AMD's upcoming six-core desktop processor, codenamed "Thuban" is on course for a May 2010, suggests a report. The series is likely to receive the brand name Phenom II X6. There are four models planned for release within Q2, 2010. The Thuban core is AMD's desktop implementation of the Istanbul core, in the socket AM3 package, supporting dual-channel DDR3 memory. It is a monolithic multi-core design with six x86-64 cores, each with 128 KB of L1, 512 KB of L2 cache, and a 6 MB L3 cache shared between the six cores. Just as with K10 dual, triple, and quad core processors where AMD used a HyperTransport interface clock speed of 1800 MHz (3600 MT/s), or 2000 MHz (4000 MT/s), the new processor will take advantage of HyperTransport 3.x interface, with a HT speed of 2400 MHz (4800 MT/s). Thuban will be built on GlobalFoundaries' 45 nm node.

The table below lists out details of the four planned models. The model number of the top part isn't known. Most likely it is a Black Edition part, which comes with an unlocked BClk multiplier. It operates at 2.80 GHz, with a TDP of 140W. A step below is the Phenom II X6 1075T, which has an expected TDP of 125W, the 1055T is a notch below, and 1035T being the cheapest part. The exact clock speeds of the latter three models isn't known as yet. A month ahead of releasing these chips, AMD will announce the AMD 8-series chipset platform, led by 890FX (high-end, best for CrossFireX), 890GX (performance integrated graphics with CrossFire support). The AMD SB800 series southbridge chips will feature native support for SATA 6 Gb/s. Its on-die SATA controller gives out six SATA ports complete with RAID support. Some existing AM3 motherboards based on 7-series chipsets may also support Phenom II X6 with a BIOS update.

AMD has extended its 45 nm Opteron processor line-up with new energy-efficient chips fitting within a 40W power envelope, designed for very dense data center environments such as those built for cloud computing or web serving. Available immediately, the new Opteron EE chips include the 2.1 GHz Opteron 2373 EE with 6 MB L3 Cache and the 2.3 GHz Opteron 2377 EE with the same cache size. Since they are part of the Shanghai Opteron architecture, the new EE chips have the same features as all other Shanghai Opterons and are not cut-down versions.
AMD today also launches a total of ten other Opteron CPUs, that enrich the company's server HE (55W), standard (75W), and high-performance SE (105W) power bands. These are the 2.4 GHz Opteron 2379 HE ($450), the 2.4 GHz Opteron 8379 HE ($1165), the 2.5 GHz Opteron 2381 HE ($575), the 2.5 GHz Opteron 8381 HE ($1514), the standard 2.8 GHz Opteron 2387 ($873), the 2.8 GHz Opteron 8387 ($2149), the 2.9 GHz Opteron 2389 ($989), the 2.9 GHz Opteron 8389 ($2649), and the two Opteron SE 2393 and 8393 SE with 3.1 GHz clock speeds and $1165 and $2649 price tags respectively. All ten CPUs have 6 MB of L3 cache.

After showing us working samples of the first six-core "Istanbul" server chips, AMD today hosted some information on its blog regarding the work process on the chips. "The silicon is healthy and we're targeting a launch in 2H09," AMD spokesperson Jake Whitman said Tuesday. "The new 6-core version of the AMD Opteron processor is scheduled to be available in the second half of this year, and it is everything we had hoped for - and more." added John Fruehe from AMD, on his blog.
With the release of "Istanbul" server chips, AMD will try to catch up with Intel and its six-core "Dunnington" processor for servers. The Socket 1207 Istanbul chips will offer an easy upgrade from current 45nm quad-core Shanghai Opterons, while still maintaining the same thermal envelope with even more cores per processor. To watch videos of "Istanbul" in action left click here.

ACTICA Inc., manufacturer of mission critical server memory products, announces the next generation DDR2-800/PC2-6400 ECC Registered for AMD Opteron Shanghai Platforms.

ACTICA's new DDR2-800 ECC REG are compatible to AMD Opteron Shanghai sever platforms such as Supermicro H8DMT, H8DMU+, H8DM3, H8DMA, H8DA3, H8DAi-2, Tyan S4985-E, S3992-E, S2927-E, S2915-E, S2912-E, S2937, S2935, and Asus KFSN4-DRE/SAS/iKV, KFSN4-DRE/iKVM.

• ACT4GER72E4G800S-DDR2-800 4GB ECC REG Samsung-chip
• ACT2GER72F8G800S---DDR2-800 2GB ECC REG Samsung-chip
• ACT1GER72A8G800S---DDR2-800 1GB ECC REG Samsung-chip

AMD's introduction of the Phenom II series processors served several purposes and goals for the company, mainly porting the processor technology to the newer 45nm SOI manufacturing node, to attempt to bring down manufacturing cost. This also meant that AMD could trade-off bringing down manufacturing cost with stepping up transistor counts on a die that is nearly the size of that of the 65nm Barcelona/Agena. The 45nm Shanghai/Deneb has a distinct feature over its predecessor: three times the amount of L3 cache. The larger cache significantly adds to the transistor count of the die: 758 million as against the 468 million on Barcelona/Agena. Replying to an inquiry of Hardware-Infos, AMD attempts to explain its motive behind incorporating the large L3 cache, while trading-off with savings of die-size and alleged latencies the L3 cache brings in.

