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AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?



 
 
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  #1  
Old April 24th 08, 08:13 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd,de.comp.hardware.cpu+mainboard.amd,comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
AirRaid
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Posts: 126
Default AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?

http://www.dailytech.com/Dodecacore+...ticle11531.htm

Hardware Dodeca-co The Megahertz Race is Now Officially the Multi-
core Race


AMD engineers reveal details about the company's upcoming 45nm
processor roadmap, including plans for 12-core processors

"Shanghai! Shanghai!" the reporters cry during the AMD's financial
analyst day today. Despite the fact that the company will lay off
nearly 5% of its work force this week, followed by another 5% next
month, most employees interviewed by DailyTech continue to convey an
optimistic outlook.

The next major milestone for the CPU engineers comes late this year,
with the debut of 45nm Shanghai. Shanghai, for all intents and
purposes, is nearly identical to the B3 stepping of Socket 1207
Opteron (Barcelona) shipping today. However, where as Barcelona had
its HyperTransport 3.0 clock generator fused off, Shanghai will once
again attempt to get HT3.0 right.

Original roadmaps anticipated that HT3.0 would be used for socket-to-
socket communication, but also for communication to the Southbridge
controllers. Motherboard manufacturers have confirmed that this is no
longer the case, and that HT3.0 will only be used for inter-CPU
communication.

"Don't be disappointed, AMD is making up for it," hints one engineer.
Further conversations revealed that inter-CPU communication is going
to be a big deal with the 45nm refresh. The first breadcrumb comes
with a new "native six-core" Shanghai derivative, currently codenamed
Istanbul. This processor is clearly targeted at Intel's recently
announced six-core, 45nm Dunnington processor.

But sextuple-core processors have been done, or at least we'll see the
first ones this year. The real neat stuff comes a few months after,
where AMD will finally ditch the "native-core" rhetoric. Two separate
reports sent to DailyTech from AMD partners indicate that Shanghai and
its derivatives will also get twin-die per package treatment.

AMD planned twin-die configurations as far back as the K8
architecture, though abandoned those efforts. The company never
explained why those processors were nixed, but just weeks later
"native quad-core" became a major marketing campaign for AMD in
anticipation of Barcelona.

A twin-die Istanbul processor could enable 12 cores in a single
package. Each of these cores will communicate to each other via the
now-enabled HT3.0 interconnect on the processor.

The rabbit hole gets deeper. Since each of these processors will
contain a dual-channel memory controller, a single-core can emulate
quad-channel memory functions by accessing the other dual-channel
memory controller on the same socket. This move is likely a
preemptive strike against Intel's Nehalem tri-channel memory
controller.

Motherboard manufacturers claim Shanghai and its many-core derivatives
will be backwards compatible with existing Socket 1207 motherboards.
However, processor-to-processor communication will downgrade to lower
HyperTransport frequencies on these older motherboards. The newest
1207+ motherboards will officially support the HyperTransport 3.0
frequencies.

Shanghai is currently taped out and running Windows at AMD.



.................................................. .................................................. .................................

http://blogs.zdnet.com/processors/?p=162

AMD can’t get to 45nm fast enough.
A 12-core package?


If there was a bright spot in AMD’s first quarter, it was the new PC
and graphics products that have either recently shipped or are in the
pipeline for 2008. Barcelona, the company’s quad-core design
manufactured using a 65nm process, bombed last year. Meanwhile, Intel
is minting millions of 45nm chips. So it’s no surprise that AMD is
shifting to 45nm processors as quickly as possible.

During the earnings call last week, AMD executives said the 45nm
processor, code-named Shanghai, was on track and would be shipping in
volume in the fourth quarter. By all accounts, Shanghai is largely a
“shrink” of the recently-released B3 version of Barcelona, which
corrected a flaw in the original design. But Daily Tech reports that
AMD has more ambitious plans for the 45nm design.

Citing AMD engineers, the site says AMD will produce a six-core
version, code-named Istanbul, and then, in a reversal of its “native-
quad-core” strategy of putting all cores on a single piece of silicon,
offer a two-die package with a total of 12 cores. The two processors
will be connected using AMD’s HyperTransport 3.0 bus.

