Nadolazeći AMD socketi, ploče i procesori

[McG]

MSI is currently working on bringing to market a new motherboard based on the AMD 790X chipset, the 790X-G45. Seen below, the upcoming board makes use of the 790X/SB710 combo and features the APS (Active Phase Switching) function for PWM control, support for AM2/AM2+ Phenom and Athlon processors, four DDR2-1200 memory slots, and two PCI-Express x16 slots enables CrossFireX setups. The 790X-G45 also includes six SATA 3.0 Gbps ports, Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1 channel VIA VT1828S audio, one PATA connector, an Easy OC switch and a Clear CMOS button. MSI's board is likely to become available in the next few weeks.

Izvor: TechConnect

[McG]

AMD usually builds server processors with the cores similar to desktop ones that differing a little by external interfaces support: they have more HyperTransport busses and the memory controller is designed to support Registered memory DIMMs. Istanbul core stands out of this rule: so far it has no desktop analogue. Although we can’t deny that Istanbul, just like Shanghai, is close to Deneb in microarchitecture. However, in this case the differences go beyond the memory controller and the number of HyperTransport busses. Istanbul has six computational cores on a single processor die, which makes these processors the most expensive solutions in the Opteron lineup: they are priced starting at $450. There is nothing surprising about it: Istanbul die size is 346 mm2, which is about 1/3 larger than Shanghai die. The six-core processor has 904 million transistors. All this fits onto a monolithic semiconductor die, which holds not only six computational cores each with 512 KB L2 cache, but also a shared 6 MB L3 cache.

Istanbul processors have three HyperTransport busses, which allow using them in dual-, quad- and eight-processor systems. As for the memory controller, Istanbul works with Registered dual-channel DDR2-800/667/533 SDRAM with or without ECC support in order to maintain compatibility with existing Socket F platforms. By the way, compatibility is another specifically stressed advantage of AMD server processors: Socket F platform was first introduced three years ago, but even the latest Istanbul CPUs work perfectly fine with any Socket F mainboards after reflashing the BIOS. However, if we regard Istanbul as a possible solution for a single-CPU platform, then there is no need for HT Assist and three HyperTransport busses. However, even in this case Istanbul may offer special advantages over Deneb and Shanghai, even if we do not take into account more computational cores. First, Istanbul supports higher HyperTransport bus frequency that has been increased to 2.4 GHz (in contemporary desktop AMD processors this frequency doesn’t exceed 2.0 GHz). Second, the built-in L3 cache inside Istanbul processor is overclocked to 2.2 GHz instead of 2.0 GHz.

As for the six-core processor clock frequencies, they are obviously lower than the frequencies of quad-core CPUs. The top AMD Opteron processor models with six cores work at 2.8 GHz. Moreover, these solutions belong to HE class that includes CPUs with higher power consumption and heat dissipation. The general-purpose six-core Opteron processors with average CPU power of 75 W work at 2.6 GHz maximum frequency, which is 30% less than the frequency of top quad-core Phenom II X4 CPUs. This must be another reason why AMD is not in a hurry to move their six-core processors into the desktop segment: at this point their clock frequencies won’t let them outperform the top quad-core CPUs even in well-paralleled tasks. For our today’s test session we picked a six-core Opteron 2435 processor working at 2.6 GHz clock frequency. Opteron 2435 is the top Istanbul model of those widely available in retail these days. It costs around $1000, but when these CPUs will be available in the desktop segment, they will most likely be considerably cheaper. Opteron 2435 processor is a server solution that is why it has a 1207-pin LGA packaging and differs substantially from the usual Socket AM2/AM3 CPUs even in its exterior looks.

Overall, the CPU with six computational cores can really raise the performance bar. Two additional cores provide a pretty significant advantage during video processing and transcoding as well as during final rendering. In other words, adding additional cores to desktop processors indeed makes a lot of sense. But unfortunately, gamers will hardly be excited about the six-core desktop processors. Most games at this point can’t respond to the increase in the number of computational cores with an appropriate fps rate growth. But we can certainly find a few examples of just the opposite.

