| Q: | What are the main differences between Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors and earlier generations of AMD Opteron processors?
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| A: | Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors offer several significant enhancements over previous generations of AMD Opteron processors, including:
- Native Quad-Core processing
- Enhanced AMD PowerNow!™ technology with Independent Dynamic Core Technology
- AMD CoolCore™ technology
- AMD Smart Fetch Technology
- Dual Dynamic Power Management™
- AMD Virtualization™ with Rapid Virtualization Indexing
End users may experience lowered TCO, a more flexible IT environment, and improved performance-per-watt and performance-per-dollar.
Low TCO is driven by the use of low-power DDR2 memory, native quad-core technology and by the implementation of our AMD64 common core strategy across 1-socket, 2-socket, and 4-socket platforms, which can help minimize support costs.
AMD also has enabled significantly increased performance with its Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors with DDR2 memory, through features such as the AMD Wide Floating-Point Accelerator, AMD Memory Optimizer Technology, and AMD Balanced Smart Cache.
We have also implemented significant enhancements in critical areas for data center consumers, such as hardware-enabled virtualization, investment protection and energy-saving technologies.
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| Q: | What energy-efficiency enhancements were implemented?
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| A: | Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors benefit from the following energy-efficiency enhancements:
- AMD CoolCore™ technology, which can reduce energy consumption by turning off unused parts of the processor
- AMD Smart Fetch Technology, which helps reduce power consumption by allowing idle cores to enter a "halt" state, causing them to draw even less power during processing idle times.
- Independent Dynamic Core Technology, which enables variable clock frequency for each core, depending on the specific performance requirement of the applications it is supporting, helping to reduce power consumption
- Dual Dynamic Power Management™ (DDPM™) technology, which provides an independent power supply to the cores and to the memory controller, allowing the cores and memory controller to operate on different voltages, depending on usage
- Smart Fetch (introduced in our enhanced Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor) reduces power without impacting performance
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| Q: | How do the new processors aid in IT investment protection?
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| A: | Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors maintain socket compatibility with Second-Generation AMD Opteron processors to enable a seamless customer upgrade path, which helps to protect customers’ existing IT investments.
AMD’s common core strategy enables customers to scale with one AMD64 architecture from 1P all the way to 8P servers and workstations, to reduce management complexity and increase datacenter productivity. |
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| Q: | What virtualization enhancements do Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors feature?
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| A: | AMD Virtualization™ introduces Rapid Virtualization Indexing (formerly called “Nested Paging”) and Tagged TLBs.
Rapid Virtualization Indexing feature is designed to reduce the overhead penalty associated with virtualization technologies by:
- Allowing the management of virtual memory in hardware instead of software
- Reducing the complexity of existing x86 virtualization solutions
- Enabling increased performance and efficiency for many virtual workloads
This allows for a high-performing, flexible IT environment.
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| Q: | What are some of the enhancements that are targeted at boosting performance in Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors?
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| A: | Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors feature these enhancements to increase performance:
- AMD Memory Optimizer Technology increases memory throughput by up to 50% compared to previous generations of the AMD Opteron processor.
- AMD Wide Floating Point Accelerator provides 128-bit SSE floating point capabilities, which enables each core to simultaneously execute up to four FLOPS per clock (four times the floating-point computations of previous AMD Opteron processors) for significantly improving performance in compute-intensive and workstation applications.
- AMD Balanced Smart Cache represents significant cache enhancements with 512KB L2 cache per core and 6MB enhanced L3 cache across all four cores.
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| Q: | What does native architecture mean?
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| A: | Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors feature a “native” multi-core design where all four cores are on one piece of silicon versus other solutions which piece two dual-core die together into a single package.
All AMD Opteron processors feature AMD’s revolutionary Direct Connect Architecture, which can improve overall system performance and efficiency by reducing the bottlenecks inherent in traditional architectures.
Legacy front-side buses restrict the flow of data. Slower data flow can mean slower system performance and reduced system scalability.
With Direct Connect Architecture, there are no front-side buses. Instead, the processors, memory controllers and I/O are directly connected to each CPU. |
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| Q: | What does HE stand for?
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| A: | HE stands for “Highly Efficient” processing for servers and workstations and is used to reference our lower wattage processors. |
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| Q: | Explain the model numbering conventions and pricing.