AMD points out that expanding the L3 cache was important to the architecture in more ways than one. On the desktop/client PC front, the additional L3 cache was expected to provide a 5% performance increment over its predecessor. The reviews later backed AMD's assertion. Secondly, AMD likes to maintain an essentially common die design for both its client (Phenom II/Deneb) and enterprise or server (Opteron/Shanghai), to make sure manufacturing costs aren't wasted in setting up a separate manufacturing node. With the enterprise-grade Opteron processors, the 6 MB L3 cache has proven to benefit the processor in dealing with large server workloads. Finally, AMD claims that despite the larger cache, the overall die-area of the 45nm die remains lesser than that of the 65nm Stars die, so cost-cutting remains to an extant.

Computing giant HP has refreshed its workstation lineup with xw9400 series models running the new AMD Opteron "Shanghai" quad-core processors. Being workstations, they come with dual-socket configurations as options, and sport Opteron 2000 series processors. Options start at a 2.00 GHz processor, and go up to 2.50 GHz. Up to 32 GB of memory can be opted for. The motherboards use NVIDIA nForce Professional 3600 or 3050 chipsets. A variety of options with NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics cards are offered. The system comes with a three-year warranty that includes parts, labor, and on-site service. A set of pre-configured systems are available by HP on its product page. Prices start at US $2,399 and can go up to $6,299.

Intel Developer Forum, in its 11th year as Intel Corporation's largest technology conferences, returns to China, the United States and Taiwan in 2009. Beijing will host the first IDF on next year's schedule, April 8-9 at the Beijing International Convention Center. Next is San Francisco, Sept. 22-24 at Moscone Center West, followed by Taipei, Taiwan, Nov. 16-17 at the Taipei International Convention Center. Spanning the worlds of mobility, digital home, digital enterprise and technology and research, IDF focuses on Intel's directions for the next year and beyond. The events collectively draw more than 10,000 system developers, engineers, implementers and architects, among other technical audiences annually. More than 1,250 journalists and analysts covered this year's IDFs in Shanghai, San Francisco and Taipei.
Further information is available at developer.intel.com/idf.

AMD today announced that its Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors are powering "Jaguar," the first ever wholly x86-based supercomputer to achieve the petaflop performance milestone. AMD Opteron processors now help drive seven of the Top 10 supercomputer systems in the world.

The AMD Opteron processor-based and IBM PowerXCell processor-based "Roadrunner" system at Los Alamos National Labs again captures the number 1 spot on the bi-annual TOP500 Supercomputer Sites list, while the "Jaguar" supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory comes in at number 2 and is the highest performing entirely x86-based system ever on the survey. "Jaguar" is based on Cray XT4 and XT5 systems and runs on over 45,000 Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors, enabling a balanced system with unrivaled x86 performance.

Earlier today, AMD announced the release of its much anticipated enterprise quad-core processor, the new Quad-Core AMD Opteron, codenamed "Shanghai". A regular feature with AMD press releases, is that the PR team details about the products' availability. In this particular release, AMD went a step further and revealed the brand name the company's desktop 45nm processors would carry: Phenom II, when getting into details about the AMD Dragon enthusiast platform. Dragon succeeds Spider, and consists of a Phenom II processor, running on AMD 7-series core logic, along with ATI Radeon HD 4000 series graphics accelerators.

The Phenom II processors will consist of a whole range of quad-core, triple-core and dual-core processors, with the products segregated on the basis of their core count, clock-speed and cache arrangement. Several models are lined-up for launch. The platform itself, as AMD asserts, would release in Q1, 2009. There are signs of the company launching some models of the Phenom II X4 sooner, for which motherboard vendors have already started releasing lists of their existing motherboards that are ready for the processors.

AMD today announced widespread availability of its 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor, delivering up to 35 percent more performance with up to a 35 percent decrease in power consumption at idle. With IT decision-makers looking to do more with less, the newest Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor can help drive data center efficiencies and reduce complexities with innovations that offer superior virtualization performance and increased performance-per-watt. Global OEMs are expected to immediately offer enterprise and SMB customers more than 25 systems, available between launch today and the end of the year, based on the 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor, codenamed "Shanghai."

"Shanghai" is the codename for the soon to be released quad-core enterprise processors by AMD, under the Quad-Core Opteron brand. It was expected of the company, to come up with these processors around this time of the year, and they have. AMD hasn't officially announced these processors yet, but the processors have made for early listings in some popular online stores. PC Connection and Buy.com have made listings of some of the upcoming SKUs. The Opteron 837x, 838x series are anything but cheap. These are processors that support multi-socket setups up to eight sockets. The Opteron 238x series processors are the dual-socket supportive variant of the same processors.

According to sources at server builders, AMD has notified that it would be releasing nine models of quad-core AMD Opteron 45nm processors this month. The processors would be based on the Shanghai core and mark the company's entry into the 45nm silicon fabrication for CPUs.

