Opteron A1100 is shipping

[Headfoot]

Seems like a decent niche product, it can handle a lot of RAM and Disk and its got two 10G ethernet ports on it. Plenty of applications can use that sort of capability without needing CPU (memcache, NAS-like long term storage server, etc). The real issue though is how does that stack up against a heavily virtualized run of the mill Xeon.

The cost difference on the chip doesn't matter as much as the cost difference for the software you'd run on the chip and how their licensing scheme is set up. I don't have much experience w/ the cost structure of VMware or HyperV stuff, but I can't imagine loading up your chips with tons of VMs is cost free

 

[jhu]

Isn't theoretically supposed to mean within the realm of the possibilities?

Of course, if you set the error bars wide enough.

 

[AtenRa]

It's still a test vehicle and nothing but promises in the future, while OTOH Intel has a lot to show today and a credible roadmap to back them up. I can't think of any good reason to try ARM today.

I think ARM will get some server share eventually, but it won't be through AMD's efforts. Overpromising and underdelivering is not something highly praised on the server market, you are evaluated for what you deliver and when.



I have to ask the same question. A1100 is DOA as far as datacenters are concerned.

Funny because A1100 makes Intel AVOTON obsolete.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Funny because A1100 makes Intel AVOTON obsolete.

How is that obvious?

 

[Arachnotronic]

Funny because A1100 makes Intel AVOTON obsolete.

Not really.

 

[AtenRa]

Not really.

A1100 vs AVOTON

4x 32GB Ram vs 4x 16GB Ram
2x 10GB ethernet vs 2x 1GB
14x SATA-6 vs 2x SATA-6

That does make Intel AVOTON obsolete.

 

[Phynaz]

We need to see some benchmarks and price details first. But I guess the intention is that it should be cheaper and have better perf/watt than the x86 competitors, all else equal.

Ars Technica
AMD has been vague about both pricing and performance. The company says that the top-end part will cost around $150, with the others coming in below. This is quite a bit cheaper than Intel's Xeon D processors, which pack Broadwell-class processor cores with a bunch of I/O connectivity. These parts start at $199 and go up as high as $675. However, AMD concedes that the Xeon Ds are considerably faster. The company says that Intel's 2013-era Atom-based C2000 series systems-on-chips are a better comparison for these new models.

Price-wise, this comparison makes more sense—these processors cost between $43 and $171—but the performance implications are significant. AMD has refused to offer benchmark scores, but for it to be pricing and pitching its new processors against ones that are now two-and-a-half years old suggests that the A1100 range isn't going to blow anyone's socks off.

Really starting to look like another Derp CPU from AMD.

 

[ShintaiDK]

A1100 vs AVOTON

4x 32GB Ram vs 4x 16GB Ram
2x 10GB ethernet vs 2x 1GB
14x SATA-6 vs 2x SATA-6

That does make Intel AVOTON obsolete.

You forget Xeon-D.

A1100 is just another product not going anywhere. And its 2 years too late as well.

And "Avoton" got 6 SATA ports. And LAN is 4x1 or 4x2.5 GbE. Plus it got 16 PCIe lanes. Not to mention 20W.

 

[Phynaz]

A1100 vs AVOTON

4x 32GB Ram vs 4x 16GB Ram
2x 10GB ethernet vs 2x 1GB
14x SATA-6 vs 2x SATA-6

That does make Intel AVOTON obsolete.

AMD releases new CPUs in 2016 that compete with Intel CPUs from 2013...

SOA

Edit: And they don't run 99% of available software.

 

[AtenRa]

You forget Xeon-D.

I have specifically talked about AVOTON, and like it or not A1100 makes it obsolete, simple as that.
A1100 doesnt directly compete against Broadwell XEON-D.

And "Avoton" got 6 SATA ports. And LAN is 4x1 or 4x2.5 GbE. Plus it got 16 PCIe lanes. Not to mention 20W.

A1100 has PCIe 8x Gen 3.0, AVOTON has 16x Gen 2.0
A1100 has 14x SATA-6 ports, AVOTON has 4x SATA-3 and 2x SATA-6
A1100 has 2x 10GB Ethernet ports, AVOTON has 4x1 or 4x2.5GB

A1100 is 32W TDP including 14x SATA-6 ports, Both 2x 10GB Ethernet and a Crypto/Compression co-processor.

Dual 10GB Intel PCIe card = 7W
8x SATA-6 port PCIe Card = 8-10W

So if you add 2x 10GB Ethernet card + 8-10 port SATA-6 PCIe card to AVOTON the power consumption will almost double.

 

[Phynaz]

I have specifically talked about AVOTON, and like it or not A1100 makes it obsolete, simple as that.

See my edit above.

 

[AtenRa]

See my edit above.

Yes, the ecosystem is the reason of the existence of A1100 in the first place, not directly compete against current Intel offerings. But the hardware is far more advanced than AVOTON with more I/O features all at a smaller package and lower overall TDP.

 

[Vesku]

I think bringing enterprise features to ARM is a much bigger deal than the A1100 itself. Even so, it has the features for making decent high volume web servers and the $150 (chip) pricing Anandtech mentioned is quite competitive givien built in dual 10G and so many SATA ports. May pressure Intel into also providing more 10G connectivity built in. Looking forward to an update to A72 cores using 14nm FF.

 

[mrmt]

I think bringing enterprise features to ARM is a much bigger deal than the A1100 itself.

The only big deal for the server market is lower TCO for a given performance point, and guess what, A1100 does not bring anything new here.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I have specifically talked about AVOTON, and like it or not A1100 makes it obsolete, simple as that.
A1100 doesnt directly compete against Broadwell XEON-D.