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| A: | AMD Opteron processors are described by a four-digit model number.
The first number indicates the maximum scalability of the processor:
- AMD Opteron 1000 Series processors can be used in one-way servers and workstations
- AMD Opteron 2000 Series processors can be used in two-way servers and workstations
- AMD Opteron 8000 Series processors can be used in up to eight-way servers and workstations
The second digit indicates the processor generation; 3 is for third-generation AMD64, which includes Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors.
Third and fourth digits indicate relative performance within the generation.
Read a complete explanation of AMD’s model number taxonomy.
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| Q: | What is the die size of the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor and how many transistors does it use?
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| A: | The die size of the enhanced Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor is 285mm2. The processor uses approximately 758 million transistors. |
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| Q: | What are the prices of the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors?
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| A: | Please see AMD processor pricing for a complete listing of prices for AMD Opteron processors. |
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| Q: | Which companies will be supporting the latest AMD Opteron processors?
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| A: | More than 50 system builders and regional OEMs around the world are expected to announce new platforms in 2008 and early 2009. More than 50 socket-compatible AMD Opteron processor-based platforms are currently on the market from tier-one OEMs. |
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| Q: | What chipset support is available for these processors?
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| A: | Since Third-Generation AMD Opteron processors are designed to be compatible with Second-Generation AMD Opteron processors, all chipsets that currently support the dual-core processors also support the quad-core processors. |
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| Q: | What benchmarks are available for the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor?
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| A: | Continuing the legacy of the AMD Opteron processor family, Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors incorporate several new ground-breaking technologies enabling impressive results across a suite of benchmarks.
View competitive server and workstation benchmarks. |
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| Q: | What operating systems are supported by AMD Opteron processors?
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| A: | Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors, like all AMD Opteron processors, are designed to be compatible with all x86 operating systems.
AMD processors are compatible with more than 120 operating system versions, including 64-bit versions from Microsoft, Novell, Red Hat and Solaris.
View a list of operating systems and applications that support AMD64 processors. |
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| Q: | Where can I get information and tools to help me develop software applications that run well on AMD Opteron processors?
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| A: | AMD Developer Central (developer.amd.com) provides practical guidance on software coding techniques and software tools to help analyze your software application's performance to better optimize your code. Learn about compiler optimization flags, get the Software Optimization Guide, read the blogs for insight from AMD engineers, download optimized libraries, and more. |
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| Q: | What is ACP?
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| A: | Average CPU Power (ACP) is a metric that represents real-world processor power consumption to the IT managers responsible for power budgeting.
ACP is determined by breaking down multiple components of power consumed within the processor, including the power dedicated to the cores, to the integrated memory controller, and to HyperTransport™ technology links. |
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| Q: | Why did AMD introduce ACP when it launched Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors?
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| A: | Our quad-core processor architecture contains a number of key energy efficiency improvements, such as Dual Dynamic Power Management (DDPM), which provide the processors with additional power rails that are dedicated to the processor cores, HyperTransport™ technology links, and an internal memory controller.
ACP is a relevant estimation for users to understand the power consumption of Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors because it reflects power consumption within each power band — including the power for the cores, integrated memory controllers and HyperTransport™ technology links — under real-world workloads. |
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| Q: | How does ACP relate to Thermal Design Power (TDP)?
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| A: | In the simplest terms, ACP conveys what a user’s CPU power experience may be like while running workloads under typical data center environmental and operating conditions.
In contrast, AMD’s TDP is the processor design specification. The two can be quite different as a result.
AMD’s TDP and ACP values are intended for completely different uses:
- TDP is for system designers.
- ACP is for people who want to know what the CPU power may be like under real-world conditions.
The ACP value can have relevance for people in job roles that require them to estimate power consumption for the purpose of power budgeting. AMD will continue to provide thermal design power (TDP) specifications to platform designers and industry partners in the AMD thermal and power datasheets. |
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| Q: | Is ACP replacing TDP?
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| A: | No. ACP and TDP will coexist. |
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| Q: | What difference will customers see?
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| A: | Customers will not see a difference, other than the fact that ACP is intended to more closely mirror their actual levels of processor power consumption under real-world workloads. |
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