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AMD Opteron "Hammer" Preview

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the looking-under-the-hood dept.

Melvin Tong writes "Hardware Extreme has posted a preview of AMD's 8th-generation processor that AMD is currently developing with a few exclusive pics of the mechanical sample. AMD Athlon processors based on Hammer technology are expected to ship in the forth quater of 2002. The preview is located over at HW Extreme."

13 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. AMD Opteron + Linux by Strom+Thurmond+(R-SC · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's a pretty safe bet such systems are already in use in some TLAs, we just don't know about it. Opteron/Hammer will be a nice step forward but obviously it's not meant as competition to big iron from Sun and others for quite a while, if ever. AMD has years and years to go before they can enter such markets successfully, they are relatively small and have to concentrate on the desktop and small to mid sized servers for the
    forseeable future, plus have yet to prove themselves in the higher end, attract the appropriate support and build an image they don't yet have when compared to Intel, Sun or IBM.

    It also looks like they have their work cut out for them already, with not as fast clock/rampup on 0.13 micron as expected and a tight line to get the Hammer line done properly as they are pretty strung out on cash compared to Intel, while the latter seems to have no trouble in increasing clock all the time (by throwing huge gobs of money at it of course).

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  2. Intel by T-Kir · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Either way, It would be funny if Intel ended up having to license AMD's x86-64 technology. Even though I don't think that would happen, I suspect Intel would rather fork the 64bit platform with their Itanic (part 2) than license from AMD... but you never know!

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    1. Re:Intel by Shadow99_1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually if you remember back a year or twop ago you'd realize they already have a cross-licensing deal with AMD which would entitle them to use x86-64 if desired without further hassle... Of course Intel may prefer you forget that til they need to use it...

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  3. Nice cap! by (H)elix1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I was very happy to see the nickel cap on their new CPU. After crushing a couple of AMD chips, I became very weary of removing the heat sink after a successful mounting. More so than I probably should be, but after chipping the edge off of some $100+ CPU's, I was very nervous about picking up any of the cutting edge processors.

    I look forward to lapping the cap to a shinny mirror finish!

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    1. Re:Nice cap! by Artifex · · Score: 5, Interesting

      After crushing a couple of AMD chips, I became very weary of removing the heat sink after a successful mounting.

      No doubt. Actually, that worked to my advantage, when I was trying to get Fry's to take back an Athlon XP that had gone bad... when they told me they had to test it, I was worried, because their idea of a testbed is another customer's board hooked up to crappy "PC Doctor" software, and has rarely caught transient errors in the past.

      Wouldn't you know it, though, they cracked it during mounting, so of course it became "oops, let's get you credit for that chip" instead of "we can't find a problem in 30 minutes of running crappy test software so it must not be bad."

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  4. Notice the spread eagle in... by MoThugz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    this picture here... on the left hand side... eh wait a minute. Sorry, just a bent pin.

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  5. Longevity of CPU w/ integrated memory controller by wowbagger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have to wonder about the lifespan of a CPU that has an integrated memory controller of any type - not just DDR, but RDRAM, or FOORAM, or NARFRAM. What happens to the family when a new RAM interface comes along?

    Now, for high-integration CPUs designed for embedded style apps I can see it, but for a main-line CPU it seems to me that tying the memory controller to the CPU limits the lifespan of the design.

    I realize that should POITRAM become the new speed king that the RAM controller block of the CPU can be redesigned, and I understand that putting the RAM controller in the chip can increase the memory bandwidth to the CPU.

    But it does cause me to think....

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  6. AMD Hammer FAQ by antdude · · Score: 3, Interesting

    AMDZone wrote a FAQ which was a good read.

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  7. Chip comparison? by vga_init · · Score: 1, Interesting

    How are the x86 family processors comparing to other chip architectures these days? Are other chips (ie SPARC, PowerPC) still superior, or is the x86 catching up? "Go intel or go home"? That's catchy, but my quote is far superior: "f*** intel." ;)

  8. Re:Clearly a reprint of AMD Marketing material by shird · · Score: 2, Interesting

    AMD's 64-bit processors extend their long, rich history of semiconductor solutions based on customer-centric innovations

    Emphasis mine. Looks like they've gone and changed it now. Must be readers of slashdot.

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  9. I hope... by ParisTG · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hope they dont ship them like this! (Note the bent pins on the left corner :))

  10. Benchmarks by decefett · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The machine was running Mandrake Linux, kernel 2.4.18-24mdk, and identified itself as running at 797.7 MHz with 256k of cache.
    ...
    And here's a comparison, openssl 0.9.6b (as shipped with Redhat 7.3) running on a 400 MHz


    What was that about lies, damned lies and...

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  11. Re:Benchmarks on OpenSSL by Zathrus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    First off, those are stellar benchs for the Itanium2. And I agree that this was a total fluff piece for Opteron -- as others have pointed out, it's nothing but rehashed info from other sites and AMD press releases.

    I'm not a POWER4 advocate either -- the chip may be cleaner than x86 (wow, that's not hard), but proprietary is proprietary.

    Back to Hammer vs Itanium though. I am much, much more excited about the pending Hammer/Opteron release than I am about Itanium2 or McKinley or whatever. Why? Because Hammer is made for consumer systems. Itanium (w/ or w/o the "2") is still priced somewhere in the stratosphere and it's performance on desktop systems is abysmal. Sure, the SPEC numbers are pretty, but there's no software out there, the compilers continue to suck, and I don't expect either situation to improve anytime soon. When Hammer comes out there will be a plethora of software that will already run (and probably run faster, even in 32-bit mode) and compiling 64-bit apps will be relatively straight forward. VLIW is a nifty idea, but we're nowhere close to optimizing code perfectly now. Adding on the additional layer of VLIW makes the problem even worse.

    High end computing has always been a totally different realm from desktop computing anyway. I don't really expect the Hammer/Opteron to compete in that realm -- it's too limited by the load of crap that comes with x86. But it's a far better future desktop computing solution than anything Intel has to offer thus far, and that's why you see so many people excited about it.