Tuesday, February 23rd 2010
AMD Starts Shipping 12-core and 8-core ''Magny Cours'' Opteron Processors
AMD has started shipping its 8-core and 12-core "Magny Cours" Opteron processors for sockets G34 (2P-4P+), and C32 (1P-2P). The processors mark entry of several new technologies for AMD, such as a multi-chip module (MCM) approach towards increasing the processor's resources without having to complicate chip design any further than improving on those of the Shanghai and Istanbul. The new Opteron chips further make use of third-generation HyperTransport interconnect technologies for 6.4 GT/s interconnect speeds between the processor and host, and between processors on multi-socket configurations. It also embraces the Registered DDR3 memory technology. Each processor addresses memory over up to four independent (unganged) memory channels. Technologies such as HT Assist improve inter-silicon bandwidth on the MCMs. The processors further benefit from 12 MB of L3 caches on board, and 512 KB of dedicated L2 caches per processor core.
In the company's blog, the Director of Product Marketing for Server/Workstation products, John Fruehe, writes "Production began last month and our OEM partners have been receiving production parts this month." The new processors come in G34/C32 packages (1974-pin land-grid array). There are two product lines: the 1P/2P capable (cheaper) Opteron 4000 series, and 2P to 4P capable Opteron 6000 series. There are a total of 18 SKUs AMD has planned some of these are listed as followed, with OEM prices in EUR:
Sources:
AMD Blogs, TechConnect Magazine
In the company's blog, the Director of Product Marketing for Server/Workstation products, John Fruehe, writes "Production began last month and our OEM partners have been receiving production parts this month." The new processors come in G34/C32 packages (1974-pin land-grid array). There are two product lines: the 1P/2P capable (cheaper) Opteron 4000 series, and 2P to 4P capable Opteron 6000 series. There are a total of 18 SKUs AMD has planned some of these are listed as followed, with OEM prices in EUR:
- Opteron 6128 (8 cores) | 1.5 GHz | 12MB L3 cache | 115W TDP - 253.49 Euro
- Opteron 6134 (8 cores) | 1.7 GHz | 12MB L3 cache | 115W TDP - 489 Euro
- Opteron 6136 (8 cores) | 2.4 GHz | 12MB L3 cache | 115W TDP - 692 Euro
- Opteron 6168 (12 cores) | 1.9 GHz | 12MB L3 cache | 115W TDP - 692 Euro
- Opteron 6172 (12 cores) | 2.1 GHz | 12MB L3 cache | 115W TDP - 917 Euro
- Opteron 6174 (12 cores) | 2.2 GHz | 12MB L3 cache | 115W TDP - 1,078 Euro
125 Comments on AMD Starts Shipping 12-core and 8-core ''Magny Cours'' Opteron Processors
EDIT: BTW panther, how in heck did you manage to get your post count to 4000 in a year?
BTW correct me if I'm wrong but AMD measured their TDP differently from Intel, right? AMD were measuring the average, while intel was just showing the peak. If memory serves me right then AMD's 115W equals Intel's 130W chips.
Also have very little to do in town so I'm online a lot.
The other articles linked to at the end of this one are worth looking over too.
All a computer needs is a sensor to tell what position the motor is in, it calculates how to power a trajectory to get the motor to its needed position, and verify it arrived. It's just a bunch of 1s and 0s--the language computers eat for lunch. Very wasteful. Monitoring a motor takes only a few cycles every second. An ARM processor is more than sufficient. Hell, your cellphone could probably manage a dozen robots depending on precision. That's similar to what I said before: cores need to work synchronously on the hardware level so on the software level, you only have a few cores but there are many behind the scenes handling the data.
That would mean a different instruction set (doubt x86 would work) and a new generation of processors.
I've trained Parkour for long enough that I've experienced completely automatic responses.
Say I've vaulted a wall but I can't see what's on the other side and suddenly there's another obstacle I wasn't expecting, I don't think " HOLY SHIT WALL DO SOMETHING" My body just reacts to a visual stimulus like when someone throws a punch you just flinch. Shame sort of concept.
A Machine can't do anything like that without a lot of cores as rather then a reaction it will have to see the object and then essentially think what to do next the more cores it has the more potential responses to the obstacle it could think of, having a core per sensor will also allow it to truly accurately judge is position in space and thus go over the next obstacle with no problems.
