AMD's 'Shanghai' Processor Will Emphasize Virtualization, Energy Efficiency (
Page 1 of 3 )
When Advanced Micro Devices officially releases its 45-nm "Shanghai" processor on Nov. 13, the chip maker will emphasize the microprocessor's ability to handle virtualization as well as the chip's energy efficiency traits. This latest AMD Opteron processor is likely to compete against the current crop of Intel Xeon processors, especially within the market for two- and four-socket servers. In addition to the engineering improvements, AMD is betting that Shanghai will help return some financial stability to the company and offer a more compelling processor to counter Intel's offerings.Advanced
Micro Devices is poised to officially release the new 45-nanometer version
of its Opteron processor lineformerly called ShanghaiNov. 13, and AMD
plans to emphasize the chips energy efficiency traits and its ability to
handle virtualization workloads.
When Shanghai launches during
the companys annual meeting with financial analysts Nov. 13, AMD
will bring a total of nine new Opteron processors into the market for two- and
four-way server systems. The clock speeds will fluctuate from 2.3GHz on the
low end to 2.7GHz on the high end.
The prices for the new 45-nm Opterons will range from $377 for low-end parts
to $2,149 for high-end chips. AMD is also
planning to keep the pricing aggressive, especially compared with the previous
generation of 65-nm Opteron processors. For example, the newer Opteron 8380
chip running at 2.5GHz is priced at $1,514, which is the same price as the
older 65-nm Opteron 8356 processor running at 2.3GHz.
All prices are calculated in quantities of 1,000-unit shipments.
The new 45-nm Opteron processor lineup will include five chips for
two-socket servers: the Opteron 2384 (2.7GHz), Opteron 2382 (2.6GHz,) Opteron
2380 (2.5GHz), Opteron 2378 (2.4GHz) and Opteron 2376 (2.3GHz). The prices for
these chips will range from $989 to $377.
For four-way and eight-way systems, AMD
will offer four new Opterons: the Opteron 8384 (2.7GHz), Opteron 8382 (2.6GHz),
Opteron 8380 (2.5GHz) and Opteron 8378 (2.4GHz). The prices for these
microprocessors range from $2,149 to $1,165.
In
addition to shrinking the die size from 65 nm to 45 nm, which
allows AMD
to make smaller chips that use less power and enables the company to
manufacture the processors at a lower cost, AMD
has included a number of new features in Shanghai.
These include 6MB of Level 3 cache that all four cores share. In addition, all four processing cores will
each have 512KB of dedicated L2 cache. The new Opterons also include
some AMD
standards, such as the integrated memory controller and support for
DDR2
(double data rate 2) memory.
Since the first of these Opteron processors are slated for two- and four-way
systems, AMD is planning to emphasize the
chips ability to handle virtualization. In addition to the technology found
with its AMD-V offering, the company is
adding features such as Rapid Virtualization Indexing, which uses hardware to
manage the virtual memory, and Tagged TLB
(Translation Lookaside Buffer), which allows for faster switching between
virtual machines.
 |
IT Infrastructure 
/ 8 
