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Over the past few weeks, AMD has been talking up its enterprise transition to DDR3 in the form of the 12-core Magny-Cours CPU.
AMD has used the multi-part “Playing 20 Questions” series of blog entries to paint the chip’s details. The processor is a dual-die solution that shoehorns two hexa-core Istanbul cores into one package and packs it in with cache and a spider’s web of HyperTransport links.
While a 12-core x86 chip is in and of itself a marvel, it is just one piece of AMD’s big step to embrace DDR3 in the enterprise. It is a move that represents a complete overhaul of AMD’s offerings with new chipsets, sockets, and processors.
San Marino Platform
Taking up the ground floor, the San Marino platform is a 1-2 processor solution for entry-level servers or workstations. Because of the move to DDR3, San Marino adopts the new Socket C32, which includes extra pins for DDR3 memory controllers.
On the processor front, Lisbon will take center-stage throughout 2010 and into the start of 2011. It’s best to consider the chip as a DDR3 version of AMD’s existing Shanghai or Istanbul products with a little optimization sprinkled on top. As the slides indicate, Lisbon will be sold under the AMD 4000 series and will be succeeded by the 32nm Valencia when AMD gets its 32nm production in check.
Maranello Platform
While San Marino cleans up in the minors, Maranello will swing for the fences in the big leagues. Positioned for the 2-4p server segment, the transition to DDR3 once again makes the case for the new Socket G34, which is mutually incompatible with San Marino’s C32 socket.
On the processor front, Magny-Cours is being primed for a 1Q10 launch and will take the banner as big green’s flagship chip until 2011. In ‘11, AMD is set to turn the 32nm dial to 11 and will test it on Magny die shrinks in the form of Interlagos with 12 or 16 cores.
As a flagship processor, Magny is worth extra consideration, and we wanted to briefly summarize some of the chip’s facts:
- Contains two six-core Istanbul dies.
- Each die contains its own dual-channel DDR3-1333 memory controller.
- Fabricated on a 45nm process node.
- Employs Socket G34 for 2 or 4-way systems.
Perhaps most significantly, however, is that AMD has strongly indicated that the chip will maintain the 75W thermal envelope offered by Istanbul.
“Our goal is to hold the power consumption of Magny-Cours consistent with Istanbul and that will happen with lower initial core speed and some new power management features,” says AMD PR rep Teresa Osborne.
The bigger picture
While AMD is working to dramatically overhaul its server offerings, existing Socket F products like Shanghai and Istanbul don’t hit the chopping block until the middle of 2011. In the mean time, Socket F will get a makeover when it joins the new San Marino and Maranello platforms on the AMD SR5690 chipset which brings AMD enterprise under the banner of a unified core logic.
Secondarily, the astute may have noticed that AMD appears to have exited the 8-processor game with the upcoming platform. This is no mistake. Market research conducted by AMD indicates that software is in a poor condition to scale out to the 96 cores that could be offered by an 8-way Magny-Cours system.
“The G34 systems planned for 2010 are expected to offer scalability to 4 sockets each with 12 cores per socket; that represents a total of 48 cores for a 4P platform,” said AMD Director of Biz Dev. “The challenge in moving beyond that level for many mainstream business applications can be that the scalability of the software becomes a bigger challenge than the scalability of the hardware.”
As it stands, a system packed with four Magny-Cours chips will crunch 48 independent processing threads. This level of computing density will be unrivaled until Intel introduces the equally impressive 128-thread Nehalem EX in the same time frame.
While the dust for this brewing battle won’t settle for quite some time, it’s clear that AMD is taking an aggressive stance and making the very best of its technology to craft a whole roster of exciting offerings.
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