With less cores it simply won't be able to plan the next movement efficiently.
The brain is in one place but its definitely "multi core" :laugh:
if it wasn't humans would barely function, I certainly know I can think of more then one thing at once.
Hell right now I'm typing whilst listening to music and planning what I'm doing tomorow, all simultaneously in my brain with no slow downs XD
The brain has many, MANY locations in it that all work to together to do the simplest of tasks. Say you want to bend down and pick up a pencil. You have different nerves that tell your fingers to open and close compared to the nerves that carry the signal to your shoulder to move in the correct position to allow the movement to happen. You have different routes, parasympathetic and sympathetic. One allows your body to rest and relax, the other allows your body to get up and move around.
If it wasn't for the brain nerves (cranial nerves) telling your heart to slow the fuck down you'd all be having a heart rate of about 200 odd beats a minute which ain't healthy.
Again, you can not compare the brain with a computer chip. A brain is just too damn complicated.
However, massive parallelism is, in one form or another (or more likely, in multiple forms—parallel parallelism?), going to be required for the extremely demanding tasks that humans will be handing to computers in the coming several decades. I doubt that the architecture of a system designed fifty years from now would be recognizable or make sense to any of us discussing this here and now, but I do know it will feature a lot of parallel computation.
And technology like these 8 and 12-core CPUs from AMD is a necessary stepping stone along the way.
Err.. Anyway, I tend to think of the future where massive parallel computing power is stored in a few locations around with next to no local applications at all. Everything electronic will be connected to the net, for good and bad. Phones, toasters, fridges, everything.. Pretty scary, but it seems like it's heading that way.
Like a computer, the body generally has only one response to save itself from danger. If it guesses wrong, bad things happen. If it guesses right, things end up not so bad. An example is when someone sees a deer 20 feet in front of them. Some do the stupid thing and veer off the road, rolling it, and killing the occupants. Some do the smart thing and brake to a collision (a trained response). The brain isn't developing an extensive list of possibilities and weeding out which is best. It just knows the status quo won't do and takes the first alternative. With computers, it is prescribed. If this, this, and this conditions are true, do that. That's why they are so efficient.
Where computers are slowest is very human tasks like recognizing a face, determining if someone is "beautiful" or not, recognizing voice tones, identifying body language, and detecting emotions. The brain can do all of these tasks in little more than 100ms. It takes a computer that long just to realize it is looking at a "face." Because of the extreme variety in the real world, checking for a specific list of conditions takes a lot of computing horsepower. The technology is improving but again, it stems from the shortfalls of binary: neurons vs. transistors. It's the same deal: privacy is non-existant.
I still think multi cores are the way forward, as I just mentioned when light computing is out heat output would be miniscule so you could pack as many cores into one package as you phsycally could, and why the hell not, 10 1 terahurtz cpus would pwn an individual one after all :laugh:
I'm a firm believer that when it comes to hardware theres no such thing as overkill :laugh:
I would say that computers not only can be, but must be (and will be) compared to the human brain. Reverse engineering such a marvelous piece of machinery is a powerful tool in the quest for progress, and it will certainly impact the way we develop our technology.
A machine on the production line has consistency, real life does not.
Also when it comes to sorting seeds that's actually done by just shaking the hell out of them, seeds that are not ready yet fall through a mesh, it then goes to a second sieve for further sorting followed by a bath, dead seeds sink.
So then they just scoop of the good stock and dry it.
BAM seeds that grow everytime.
*edit* if anyone finds it odd that I know that, I spend most of my time researching and reading about things, I love to know how things work :D
data centers will gobble these up - going quad core to 12 core gets them 3x the work in the same physical space.
Oh goodie, so they know how you like your toast and what is in your fridge too. :shadedshu I think I will move to Mars now (or die trying to get there). That's in human appearance and behavior. Computers have been able to do everything I listed individually. It is just impractical to combine them all. True and true. They (IBM, Intel, Sun, AMD, etc.) created that industry and they are going to feed it. I never said these wouldn't be good for data centers/enterprises. My concern is sticking them in consumer computers (wasteful and inevitably coming because consumers are creating demand for waste) or moving consumers to clouds of them (privacy).
have perhaps 4 cores that run at 4ghz+ ( or more) and have the reminder low clocked ( 1.5) for handling non intensive tasks etc?