To be clear, this platform is designed for the server and workstation
market. Based on recent presentations, AMD will also release a 45nm
enthusiast desktop platform, code-named Leo, later this year that will
consist of triple-core and quad-core chips. Mainstream and budget
desktops, as well as business systems, will continue to use platforms
based on 65nm processors until sometime in 2009.

.................................................. .................................................. .................................

http://www.gadgetell.com/tech/commen...for-late-2008/

AMD readying 12-core 45nm processors for late 2008
by David Gonzales on Apr 19, 2008 at 10:29 PM



Forget quad-core, AMD is preparing a dodeca-core chip. If you didn’t
stay in boarding school if you need refreshing with your greek
vocabulary, dodeca means 12, and that’s 12 cores for you right there.
Imagine, a dozen times faster than a normal chip. But how fast does
one’s computer ever really need to be? AMD doesn’t seem to care if
there’s an answer to that question or not (just as its closest
competitor Intel doesn’t), and moves on with their plan to produce a
12-core processor to be released by late 2008. It will reportedly be
called the Shanghai, and will be a 45nm successor to their not-so-
successful Barcelona chip.

The AMD Shanghai will supposedly come with HyperTransport 3.0 and six
cores so it can stand up against Intel’s upcoming Dunnington chips in
a race towards becoming the fastest processors on Earth. And while the
six-core variety of the Shanghai isn’t even close to coming to market,
AMD already has plans for a follow-up: a 12-core version, called
Istanbul, packing 12 cores (what else?) and HyperTransport 3.0
interconnect as well.

Get that? The first version of this product is already 3.0 while some
companies can’t even get 2.0 right. That’s what they meant with all
the numbers, right?


.................................................. .................................................. .................................

http://www.electronista.com/articles...45nm.shanghai/

AMD talks 45nm Shanghai w/12-cores, HyperTransport 3

AMD engineers this week said that the company plans on introducing new
12-core processors later this year. The first processors based on 45nm
Shanghai platform are due later this year and will be nearly identical
to the B3 variant of the Socket 1207 Opteron (Barcelona) shipping
today, according to DailyTech. The processors will reportedly use the
faster HyperTransport 3.0 for inter-CPU communication and will debut
later this year as a "native six-core" Shanghai derivative, currently
code-named Istanbul. That processor, the report claims, is "clearly
targeted at Intel's recently announced six-core, 45nm Dunnington
processor." A few months later, Shanghai and its derivatives will also
get twin-die per package treatment, allowing for up to 12-cores per
package, the report says.

Each of these processors will contain a dual-channel memory
controller, allowing a single-core to emulate quad-channel memory
functions by accessing the other dual-channel memory controller on the
same socket and offering an alternative to Intel's Nehalem tri-channel
memory controller, DailyTech notes.

Citing motherboard manufacturers, the report says that Shanghai and
its multiple-core derivatives will be backwards compatible with
existing Socket 1207 motherboards, but that processor-to-processor
communication will downgrade to lower HyperTransport frequencies on
older motherboards. The publication also notes that the newer 1207+
motherboards will officially support the HyperTransport 3.0
frequencies.
  #2  
Old April 25th 08, 06:07 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd,de.comp.hardware.cpu+mainboard.amd,comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Yousuf Khan
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Posts: 914
Default AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?

AirRaid wrote:
AMD planned twin-die configurations as far back as the K8
architecture, though abandoned those efforts. The company never
explained why those processors were nixed, but just weeks later
"native quad-core" became a major marketing campaign for AMD in
anticipation of Barcelona.

A twin-die Istanbul processor could enable 12 cores in a single
package. Each of these cores will communicate to each other via the
now-enabled HT3.0 interconnect on the processor.

The rabbit hole gets deeper. Since each of these processors will
contain a dual-channel memory controller, a single-core can emulate
quad-channel memory functions by accessing the other dual-channel
memory controller on the same socket. This move is likely a
preemptive strike against Intel's Nehalem tri-channel memory
controller.



Well, at least there is an air of practicality entering AMD's designs
now. Twin-die 12-cores will get them to market much sooner.

Yousuf Khan
  #3  
Old April 26th 08, 12:45 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd,de.comp.hardware.cpu+mainboard.amd,comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Augustus
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Posts: 738
Default AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?

Is this the followup to the "Constantinople" core?


  #4  
Old April 26th 08, 03:21 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd,de.comp.hardware.cpu+mainboard.amd,comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
[email protected]
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Posts: 262
Default AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?

