More Dual-Core

AMD’s Approach, Continued

Perhaps the most exciting part of AMD’s strategy, and indeed, the fact that lends the most credence to AMD’s claims of “we intended this dual-core stuff all along” is the platform interoperability. Any motherboard that supports a 90nm Opteron or Athlon 64 today will accommodate a dual-core equivalent tomorrow, according to AMD. Socket 940 designs come first, followed by the 939 chips. It’s apparently a matter of just add BIOS update and stir.

Meet Opteron 875

Much of AMD’s naming scheme for Opteron carries over to dual-core. You’re still going to see 100-, 200-, and 800-series processors; however, rather than increment by two each time a new speed bump emerges, AMD is starting with the x65, where x represents the family designator, and incrementing by five for each 200MHz bump. Thus, you have the 865 at 1.8GHz, and 870 at 2GHz, and the 875 at 2.2GHz. Traversing families, the 175, 275, and 875 all run at 2.2GHz; they just support different multi-processing configurations.

More generally, all of the models will center on a similar design consisting of 233 million transistors and a 199 square millimeter die. The die is based on revision E, meaning it supports Intel’s SSE3 instructions, recognizes memory modules of different capacities through an improved memory controller, and features AMD’s PowerNow! power management technology to reduce consumption during periods of light use. Even from the get-go, a lower 1.35V operating voltage helps keep the Opteron’s power numbers low by virtue of manufacturing improvements.

Pricing is where the 875 really makes an impression. Each chip costs a staggering $2,649. Consider that the 800-series is intended for four- and eight-way servers and you’re talking about a lot of money. Fortunately, most desktops and workstations will realize optimal performance with a single Opteron 175 sporting two 2.2GHz cores for $999. Those processors aren’t expected for a while still, though.

The only other special consideration required by the Opteron 875 is a dual-core-aware BIOS. Our original Tyan K8WE failed to take the update, probably due to its pre-production status. However, a replacement board properly recognized the 875, as did ASUS’ K8N-DL motherboard, also based on the NVIDIA nForce Professional chipset with a beta BIOS from Taiwan. Switching from an older Socket 940 Athlon 64 FX to an Opteron 252 to an Opteron 875 is a matter of popping the heatsink, swapping the processor, and booting back up. It’s even that easy, much to Intel’s chagrin.