Out of the lineup of 20 processors that would come out, the ones slated for this month include CPUs of clock-speeds between 2.3 and 2.7 GHz, of which five of them are 2000 series (2-way) models and the rest, 8000 series (8-way) models. The processors are based on Socket F (s1207) design, and sport 6 MB level 3 caches. The sources also mentioned that in February 2009, AMD will launch five 55W energy-efficient enterprise CPUs, three 2-way and two 8-way; and two 105W high-performance models a 2-way and an 8-way each.

AMD Shanghai is the codename for a new enterprise processor the company is working on. It is a monolithic quad-core x86 processor that retains the design methodology of the K10h generation of AMD processors. It carries forward the Opteron brand. This time around, the company promises to have made numerous changes, big and small, learning from the shortfalls of the Barcelona chip. Shanghai will be the first 45nm AMD processor to make it to the market. Originally slated for Q1, 2009 its launch was pushed to Q4, 2008.

In a press event held yesterday, the company claimed that the company is all set to roll out the new chip. Initial volumes of the processor would run off existing core logic platforms by NVIDIA and Broadcom. It will retain the Socket F (aka s1207) package and support DDR2 memory. The lineup shows that most of these chips would retain the 2000 MT/s system bus, and all of them come with 6 MB of level 3 cache. A new company slide sourced by C|Net shows that the Opteron processor could embrace DDR3 memory only by 2010, with the introduction of the Magny-Corus 12-core processor architecture. Until then, the Istanbul 6-core processor the is slated for H2, 2009, could be the company's flagship product.

AMD would be releasing 45nm silicon fabricated series of the quad-core Opteron processor based on the newer Shanghai core. Like its desktop PC counterpart, the Deneb core, it features 6 MB of L3 cache along with some enterprise-specific features. They will be designed for high-uptime and energy efficiency. AMD banks heavily on the performance efficiency and virtualization capabilities of these processors. There are primarily two types of these processors based on the multi-processor capabilities: the 2000 series 2-way processors and the 8000 series 8-way processors. The former supports two-socket systems while the latter is designed for dense 2+ socket environments, where up to 8 Opteron processors could work in tandem. The processors continue to have Socket-F (s1207) interfaces, hence the entire lineup retains its DDR2 memory standard.

Interestingly, AMD did not rework the system interface for all its newer chips. Across the vast lineup of 20 models, only four support the newer HyperTransport 3.0 interface with 4400 MT/s interconnects. The rest continue to use the 2000 MT/s interconnects. It could be mid-2009 by the time AMD launches its own enterprise-segment chipsets, which could also be the time when the current leading player, NVIDIA launches its newer nForce Professional lineup for the Opteron. Since current chipsets from both NVIDIA and Broadcom feature only the older HyperTransport 2000 MT/s interfaces, it could explain why most of these chips feature it.

AMD seems to have decided that it won't face any more flack in the computing industry owing to the lack of success the Barcelona / Agena (K10) architecture had compared to a determined Intel that seems to be going for the kill with a string of products lined up, Intel in fact has looked forward four years in time based on its IDF slides. On the eve of IDF, AMD executives said the company's 45-nanometer Shanghai processor will enter the market by the fourth quarter of 2008. The AMD processor is designed to compete against the Intel Nehalem processor, especially in the volume two-socket server market.

AMD Shanghai is touted to be the server/enterprise version of the upcoming Deneb series 45nm quad-core processors. Unlike the Deneb that retains the 940-pin AM2/AM2+/possible AM3 socket, Shanghai would use the enterprise segment Socket 1207, there already are server boards with four sockets in the market, AMD plans to use this as something to flash before Intel, as for server applications, cost-effective Shanghai parts used in four-CPU configurations should provide high levels of computational power.

Shanghai, the 45nm core from AMD, is likely to debut late this year. It will be similar in many aspects to the currently-availabe B3 stepping of the Socket 1207 Opteron (Barcelona) shipping today. Unlike Barcelona however, which has its HyperTransport 3.0 clock generator fused off, Shangai should utilize HyperTransport 3.0 for inter-CPU communication. Also, AMD has a new "native six-core" Shanghai derivative in store, currently codenamed Istanbul. This processor is clearly targeted at Intel's recently announced six-core, 45nm Dunnington processor. AMD plans to utilize 2 Istanbul cores to create a 12-core CPU, where both cores will communicate with each other via HyperTransport 3.0. A quad-channel memory controller may also be possible. All new Shanghai CPUs should be backwards compatible with existing Socket 1207 motherboards.

Shanghai is currently taped out and running Windows at AMD.

After we reported that AMD is starting to produce 45nm chips in 2008, the company is also looking to refresh its line-up with a new generation eight-core CPUs, to be released in distant future. Following the 2008 release of its first 45nm CPUs - Shanghai - AMD will be preparing to introduce octo-core parts. The 8-headed server processors are codenamed "Montreal" and will feature HyperTransport 3 and include 1MB of L2 cache per core and a shared L3 cache between 6 and 12MB. The Montreal line-up will consist of both eight- and quad-core CPUs and will be paired up with boards powered by new chipsets like the AMD RD890S and RD870S. The ETA for the eight-core AMD processors is the first half of 2009.