AMD Releases 6-Core Istanbul Ahead of Schedule
Istanbul is here.
AMD’s ‘Istanbul’ Opteron CPUs are now shipping ahead of schedule. AMD claims the processor will produce 34 percent more performance than the existing "Shanghai" quad-core processor at the same power requirements.
Originally, the 45-nm Istanbul had been scheduled to ship later in the year, but AMD president and CEO Dirk Meyer said that the company decided to "pull in" the timetable.
The six-core server processor integrates with two-, four- and eight-socket servers using AMD’s Direct Connect Architecture
AMD said that systems based on the six-core Opteron processors are expected to be available beginning this month from Cray, Dell, HP, IBM and Sun Microsystems. HE, SE and EE versions are planned for the second half of 2009.
AMD listed the following as key features of its latest Opteron:
- Six true cores
- HyperTransport Technology Assist (HT Assist)
- Increased HT3 bandwidth
- AMD-P power management technologies
- AMD Virtualization (AMD-V) technology
- Same power/thermal ranges as Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors
So, what’s next for the Opteron? Look out for 12 cores in 2010 and an even more impressive 16 cores by 2011.
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That's pretty impressive
hmmmm... whats the point of more cores when apps are not even multithreaded... this is ridiculous.
hmmmm... whats the point of more cores when apps are not even multithreaded... this is ridiculous.
Wrong. Games (and desktop apps) were not multi-threaded. Many now support at least 2 cores. Some scale up nicely on 2+ cores.
But this is an Opteron. It's not a gaming/desktop CPU. It's a server CPU. There are many more multi-threaded applications in the enterprise market place. Databases and virtualization both benefit immensely from adding more cores for instance.
Tstebbens is right, multi-threading is certainly supported now. The "nothing uses more than one core" ethos is about 3 years out of date and usually spouted by those who can't afford to go past their single core P4.
I use ProcessExplorer (Microsoft) and that tells me that many of my apps are using many threads. Including some video games.