AMD to demonstrate dual-core chips

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Ed

AMD to demonstrate dual-core chips
By Michael Kanellos CNET News.com
August 30, 2004, 9:00 PM PT

Aiming to deflate archrival Intel, Advanced Micro Devices this week will
show off its dual-core chips, which will start to trickle out toward the
middle of next year.

AMD on Tuesday will show off a Hewlett-Packard ProLiant server with four
dual-core Opteron chips at a facility in Austen, Texas, bringing the
functional number of chips in four-processor servers to eight.

more...
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5330737.html
 
AMD to demonstrate dual-core chips
By Michael Kanellos CNET News.com
August 30, 2004, 9:00 PM PT

Aiming to deflate archrival Intel, Advanced Micro Devices this week will
show off its dual-core chips, which will start to trickle out toward the
middle of next year.

AMD on Tuesday will show off a Hewlett-Packard ProLiant server with four
dual-core Opteron chips at a facility in Austen, Texas, bringing the
functional number of chips in four-processor servers to eight.

more...
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5330737.html
Click to expand...

Holy crap! Those things just taped out in June! From tape-out to
"working well enough to publicly demonstrate" in just 3 months?
That's got to be a good sign for AMD! Ok, it's still a long way
before the chips actually reach our hands, and the "demonstration"
might end up being little more than powering the system on (though an
AMD rep did indicate that it would at least boot into Windows
properly).

Good news for me as well, since I'm hoping to hold out on my next
major desktop upgrade until I can drop a dual-core processor into a
commodity motherboard for a reasonable price. Previously I had
figured that I would have to wait until 2006 before this would be a
reality, not believing the previous release dates. However maybe AMD
really will make their mid-2005 schedule?
 
Bitstring <[email protected]>, from the
wonderful person Tony Hill said:
Good news for me as well, since I'm hoping to hold out on my next
major desktop upgrade until I can drop a dual-core processor into a
commodity motherboard for a reasonable price.
Click to expand...

Please form an orderly queue (behind me). I've been gritting my teeth
waiting for that for about 6 months already. 8>.
 
Ed said:
AMD to demonstrate dual-core chips
By Michael Kanellos CNET News.com
August 30, 2004, 9:00 PM PT

Aiming to deflate archrival Intel, Advanced Micro Devices this week will
show off its dual-core chips, which will start to trickle out toward the
middle of next year.

AMD on Tuesday will show off a Hewlett-Packard ProLiant server with four
dual-core Opteron chips at a facility in Austen, Texas, bringing the
functional number of chips in four-processor servers to eight.

more...
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5330737.html
Click to expand...

WOT???
 
<snip>

: Holy crap! Those things just taped out in June!
^^^^^^^^^^ ==> Says Robin to Batman ;-)
<more snip>

: Good news for me as well, since I'm hoping to hold out on my next
: major desktop upgrade until I can drop a dual-core processor into
a
: commodity motherboard for a reasonable price. Previously I had
: figured that I would have to wait until 2006 before this would be
a
: reality, not believing the previous release dates. However maybe
AMD
: really will make their mid-2005 schedule?

Me too (three?)! But wait a minute, Tony. Just WHO is going to
supply the mobo (or more accurately, the chipset), for such a beast?
**Please** don't say VIA!! :-(

J.
 
jack said:
<snip>

: Holy crap! Those things just taped out in June!
^^^^^^^^^^ ==> Says Robin to Batman ;-)
<more snip>

: Good news for me as well, since I'm hoping to hold out on my next
: major desktop upgrade until I can drop a dual-core processor into
a
: commodity motherboard for a reasonable price. Previously I had
: figured that I would have to wait until 2006 before this would be
a
: reality, not believing the previous release dates. However maybe
AMD
: really will make their mid-2005 schedule?

Me too (three?)! But wait a minute, Tony. Just WHO is going to
supply the mobo (or more accurately, the chipset), for such a beast?
**Please** don't say VIA!! :-(

J.
Click to expand...

Any chipset that supports the Opteron will support the dual core chips just
fine (if I am correct) ..
I think the main difference to the system is that it just see's a flag on
the cpu that says "dual processor".
The a64 chips were made around two cores being on a single chip (die? dunno)
so I think the biggest limitation is simply tryhing to get everything into
thermal spec. If you have two 80w processors on top of each other then I
dont think it would work well.. Get them down to 50w (or less) then they
would work ..
They say that you can take your opteron board, yank out the opteron single
core processor and trhow one of these in and it will work (We will def see)
 
: :: <snip>
::
::: Holy crap! Those things just taped out in June!
:: ^^^^^^^^^^ ==> Says Robin to Batman ;-)
:: <more snip>
::
::: Good news for me as well, since I'm hoping to hold out on my
next
::: major desktop upgrade until I can drop a dual-core processor
into
:: a
::: commodity motherboard for a reasonable price. Previously I had
::: figured that I would have to wait until 2006 before this would
be
:: a
::: reality, not believing the previous release dates. However
maybe
:: AMD
::: really will make their mid-2005 schedule?
::
:: Me too (three?)! But wait a minute, Tony. Just WHO is going to
:: supply the mobo (or more accurately, the chipset), for such a
beast?
:: **Please** don't say VIA!! :-(
::
:: J.
:
: Any chipset that supports the Opteron will support the dual core
: chips just fine (if I am correct) ..
: I think the main difference to the system is that it just see's a
: flag on the cpu that says "dual processor".
: The a64 chips were made around two cores being on a single chip
(die?
: dunno) so I think the biggest limitation is simply tryhing to get
: everything into thermal spec. If you have two 80w processors on
top
: of each other then I dont think it would work well.. Get them down
to
: 50w (or less) then they would work ..
: They say that you can take your opteron board, yank out the
opteron
: single core processor and trhow one of these in and it will work
(We
: will def see)

What you have to say is all fine and dandy, but does **nothing** to
alleviate my fears of VIA chipsets and their [almost] legendary
ability to produce what I affectionately call "Bug-sets." Nuff
said.