Izvor: X-Bit Labs

[Jerry]

Ovo je ... jako los preview onoga sto bi mogao six core AMD u desktop okruzenju. MSI ploca je u biti stara neke 2g. a sam chipset je puno stariji.

Testna konfiguracija:

• RAM 667MHz CL5
• HT je na 1GHz
• Chipset je u biti 570 SLi s 2xPCIe 8x v1.1

Trebala bi biti (u skladu s danasnjim mogucnostima):

• RAM 1300MHz CL7+
• HT 2.4GHz
• Chipset 790FX s 2xPCIe 16x v2.0

Na ovoj drugoj platformi vjerujem da bi rezultazi bili barem 20% bolji i tada bi stvari dosta drugacije izgledale. Vise bih volio da su stavili jedan ovaj Opteron u ovu plocu pa da su onda testirali:



DDR3 ce ocito biti rezerviran za novi C32 socket. BTW, mislim da bi AMD trebao izbaciti Dual socket Enthusiast platformu s 2x 6 core otkljucanim i na defoultu na 3GHz (novi FX?) s 4 PCIe 16x jer mislim da 500$ za plocu te 1000$ za dva procesora s ukupno 12 jezgri je cijena na koju bi mnogi pristali!

[Matth€w]

AMD may no longer have the high-end power-efficiency crown, but it's nevertheless cooking up a pair of new desktop platforms. So writes DigiTimes, basing its story on tips from insiders at motherboard manufacturers. These platforms will include Leo at the high end and Dorado for the mainstream. Leo should bring together current Phenom IIs, future Thuban six-core desktop CPUs, and new 890-series chipsets with SB850 south bridges. DigiTimes mentions an 890FX and 890GX; if those are anything like the 790FX and 790GX, the latter will have integrated graphics and multi-GPU support.

Before you go thinking Thuban will launch in May 2010, too, DigiTimes specifies that Leo will merely have "support" for the six-core design. Then again, the same site reported earlier this week that Thuban should be out in the second quarter of next year. Moving down to the mainstream platform, Dorado will bring forth a new 880G integrated graphics chipset and SB810 south bridge, both destined to sit alongside Athlon II processors. AMD's new Radeon HD 5000-series graphics cards are also part of the Leo and Dorado platforms. Perhaps the Radeon HD 5850 will finally be widely available by the time the new platforms arrive.

Izvor: The TechReport

[McG]

MSI is readying the 770-G45 motherboard, which supports socket AM3 Phenom II and Athlon II series processors from AMD. The motherboard makes use of AMD's SB710 southbridge, and hence supports the ACC feature. The more important feature however, is the provision of two PCI-Express x16 slots, supporting ATI CrossfireX. The second slot however, seems to be wired to the southbridge, and electrical PCI-Express x4. The CPU is powered by a simple 6 phase VRM circuit, supporting the Active Phase Switching feature, it is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots to support dual-channel memory. All six SATA 3 Gb/s ports are internal. A PCI-E x1 and three PCI slots make for the rest of the expansion. Connectivity includes gigabit Ethernet, a serial port, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. The OC Switch feature aims to simplify overclocking. Ideally, this motherboard should make it around the $100 price point, though the price isn't known at this point.

Izvor: TechConnect i tech PowerUp

[McG]

It’s got roughly one billion 32nm transistors, fabbed at Globalfoundries. Four CPU cores and a single graphics core. It’s what AMD calls an Accelerated Processing Unit (APU). And we’ll see it in 2011. The APU, codenamed Llano, was originally scheduled for 2010 but got pushed back. In 2009/2010 Intel will be the first to deliver on-chip graphics with Clarkdale/Arrandale, and in late 2010 Sandy Bridge will have on-die graphics. The first APU will use the existing Phenom II architecture on the same die as DX11 graphics, but at 32nm. Sandy Bridge will use a brand new microprocessor architecture on 32nm but with updated Intel integrated graphics. It looks like Sandy Bridge will have the CPU advantage while Llano might have the GPU advantage, assuming Intel can't get their GPU act together by then. Llano is on schedule to debut in 2011 with OEM sampling happening before the end of the year.

