AMD 12-core opteron available on ebay!

[nyker96]

Max memory support is 512GB. For now.

do they actually load it up to 1/2 TB ram? that's insane, my HD is just 1TB.

not to offend AMD users..

But... its not by a small margin... which is why i said its gonna be a sad sad year for AMD...
Gulftown Scales better then Gainestown...
lemme just say that.

And lets not even get into Becktons...

But for ATI i see a golden path straight to the wizard of oz.

ATI is basking in the sunlight while nvidia is hiding in the shadows going CRAP.
Now if they can only fix the 5970 drivers... i might consider picking one up...

surely aigomorla, you only saw a few closed door benchmarks that cannot possibly be enough to generalize to every type of server load. When this thing is officially launch and more thorough benchmarking are done then we'll have a clearer picture.

Besides there will also be a pricing factor to even things out I'm sure. And from the look of things this seems to be a upgrade part for the 4cores/6cores amd servers so most company that will be buying this might just be existing customers. With that said, Intel definitely got the better chip right now until BD, but that we will have to wait and see.

 

[Markfw]

do they actually load it up to 1/2 TB ram? that's insane, my HD is just 1TB.



surely aigomorla, you only saw a few closed door benchmarks that cannot possibly be enough to generalize to every type of server load. When this thing is officially launch and more thorough benchmarking are done then we'll have a clearer picture.

Besides there will also be a pricing factor to even things out I'm sure. And from the look of things this seems to be a upgrade part for the 4cores/6cores amd servers so most company that will be buying this might just be existing customers. With that said, Intel definitely got the better chip right now until BD, but that we will have to wait and see.

Probably these are getting in the range of the servers I support at work. We have several IBM P595's with 1 tb ram, and a P590 with 512 gig for test server. And these are not mainframes, but they do support 30-60 tb databases.

 

[JFAMD]

not to offend AMD users..

But... its not by a small margin... which is why i said its gonna be a sad sad year for AMD...
Gulftown Scales better then Gainestown...
lemme just say that.

And lets not even get into Becktons...

But for ATI i see a golden path straight to the wizard of oz.

ATI is basking in the sunlight while nvidia is hiding in the shadows going CRAP.
Now if they can only fix the 5970 drivers... i might consider picking one up...

Actually, I disagree. HT works best in client workloads, not server workloads. The heavier the thread, the worse HT performs, there are even someworkloads where the performance for HT is actually negative (i.e. turn it off and overall throughput goes up.)

As for beckton, I say bring it on as well. It is going to be big, hot and expensive. While some may be very excited about performance, we have seen, time and time again, that the raw performance is not what drives x86 server buyers. Price performance matters more.

 

[JFAMD]

Does it have HT or Intel Turbo. That would be 24 threads. Its a server CPU, meaning it will not perform like the workstation CPU they release.

No, we have real cores, not HT.

HT does not scale as well on server workloads, it can be negative at times. Cores always scale, end of discussion.

 

[aigomorla]

i cant say much about the 48 core version.

However i can tell ya the 24 core version was getting its platter served against a 3.33ghz dual gainestown.

a Dual 3.4ghz Gulftown (westmere-EP) would only make that gap larger.

^ This is what im talking about.

I honestly hope you guys have a better product then what i saw... because its looking very grim from where im sitting.

 

[ebaycj]

Does it have HT or Intel Turbo. That would be 24 threads. Its a server CPU, meaning it will not perform like the workstation CPU they release.

It's a server CPU, meaning it will perform EXACTLY THE F*ING SAME as the workstation CPU they release (as they are based on the same core).

 

[ebaycj]

Are they going to keep up this rectangular CPU and socket? If not then this will be a 1 generation only socket and design and where is the return on investment in that? And that limits buyers if there are no upgrade paths afterwards.

Also what happened to Idontcare? This is like his bread and butter. Did he go on extended vacation or something?

Servers very rarely actually get CPU upgrades.

 

[ebaycj]

do they actually load it up to 1/2 TB ram? that's insane, my HD is just 1TB.

Besides there will also be a pricing factor to even things out I'm sure. And from the look of things this seems to be a upgrade part for the 4cores/6cores amd servers so most company that will be buying this might just be existing customers.

Yes, for VMWare vSphere. 512GB + 48 cores. Hell, my company (middle of the fortune 500) could run ALL of its databases on 4 VM hosts of that size, with room to grow. And don't tell me the "virtualized database" can't be done, or is a bad idea, because it does indeed work and performs admirably (assuming you've got good VMWare / SAN / Database people, and lots of I/O). And it's WAY inexpensive.

Also, just to clear things up, this is a new socket / form factor. This is not an upgrade to existing servers.

 

[ebaycj]

Actually, I disagree. HT works best in client workloads, not server workloads. The heavier the thread, the worse HT performs, there are even someworkloads where the performance for HT is actually negative (i.e. turn it off and overall throughput goes up.)

As for beckton, I say bring it on as well. It is going to be big, hot and expensive. While some may be very excited about performance, we have seen, time and time again, that the raw performance is not what drives x86 server buyers. Price performance matters more.