J.
 
jack said:
What you have to say is all fine and dandy, but does **nothing** to
alleviate my fears of VIA chipsets and their [almost] legendary
ability to produce what I affectionately call "Bug-sets." Nuff
said.
Click to expand...

Don't worry, most of the servers use the AMD 8000-series chipset. Nvidia is
also said to be producing an Nforce specifically geared towards servers. And
Serverworks is also bringing out a chipset. Once Nvidia and Serverworks are
abord, I think the AMD 8000's will slowly disappear (except in the case of
ULi, which produces a clone of the 8000 under license).

Yousuf Khan
 
Good news for me as well, since I'm hoping to hold out on my next
major desktop upgrade until I can drop a dual-core processor into a
commodity motherboard for a reasonable price. Previously I had
figured that I would have to wait until 2006 before this would be a
reality, not believing the previous release dates. However maybe AMD
really will make their mid-2005 schedule?
Click to expand...

Well for now all we can do is look at pictures. ;p
http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?...ns&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=55&page=2

Ed
 
<snip>

: Holy crap! Those things just taped out in June!
^^^^^^^^^^ ==> Says Robin to Batman ;-)
<more snip>

: Good news for me as well, since I'm hoping to hold out on my next
: major desktop upgrade until I can drop a dual-core processor into
a
: commodity motherboard for a reasonable price. Previously I had
: figured that I would have to wait until 2006 before this would be
a
: reality, not believing the previous release dates. However maybe
AMD
: really will make their mid-2005 schedule?

Me too (three?)! But wait a minute, Tony. Just WHO is going to
supply the mobo (or more accurately, the chipset), for such a beast?
**Please** don't say VIA!! :-(
Click to expand...

Talking about an irrational fear! Viaphobia? Hint1: Via isn't the only
chipset maker in the world. Hint2: AMD makes chipsets that support 940.
Hint3: Get a friggin' grip on reality!
 
<snip>

: Holy crap! Those things just taped out in June!
^^^^^^^^^^ ==> Says Robin to Batman ;-)
<more snip>

: Good news for me as well, since I'm hoping to hold out on my next
: major desktop upgrade until I can drop a dual-core processor into
a
: commodity motherboard for a reasonable price. Previously I had
: figured that I would have to wait until 2006 before this would be
a
: reality, not believing the previous release dates. However maybe
AMD
: really will make their mid-2005 schedule?

Me too (three?)! But wait a minute, Tony. Just WHO is going to
supply the mobo (or more accurately, the chipset), for such a beast?
**Please** don't say VIA!! :-(

J.
Click to expand...
Why not VIA? My Master2-FAR mobo with 2 of these dual-core babies
will make quite a good quad system on the (relatively) cheap. Even
with current 2xOpteron242 it makes a decent system, and runs since
April with (knock on wood) not a single glitch. I just hope MSI will
produce the BIOS update that may be necessary for the upgrade.
 
<snip>

: Holy crap! Those things just taped out in June!
^^^^^^^^^^ ==> Says Robin to Batman ;-)
<more snip>

: Good news for me as well, since I'm hoping to hold out on my next
: major desktop upgrade until I can drop a dual-core processor into
a
: commodity motherboard for a reasonable price. Previously I had
: figured that I would have to wait until 2006 before this would be
a
: reality, not believing the previous release dates. However maybe
AMD
: really will make their mid-2005 schedule?

Me too (three?)! But wait a minute, Tony. Just WHO is going to
supply the mobo (or more accurately, the chipset), for such a beast?
**Please** don't say VIA!! :-(
Click to expand...

nVidia's nForce3 chipsets are already available in motherboards that
will support these chips! AMD's 8000 series chipset should work too,
and even SiS if you so desired (though I've never seen an SiS based
Opteron board).

That's the beauty of AMD's dual-core Opterons, they are fully
compatible with any Socket 940 motherboard as long as it can manage
the regular (single-core) 90nm Opterons. Given that most (all?)
Opteron boards being built today are capable of handling these 90nm
Opterons, finding a compatible board should be very easy.

If you read about the demo you'll notice that they were able to drop 4
dual-core Opterons into a plain old HP DL585 server with only a BIOS
update. No special hardware required at all!
 
Tony said:
That's the beauty of AMD's dual-core Opterons, they are fully
compatible with any Socket 940 motherboard as long as it can manage
the regular (single-core) 90nm Opterons. Given that most (all?)
Opteron boards being built today are capable of handling these 90nm
Opterons, finding a compatible board should be very easy.

If you read about the demo you'll notice that they were able to drop 4
dual-core Opterons into a plain old HP DL585 server with only a BIOS
update. No special hardware required at all!
Click to expand...

Now the speculation begins about what Intel is going to counter that with at
its IDF:

http://news.com.com/Dual+cores+to+lead+Intel+show/2100-1006_3-5343262.html?tag=html.alert

People are now openly saying that if Intel demos a dual-core Itanium instead
of a Pentium/Xeon, then chances are likely that there will be
disappointment. The Itanium dual-core has been in development a lot longer
than any dual-core x86. I fully expect a dual-core Itanium, but I'll be
shocked as hell if they have a dual-core x86 there too.

Yousuf Khan
 
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