Based on the die shot displayed by Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s products group, the first Fusion processor from AMD will feature 4 x86 cores that resemble those of Propus processor (AMD Athlon II X4) as well as 6 SIMD engines (with 80 stream processors per engine) that resemble those of Evergreen graphics chip (ATI Radeon HD 5800), PC3-12800 (DDR3 1600MHz) memory controller, possibly, with some tweaks to better serve x86 and graphics engines. The processor lacks unified L3 in order to reduce manufacturing cost, but will have 2MB of L2 cache (512KB per core), which contradicts to previously available information that the chip has 4MB of L3. AMD’s Llano will feature around 1 billion of transistors, which is logical since AMD’s Propus processor has around 300 million of transistors, whereas 480 stream processors and additional special purpose logic includes around 600 million of transistors. The chip will be made using 32nm silicon-on-insulator fabrication process.


Desktop

Next year the high end platform will be called Leo. It’s made up of a Thuban CPU, which is an updated Phenom II rev sporting as many as six cores. It’s still 45nm so don’t expect much in the way of new architectural features. Graphics comes courtesy of the Radeon HD 5000 series, which we all know and love. The chipset is going to be AMD’s new 8-series, complete with a new SB850 south bridge. In 2011 we get Bulldozer and it comes in the form of the Zambezi CPU (AMD’s codenames are such fun). You’ll see four and eight core versions of Zambezi. Both will support DDR3 and both will work in Socket-AM3. Obviously guaranteeing motherboard support this early in the game is difficult, but AMD is usually good about maintaining socket compatibility. You may be able to slip a Zambezi into your current day Socket-AM3 motherboards.

The 2011 mainstream desktop platform is called Lynx, purr. It comes with the Llano APU, which as I mentioned before, doesn’t use Bulldozer. Instead Llano is made up of as many as four 32nm Phenom II-like cores. Llano also features an integrated DX11 GPU. Llano will require a new socket as the pinout will have to support video out just like Intel’s Clarkdale. AMD’s first APUs drop in 2011, but what happens in 2012? Intel is committed to new microprocessor architectures every 2 years as a part of its tick-tock strategy. AMD’s GPU-inspired equivalent is called Velocity. Velocity also means that even if it’s difficult getting more performance out of a CPU architecture, AMD can always rely on a beefed up GPU core to give users a reason to upgrade.

Mobile

For mainstream notebooks today AMD doesn’t really offer anything sexy. We have the Tigris platform based on the Caspian CPU (45nm Athlon II X2 derivative) and RS880M chipset with integrated Radeon HD 4300 series graphics (DX10.1). Next year we get the Danube platform, complete with Champlain CPU (Athlon II X2 or X4 derivative) and relatively similar graphics to what we have now. Like the desktop roadmap, things don’t get interesting until 2011; that’s when we meet Sabine. Sabine comes with a Llano APU, just like the desktop, and four 32nm Phenom II-like cores.

Server

The Maranello platform is AMD’s high end server platform, due out in 2010. It supports the 8 and 12 core Magny Cours processors. These are multi-chip-modules with two quad or hexa core die on a single package. With twice the die, you get twice the memory controllers. Magny Cours has four DDR3 memory channels. With more memory channels, Magny Cours needs a new, higher pincount socket which AMD is calling Socket G34. The chips will be branded as Opteron 6000 series. San Marino is the second major server platform of 2010 and it’s for more normal servers. Four and six core Lisbon processors find their homes in San Marino. There’s also a low power Adelaide platform that’ll be available. These Lisbon processors will be branded as Opteron 4000 series chips and will work in Socket C32. In 2011 we get Interlagos and Valencia platforms, both based on AMD’s next-generation Bulldozer cores. Interlagos is a Socket-G34 platform supporting 12 and 16 core processors, while Valencia is Socket-C32 and can accommodate 6/8 core chips.

