadmap:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=F1N312SR

or

http://www.mediafire.com/?ghwrumzyjt5

Additions:
Added Phenom™ II 500 series “Callisto” processors to launch in Q209:
AMD Phenom II X2 550 3.1GHz, 7MB Total Cache
AMD Phenom II X2 545 3.0GHz, 7MB Total Cache

Changes:
Changed AMD Phenom II X4 950 3.1GHz to AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz.

Phenom II X3 & X4 Socket AM3

AMD extended the value and lifespan of its Dragon platform technology today with five new additions to its AMD Phenom™ II processor family, including the industry’s only 45nm triple-core processors and three new AMD Phenom II quad-core processors. These AMD Phenom II processors deliver choice and lay the foundation for memory transition; they fit in either AM2+ or AM3 sockets and support DDR2 or next generation DDR3 memory technology.

The new triple-core (Heka) and quad-core (Deneb) AMD Phenom II processors are available immediately at the following frequencies:
AMD Phenom™ II X4 910 - (2.6GHz)
AMD Phenom™ II X4 810 - (2.6GHz)
AMD Phenom™ II X4 805 - (2.5GHz)
AMD Phenom™ II X3 720 Black Edition - (2.8GHz)
AMD Phenom™ II X3 710 - (2.6GHz)

The triple-core AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition processor is competitively priced at $145 while the Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor is priced at $165; the AMD processor allows users to get more cores for less money. The quad-core AMD Phenom II X4 810 processor (2.6GHz) is priced at $175 compared to the Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 processor (2.33GHz) at $170. Phenom II X3 710 at $125, all in one thousand units and the X4 910 and 805 available for tray only.

When AMD started moving over to a new processor socket form-factor, they also decided to give their solutions more competitive TDP. All new processors launching today have 95W TDP instead of 125W TDP as the top Phenom II models.

Today’s addition to the Phenom II model lineup finally explains the whole idea behind AMD’s processor ratings. The rating series stand for the major CPU specifications. And if we add here everything we know about the upcoming 45nm processors, we will get a very logical succession:
900 series: quad-core processors with 6MB L3 cache
800 series: quad-core processors with 4MB L3 cache
700 series: triple-core processors with 6MB L3 cache
600 series: quad-core processors without L3 cache
400 series: triple-core processors without L3 cache
200 series: dual-core processors

DDR3/AM3 boards are almost done, the hard part of the transition is the memory controller, and that is already done in the CPU. We are being told that the BIOSes, however, still need quite a bit of testing before they are ready for public consumption. The DDR3 boards are a few weeks out, and shouldn't be all that expensive when they hit the market.

Web reviews:
AMDZone
Guru3D
The Inquirer
AnandTech
Tom's Hardware
Legit Reviews
Firing Squad
X-Bit Labs
Tech Report