A64 X2 dual-core available 21st April!!

[Mephistopheles]

Couldn't help it but feel excited and post the news here...
<A HREF="http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22676" target="_new">A64 X2 Processors to be launched with dual-core opteron!</A>

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Mephistopheles on 04/20/05 09:01 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[sobelizard]

That's the ship date for major OEM's?

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[sobelizard]

Looks like sometime in June for us slugs.

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[Mephistopheles]

<A HREF="http://www.aceshardware.com/forums/read_post.jsp?id=115128175&forumid=1" target="_new">Some people over at aces</A> seem to think this was a mistake by the inq and that A64 X2 won't be launched tomorrow... :frown:

We'll know in 24h, I guess.

 

[Clob]

INQ link wont work.

"If youre paddling upstream in a canoe and a
wheel falls off, how many pancakes fit in a doghouse? None! Icecream doesn't have bones!!!"

"Battling Gimps and Dimbulbs HERE at THGC"

 

[Mephistopheles]

<i>Really?</i> :frown:

I tested it now... and it seems to work...

 

[endyen]

Looks like a paper launch to me. Guess Amd is following Intel, at least in one respect.

 

[sobelizard]

My paper is clocked faster than yours.

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[endyen]

I doubt that. I loaded mine into a canon.

 

[jmwpom3]

yeah, but i have dual pulp paper

AMD Athlon64 3500+
Asus A8N SLI-Deluxe
1 GIG Corsair Dual DDR
2 x 74 GB Raptor HDs
NVidia6800 Ultra PCI-e
Dual Layer DVD +/-RW
PC Power & Cooling 510W PSU

 

[Spitfire_x86]

[anandtech voice] In Soviet Russia, cores duel with you! [/anandtech voice]

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[endyen]

The prices seem a bit higfh for the dual opterons <A HREF="http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_609,00.html" target="_new">http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_609,00.html</A>
What seems to be missing is a price on the dual core A64s. If there is no price, I'd guess they aint for sale.

 

[The_I]

Yea, and I'm sceptical to the fact that the inquirer announces clock-speeds of 2,2-2,6 ghz while as far as I know the dual core opterons run at only 1,8-2,2 ghz according to the tech reports recent dual opteron article, why the difference in clock-speed? Considering that AMD hasn't showed itself very eager to really 'outclock' Intel, why launch their daul-core processors at speeds where they'd be overwhelmingly superior, I don't think a dual 2,6 ghz a64 with 2*1 (2*fx55) mb cache versus a dual p4 3,2 ghz 2*512 kb cache would be much of a fight... I'd rather think that they'd launch their dual core desktops at frequencies from 1,8 ghz to 3,2 ghz thus matching intels offerings and outdoing them by a small margin. Maybe they'd throw in a 3,4 just for the kicks.

 

[P4Man]

>Yea, and I'm sceptical to the fact that the inquirer
>announces clock-speeds of 2,2-2,6 ghz

Nope, 2.2 to 2.4 GHz with 512 Kb and 1 Mb cache per core. No 2.6 GHz parts X2 are expected yet.

>while as far as I know the dual core opterons run at only
>1,8-2,2 ghz

Yep, but then its not exceptional to see server chip clocked one speed grade below the fastest desktop variants. I also think opteron has a sligtly lower TDP than A64 X2

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[The_I]

That explains it, as I stated later in my post I could understand a 2,4 ghz, but not a 2,6...

 

[Mephistopheles]

To think that the new Opterons are too expensive is a mistake, actually. They're at quite a good price. (just compare them to US$4000 Xeon MPs!)

<i>For the market they're meant for</i>, the dual-core Opterons still pack one hell of a punch in terms of price/performance. You can buy an 8-core Opteron system for much less than an 8-core Xeon system, for instance. In addition to that, for a full 8-core SMP machine, you'd typically buy a few tens of thousands of dollars in memory, which kind of makes the price for dual-core much smaller.

For instance, I recently was informed of prices for a single-core 4-way Opteron DL585 Proliant system with 32GB of system memory (a HP representative told me that - we're in the process of upgrading our physics institute's overall computational resources). How much was that? Well, ~US$50000, configured with 2.4Ghz Opterons (850s). If you change that for 865, according to the price differences I saw on the net, you'll end up with an 8-core machine for only US$1400 more. Total cost, US$51400. That's a rather good upgrade for what you get if you ask me! If you were to choose the top-of-the-line 875, you'd pay a full US$54500, if I got the numbers right. Even so, you'll have almost doubled your firepower for less than 10% price increase.

That's a rather good deal, don't you think?

There are many, many, customers who will jump on this opportunity. This is great for AMD. They probably won't be able to meet demand for these systems. They're playing their cards just wonderfully in the server/workstation market, got to hand it to them!

 

[P4Man]

You nailed it. I did a similar price comparison on HPs site, and you'll get a medium loaded 2 socket 4 core opteron system for roughly 1/3 the price you'd pay for a 4 socket / 4 core machine.

For most users, single core opterons will make no sense anymore. The only exceptions I see are:

* oracle or similar software users (oracle licence is per core, not per socket) , who need fastest possible single core performance to save costs on the software licence.

Or similary, workstation users runnig apps that can not make use of more than 2 hardware threads and that need fastest possible performance (better served with 2x opteron 252).

* users needing excessive ammounts of RAM, rather than lots of CPU power (since memory capacity is directly related to # cpu's for opteron)

But for the large majority of servers and workstations apps, single core opterons have become obsolete..

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[Mephistopheles]

You're exactly right, agreed. Dual-core is a pretty straightforward boost to servers. It's comparatively well priced and has great implications for performance (and I do mean great)...