A1100 has PCIe 8x Gen 3.0, AVOTON has 16x Gen 2.0
A1100 has 14x SATA-6 ports, AVOTON has 4x SATA-3 and 2x SATA-6
A1100 has 2x 10GB Ethernet ports, AVOTON has 4x1 or 4x2.5GB

A1100 is 32W TDP including 14x SATA-6 ports, Both 2x 10GB Ethernet and a Crypto/Compression co-processor.

Dual 10GB Intel PCIe card = 7W
8x SATA-6 port PCIe Card = 8-10W

So if you add 2x 10GB Ethernet card + 8-10 port SATA-6 PCIe card to AVOTON the power consumption will almost double.

So according to you, A1100 is a huge success? Inside your selected requirements?

Do you have any performance compare? I dont think AMD even got hopes for anything for the A1100. Specially not being 2 years late.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I think bringing enterprise features to ARM is a much bigger deal than the A1100 itself. Even so, it has the features for making decent high volume web servers and the $150 (chip) pricing Anandtech mentioned is quite competitive givien built in dual 10G and so many SATA ports. May pressure Intel into also providing more 10G connectivity built in. Looking forward to an update to A72 cores using 14nm FF.

Xeon-D is where the action is. Price is irrelevant in terms of TCO.

 

[Vesku]

Xeon-D is where the action is. Price is irrelevant in terms of TCO.

Even Facebook and Google care about initial price to some degree, one of the reasons behind the Open Compute initiative.

 

[mrmt]

Even Facebook and Google care about initial price to some degree, one of the reasons behind the Open Compute initiative.

TCO does include acquisition costs.

 

[krumme]

Why is this dual 10G relevant for a web server running 8 a57?

I dont see avaton as interesting in any way for anything. Less so for this 1100. As a development platform fine. But the market is simply not there anymore.

The smb nas market is fine for it. But its so compettitive even quad a15 have a hard time competing with fast dual a9.

 

[itsmydamnation]

Why is this dual 10G relevant for a web server running 8 a57?

I dont see avaton as interesting in any way for anything. Less so for this 1100. As a development platform fine. But the market is simply not there anymore.

The smb nas market is fine for it. But its so compettitive even quad a15 have a hard time competing with fast dual a9.

Something like a F5 5200 does something 15gbps of L7 full proxy traffic throughput with SSL in hardware with a quad core Xeon. A1100 seems to match that very closely dont you think?

Unless your saying that the vedor with ~50% of the ADC market share doesn't know how to spec its own hardware. So it would seem in terms of web front end throughput its spec'd perfectly.

Xeon D vs A1100 would be interesting to see, sure Xeon D would win, but it is obvious that people aren't accounting for the Crypto workload in their comparisons.

But again Even AMD have said that A1100 is just the first step on the journey and that first step was focused on infrastructure not performance.

I wonder what features the Ethernet controller has on A1100, would be very interesting if it had hardware syn cookies for example. Something that will never show up in benchmarks but usefull in "real life tm".

 

[Phynaz]

Yes, the ecosystem is the reason of the existence of A1100 in the first place, not directly compete against current Intel offerings. But the hardware is far more advanced than AVOTON with more I/O features all at a smaller package and lower overall TDP.

So you say it doesn't compete against Intel offerings, but yet it makes them obsolete.

There's a non-sequitur for you.

 

[Phynaz]

Why is this dual 10G relevant for a web server running 8 a57?

Exactly, an ARM CPU couldn't push 20gbs full duplex anyway.

Over engineered for marketing purposes.

 

[Exophase]

Exactly, an ARM CPU couldn't push 20gbs full duplex anyway.

Over engineered for marketing purposes.

I'll wait for benchmarks before deciding that (credible ethernet and SATA implementations should use DMA and not be heavily dependent on the CPU if you're just transferring straight from one to the other), but let's say you're right. There's still value in having two 10GbE ports even if you can't saturate both simultaneously or can't when running full duplex. And there's especially a big gap between what a 10GbE port can provide and what a 2.5GbE port can, assuming you have devices that support the latter in the first place.

 

[nvgpu]

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2015/2015102901_Some_details_of_Denverton_SoCs_for_microservers.html

CPU-World removed the info but many other sites republished it.

http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...s-upcoming-denverton-microserver-chip-lo.aspx

According to CPU World, Denverton will include 16 next-generation CPU cores, a doubling in core count from the prior-generation Avoton part. Additionally, these cores, as we learned a little while ago, will be Intel's Goldmont CPU cores, representing a two-generation leap from the Silvermont CPU cores found inside of the Avoton part.


CPU World says each pair of CPU cores -- known as modules -- will feature two megabytes of level two cache. Since prior leaks suggest consumer-oriented versions of Goldmont will feature one megabyte of level two cache per core pair, it would seem the variant of Goldmont inside Denverton may be specifically tuned/configured for server workloads.


The new chips are also said to include support for up to 128 gigabytes of DDR4-2400 memory, up nicely from support for 64 gigabytes of slower DDR3-1600 memory in Avoton.


Finally, CPU World says the Denverton chips will see big improvements in integrated I/O capability (quite important for the kinds of workloads people generally associate micro-servers with). Updates here include support for 10Gb Ethernet (up from support for 2.5Gb Ethernet) as well as 16 lanes of PCI-Express 3.0 connectivity (Avoton featured 16 lanes of PCI-Express 2.0 connectivity).

A1100 is DoA, uncompetitive and pretty much irrelevant.

 

[itsmydamnation]

Exactly, an ARM CPU couldn't push 20gbs full duplex anyway.

Over engineered for marketing purposes.

i showed you an example where it likely could, now prove me wrong.