I don't think I've met a server that had hyperthreading turned on. It's slower on LOTS of workloads.

 

[ebaycj]

i cant say much about the 48 core version.

However i can tell ya the 24 core version was getting its platter served against a 3.33ghz dual gainestown.

a Dual 3.4ghz Gulftown (westmere-EP) would only make that gap larger.

^ This is what im talking about.

I honestly hope you guys have a better product then what i saw... because its looking very grim from where im sitting.

I think it will be successful in its own right. 48 REAL cores (no hyperthreading BS) is a lot of CPU power. Especially if it's cheap.

Many / most mid-size companies could run all their servers off of (2) 48 core 512gb boxes + VMware + iSCSI storage.

 

[JFAMD]

i cant say much about the 48 core version.

However i can tell ya the 24 core version was getting its platter served against a 3.33ghz dual gainestown.

a Dual 3.4ghz Gulftown (westmere-EP) would only make that gap larger.

^ This is what im talking about.

I honestly hope you guys have a better product then what i saw... because its looking very grim from where im sitting.

That would be a more interesting discussion if that were a server workload. That particular workload is not the profile that we are targeting for Opteron. Think of HPC, database, business apps (like SAP, CRM), Java and virtualization.

 

[aigomorla]

Especially if it's cheap.

and u think a 48core 512GB box is gonna be cheap?

That would be a more interesting discussion if that were a server workload. That particular workload is not the profile that we are targeting for Opteron. Think of HPC, database, business apps (like SAP, CRM), Java and virtualization.

i get ya...
i didnt get to see any of Magny on Virtualization or HPC benchmarks.

Only time will tell.
Saw it doing some WCG, then saw it doing a CB10.5, and he finished it with a sysmark.
I dont take sysmark very seriously...

 

[JFAMD]

and u think a 48core 512GB box is gonna be cheap?

It will be cheaper if it doesn't say "intel inside" on the outside

 

[aigomorla]

It will be cheaper if it doesn't say "intel inside" on the outside

touché

 

[alfa147x]

Is that pic stretched or are these packages rectangular? Reminds me of the Pentium Pro aka Socket-8.

Yeah thats what I was thinking until i saw the square barcode

 

[Ben90]

Also what happened to Idontcare? This is like his bread and butter. Did he go on extended vacation or something?

Forget all this 24/96 core 85tb RAM bs. Ive been wondering the same thing for quite a while.

 

[Hyperlite]

Forget all this 24/96 core 85tb RAM bs. Ive been wondering the same thing for quite a while.

ditto....last time i looked he was last on in late december.

 

[soccerballtux]

Forget all this 24/96 core 85tb RAM bs. Ive been wondering the same thing for quite a while.

ditto....last time i looked he was last on in late december.

got a job or something.

 

[PCTC2]

Just a second. Are there still folders running Stanfords FAH on cpus? Thats ridiculous considering the hideous performance/watt compared to 80$ gpus from Nvidia.

The top farmers moved to GPU farms long long ago. Check out Atlas on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjOW5iW7dJQ

Hell, even Milkyway@Home has a GPU client crunching units 15x of a fast quadcore cpu.

Seems the only big folding project staying behind is WGC. Losing popularity all the more...

You have to CPU's in your system before GPU's. If you have a few Nehalem based CPU's, you can run bigADV in F@H and get 50,000 points every few days. Or even higher if you complete them faster, like an 8-core Gainestown system. Then you pop in 4 GPU's and you've got yourself a folding monster.

 

[zsdersw]

It will be cheaper if it doesn't say "intel inside" on the outside

Unless AMD had the better chip.. then it would be as much, if not more, as pre-Conroe AMD pricing demonstrated.

 

[Rubycon]

<2GHz what is this 2005?

It would be great is IPC increased twice but this is not happening.

 

[JFAMD]

Don't worry, clock to clock you should see better performance on Magny Cours relative to Istanbul.

 

[GlacierFreeze]

I dont take sysmark very seriously...

Synthetic benches are worthless to me.

 

[aigomorla]

JF as i said i hope you guys do have a solid product.

Even a AM2 version of istanbul @ a cheaper package then Bloomfield would still yield a big win for you guys.

Ive been saying this the start, the only way you guys are gonna beat intel is to nail that price / performance aspect.

 

[piesquared]

Unless AMD had the better chip.. then it would be as much, if not more, as pre-Conroe AMD pricing demonstrated.

That is such a crock, but since you brought it up. During that period, intel was STILL dictating the pricing structure even with the vastly outperformed netburst architecture with higher prices and less performance. And intel STILL sold more thanks to.... you know what. It wouldn't have made one iota of a difference regardless of AMD's pricing, they wouldn't have sold any more at all and would have made even less revenue, while intel loaded up the coffers with a much inferior product.

So what pre-Conroe DID demonstrate is that innovation, higher performance and a better architecture don't mean squat if you're competition, is anti-competitive as numerous countries and commisions have shown.

Only bringing this up to correct your FUD.