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AMD Packs Six-Core Opteron Inside 40 Watts
adeelarshad82 writes "Advanced Micro Devices has launched a low-power version of its six-core Opteron processor in time for VMworld, a key virtualization show that opens on Monday. The six-core AMD Opteron EE consumes 40 watts, and is designed for 2P servers, among the most popular in the virtualized server space."
But with a 40 watt chip you could get that into a laptop, if you felt like it. Not the thinnest, lightest, or quietest laptop around; but plenty of 14-15 inch units under two inches thick(though often not far under) were running P4s at least that power hungry back before P-Ms became cheap enough for common use.
If you were willing to deal with the size and weight of those high-end gamer laptops, the ones with quad core i7s and SLI, you could probably build a 17-inch dual socket system....
Compare to the 2377 EE, 40-watt quad-core @ 2.3 GHz: approximately 1/3 more performance from the new six-core chip.
Depends on what kind of server. If you're talking about a Web server, IIS 5.1 and later or Apache 2.x and better with multithreading on, yes. If you're talking about Apache 1.x or 2.x without multithreading, or some older versions of IIS, no.
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I had this argument with someone once. They didn't quite get it. The machine they were using was a 4 CPU 700Mhz server. In their logic, 700Mhz * 4 = 2.8Ghz. I wanted to move them to a 2 CPU 1.4Ghz machine, which I promised would be blazing fast. In their mind 1.4Ghz * 2 = 2.8Ghz, so there was no difference.
There were a bunch of reasons for the move. The hardware was old. The form was huge (like 5u tall) and power hungry. The OS needed to be updated badly, and we couldn't take it offline for a day to do that. One day there was a fault of some kind (it's been a while, I don't remember specifically), so we moved it over to the new machine that I had wanted to move them to. They were amazed. Their $40,000 server had been replaced by a $2,000 server (original costs for both), and it was running faster and better than before. After the move, I repaired their old server, upgraded the OS, and made it ready. I offered to move them back, and they refused. :)
About a year later, we had a 2CPU 2.4Ghz machine ready for them, and I offered again, "May I move you?" This time there wasn't a complaint. We just scheduled a window and did it. I set a 3 hour window, and we had it completed in about 15 minutes.
I agree, I'd rather have CPU speed AND cores. I'd sacrifice extra cores for more speed. CPU speed has stagnated, while they're growing cores. I remember this happening in the past too, around the time CPU's were 200Mhz. You could get motherboards that supported one CPU, then 2 CPU, then 4 CPU, but the speeds weren't going up. You could give me 100 CPU's at 200Mhz, but I'd rather have one at 10Ghz.
I'm sure people will throw a bunch of excuses of why. I remember back when the 50Mhz CPU was the fastest available, there were all kinds of reasons thrown around of why CPU's would "never be faster". People were very insistent that they were right. There were RF interference issues. If CPU's got to RF speeds, radio and TV would cease to work. If we got up near 2.4Ghz, people would be cooked because it's the same frequency as microwave ovens. There was no way to deal with the thermal issues, and computers would be ovens requiring liquid cooling (like liquid nitrogen or helium, not water cooling). Blah, blah, blah, blah. As we've seen, we did get well beyond 50Mhz. It's just a matter of time. I'm just disappointed that we end up stagnating. It's probably financial issues. The market will support a slower multicore CPU, but people won't spend the money on faster CPU's right now.
I always love the "latest greatest" craze. It's entertaining. People will spend mad money on latest greatest, and I'll wait 6 months or a year to buy the same thing at a fraction of the cost. Maybe I'm part of the problem there. I won't drop $500 on a CPU, but I'll drop $100 on last years model that's only slightly slower.
At least right now it's nice, since I can buy older and older hardware, and really not be far behind the curve. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
The important information FTFA is here:
"AMD also estimated that the power consumption for a fully populated 42U rack would be 9.2 KW using the six-core Opteron 2425 HE, a 55-W part. Replacing those chips with the 2419 EE would require 7.5 KW, about an 18 percent power savings."
That's just in the rack consumption. I would imagine these probably run cooler, too, which will help with HVAC costs.
AMD seems to be doing a better job shrinking down dated designs at this point. While Intel is selling the Atom, which is undoubtedly cooler and less power-hungry, it's still based on a very old CPU design, which isn't up to heavy computing tasks. AMD, OTOH, has now established a pretty good record of taking mainline processors, and developing lower-power versions. They scaled down what used to be a pretty hot Athlon core (Thunderbird) to the Geode (as used in the OLPC). They followed that with a 45W Athlon 64 X2. Now the Opteron. Intel does have a 35W Conroe, but it's in Celeron cripple-mode badging, a shadow performance-wise, of the original C2Ds that initially came out on that core.
I hope that AMD does release a desktop version of this, but I don't know if they could keep it profitable ($900+ eek.)