On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:07:36 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

AirRaid wrote:
AMD planned twin-die configurations as far back as the K8
architecture, though abandoned those efforts. The company never
explained why those processors were nixed, but just weeks later
"native quad-core" became a major marketing campaign for AMD in
anticipation of Barcelona.

A twin-die Istanbul processor could enable 12 cores in a single
package. Each of these cores will communicate to each other via the
now-enabled HT3.0 interconnect on the processor.

The rabbit hole gets deeper. Since each of these processors will
contain a dual-channel memory controller, a single-core can emulate
quad-channel memory functions by accessing the other dual-channel
memory controller on the same socket. This move is likely a
preemptive strike against Intel's Nehalem tri-channel memory
controller.



Well, at least there is an air of practicality entering AMD's designs
now. Twin-die 12-cores will get them to market much sooner.

Yousuf Khan


They'd better don't screw up on this one - they already used up all
the margin of error they had, and then some. But then, it's not the
first time AMD is on the brink of extinction, and they always came
back even stronger than anyone, including but not limited to INTC,
could expect. K7 in 1999, K8 in 2003 - both times Intel got their ass
whipped big time for a couple years straight... Why not this time
again? Wish them luck - without AMD the whole CPU world would be
boring and damn expensive.

NNN
  #5  
Old April 26th 08, 04:26 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd,de.comp.hardware.cpu+mainboard.amd,comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Zootal
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Posts: 87
Default AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?


They'd better don't screw up on this one - they already used up all
the margin of error they had, and then some. But then, it's not the
first time AMD is on the brink of extinction, and they always came
back even stronger than anyone, including but not limited to INTC,
could expect. K7 in 1999, K8 in 2003 - both times Intel got their ass
whipped big time for a couple years straight... Why not this time
again? Wish them luck - without AMD the whole CPU world would be
boring and damn expensive.

NNN


Intel got their butts whipped because of their own greed and short
sightedness. The Pentium 4 was a wrong way dead end street, and it took
Intel a long time to realize that. The P4 is a rather inefficient processor,
and it was not difficult for AMD to make something much faster. Intels
marketing machine did like Microsoft - they hyped it up and pushed it with
everything they had. AMD got complacent and made a huge mistake with the
Phenom. Phenom easily kicks the P4s butt, but Intel's core microarchitecture
runs circles around it. The ball is in AMDs court and I can't wait to see
what AMD does with it...

Multi cores are nothing new - Sun has had them for years, and IIRC they are
working on (and may be in production with) a 16 core/32 threaded cpu. Last
Monday I saw plans for a 256 core cpu, but I don't think it's in production
yet. It is, however, the future. We can't clock the current technology much
faster without exotic cooling, and we can't get much smaller then we are
now, but we can slap dozens of cores on a cpu and make up for it to some
extant.


  #6  
Old April 26th 08, 04:33 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd,de.comp.hardware.cpu+mainboard.amd,comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Augustus
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Posts: 738
Default AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?

They'd better don't screw up on this one - they already used up all
the margin of error they had, and then some. But then, it's not the
first time AMD is on the brink of extinction, and they always came
back even stronger than anyone, including but not limited to INTC,
could expect. K7 in 1999, K8 in 2003 - both times Intel got their ass
whipped big time for a couple years straight... Why not this time
again? Wish them luck - without AMD the whole CPU world would be
boring and damn expensive.

NNN


Let's hope they can pull it off. I'm still waiting for a dual core from them
that actually signifigantly ouperforms my S939 Opteron 185 2Mb unit at
3.2Ghz. The performance increases I've seen from my A8N-E system versus the
one I just built for my son, with an X2 5600+ 2Mb unit clocked at 3.2 Ghz
are solely due to the newer chipset and DDR2 clockings. I'm looking at
upgrading my system in the next few months, and I don't see a Phenom or an
X2 6400+ in my future, unfortunately. I swore by the PIII Coppermine and
Tualatin line, but then Intel went to the Willamette then Northwood P4's.
That's when I started with Bartons, A64's and Opterons. The Intel lineup
can't be beat right now, it's been leaps and bounds ahead of AMD for the
last couple of years. Intel needs real competition, and not just in the
bottom feeder lineup. My T7600 4Mb L2 Core2Duo runs circles around both of
my 3.2Ghz AMD units.


  #7  
Old April 26th 08, 05:20 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd,de.comp.hardware.cpu+mainboard.amd,comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Scott Alfter
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Posts: 52
Default AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?

In article DoxQj.2146$PM5.1745@edtnps92, Augustus wrote:
Let's hope they can pull it off. I'm still waiting for a dual core from them
that actually signifigantly ouperforms my S939 Opteron 185 2Mb unit at
3.2Ghz. The performance increases I've seen from my A8N-E system versus the
one I just built for my son, with an X2 5600+ 2Mb unit clocked at 3.2 Ghz
are solely due to the newer chipset and DDR2 clockings.


To a considerable extent, the effect of multiple cores that you notice will
depend on whether your apps take advantage of it. A program that insists on
running everything in a single thread won't run any faster at all; you might
see a slight improvement in responsiveness that comes from the OS getting to
schedule your app to run on one processor and itself (or other apps) on
another processor, but that's about it. Multithreaded apps can get spread
across multiple processors/cores, up to the lesser of what you have
installed and what the programmer decided to use.

I upgraded one of my machines to a Core 2 Quad Q6600 a while back; mencoder
has a limited amount of multithreading support that's available with
different codecs. The highest CPU usage I see with one mencoder process
transcoding a DVD to H.264 is usually somewhere around 200-250% (400% would
be fully loaded on all 4 cores). To take full advantage of the processor, I
just do two transcodes at a time. :-)

(With the encoding processes niced, it can still play HD MPEG-2 from across
the network without any hiccups, too. That slows down encoding a little, as
decoding and displaying HD takes up a fair chunk of one core.)

_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( http://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ rm -rf /bin/laden What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

  #8  
Old April 26th 08, 05:29 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd,de.comp.hardware.cpu+mainboard.amd,comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Augustus
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Posts: 738
Default AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?

I upgraded one of my machines to a Core 2 Quad Q6600 a while back;
mencoder
has a limited amount of multithreading support that's available with
different codecs. The highest CPU usage I see with one mencoder process
transcoding a DVD to H.264 is usually somewhere around 200-250% (400%
would
be fully loaded on all 4 cores). To take full advantage of the processor,
I
just do two transcodes at a time. :-)

(With the encoding processes niced, it can still play HD MPEG-2 from
across
the network without any hiccups, too. That slows down encoding a little,
as
decoding and displaying HD takes up a fair chunk of one core.)


I'm using my Opteron 185 box ( as well as an Opteron 180) for digital
mixing and music using Cubase 4 on one and Sonar Producer 7 on the other.
Both are written for multicore. Both choke when adding and mixing effects in
a 10-12 track mix. Badly. I ran Sonar 7 Producer on to the T7600 Dell
laptop, installed the same M-Audio MobilePre USB and mixing hardware, and
believe me, the Intel Core2Duo setup slows down, but never stops and flakes
out. Same memory on each. The Opterons are both running RAID0 setups with
256Kb stripes. The Dell is a 7200RPM laptop HDD. So there's just a bit of
difference in multicore ability there.


  #9  
Old April 26th 08, 06:17 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd,de.comp.hardware.cpu+mainboard.amd,comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Robert Myers
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Posts: 606
Default AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?

On Apr 25, 10:21 pm, "
wrote:
On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:07:36 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote:


Wish them luck - without AMD the whole CPU world would be
boring and damn expensive.


Amdroid fantasy. The PC as a platform is pushed on the low end by
game boxes and on the high end by IBM and Sun.

What could be more boring than the x86 domination we have now?
Without AMD, there would be no such monoculture.

As it is, Via is still in the x86 business and will continue in the
x86 business, even if AMD fails.

No matter what, Intel will have price and performance competition.
Things might have progressed more slowly, but Intel would be pushing
the fab envelope, anyway, because that's where it's real strength is.
Take AMD out of the picture completely and there is still no way for
Intel to relax.

Robert.
  #10  
Old April 27th 08, 03:16 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd,de.comp.hardware.cpu+mainboard.amd,comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
[email protected]
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Posts: 262
Default AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?

On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:17:48 -0700 (PDT), Robert Myers
wrote:

What could be more boring than the x86 domination we have now?
Without AMD, there would be no such monoculture.


Did you mean "without Intel"?

NNN

 




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