Izvor: AnandTech i Xbit-Labs

[McG]

Bulldozer

In 2011 AMD will introduce two next-generation microarchitectures: Bulldozer for the high end desktop and server space and Bobcat for the price/power efficient ultra mobile market. First up, Bulldozer. This is a single Bulldozer core, but notice that it has two independent integer clusters, each with its own L1 data cache. The single FP cluster shares the L1 cache of the two integer clusters. Within each integer “core” are four pipelines, presumably half for ALUs and half for memory ops. That’s a narrower width than a single Phenom II core, but there are two integer clusters on a single Bulldozer core.

Bulldozer will also support AVX, hinted at by the two 128-bit FMAC units behind the FP scheduler. AMD is keeping the three level cache hierarchy of the current Phenom II architecture. A single Bulldozer core will appear to the OS as two cores, just like a Hyper Threaded Core i7. The difference is that AMD is duplicating more hardware in enabling per-core multithreading. The integer resources are all doubled, including the schedulers and d-caches. It’s only the FP resources that are shared between the threads. The benefit is you get much better multithreaded integer performance, the downside is a larger core.

Bobcat

AMD says that a single Bobcat is capable of scaling down to less than one watt of power. Typically a single microarchitecture is capable of efficiently scaling to an order of magnitude of TDP. If Bobcat can go low as 0.5W, the high end would be around 5W. If it’s closer to 1W at the low end then 10W would be the upper portion. Either way, it’s too low to compete in current mainstream notebooks, meaning that Bobcat is strictly a netbook/ultraportable core as AMD indicated in its slides. Eventually Bulldozer will probably scale down to take care of the mainstream mobile market. AMD provided very little detail here other than it delivers 90% of today’s mainstream performance in less than half of the silicon area. If AMD views mainstream as an Athlon II X2, then Bobcat would deliver 90% of that performance in a die area of less than 60mm^2. Clearly this is bigger than Atom, but that’s just a guess. Either way, the performance targets sound impressive. SSE1-3 are supported as well as hardware virtualization.

Izvor: AnandTech

[McG]

Gigabyte is readying the industry's first socket AM3 motherboard that offers the new connectivity features combo that is turning out to be quite a selling point in itself: USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gbps. Enter GA-790FXTA-UD5P, a high-end socket AM3 motherboard based on the AMD 790FX + SB750 chipset, that isn't just a revised GA-MA790FXT-UD5P. Apart from the star attractions of USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gbps, the board features a redesigned expansion slot layout, among other new features. The socket AM3 motherboard supports AMD Phenom II AM3 and Athlon II series processors with support for dual-channel DDR3 memory.

To begin with, the CPU is powered by a 8+2 phase VRM supporting 140W processors, with a 2 phase VRM powering the four DDR3 DIMM slots. The board supports DDR3-1866 by overclocking, while DDR3-1333 and DDR3-1066 are naturally supported. A Precision OV controller provides fine (small step) voltage control for the CPU, memory and chipset voltages. Instead of two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots on the MA-790FXT-UD5P, this board features three PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots (electrical x16, x16, NC, or x16, x8, x8, depending on how they're populated). Each x16 slot as one slot spacing which is occupied by a PCI slot. A lone PCI-E x1 slot heads the pack.

The component cooling is similar to its predecessor, heatsinks that are interconnected by a heatpipe, cover the CPU VRM, northbridge, and southbridge. All six SATA 3 Gbps ports the SB750 provides are assigned as internal, while an additional controller (usual suspect being the Marvell 88SE9123-NAA2) provides two internal SATA 6 Gbps ports color-coded white. Another additional controller (suspected to be NEC µPD720200), provides two USB 3.0 ports on the rear-panel. 8-channel audio with optical and co-axial SPDIF outputs, eSATA/USB Combo connectors that eliminate need for additional power input on some eSATA thumb drives, a number of more USB 2.0 ports and two gigabit Ethernet connections make for the rest of the rear-panel. Gigabyte is planning more models that feature USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gbps, namely GA-790XTA-UD4, and GA-770TA-UD3.

Izvor: techPowerUp i The Tech Report

[coconut]

Lijepo od njih da su stavili najnovije komunikacijske standarde, ali ja još uvijek nisam vidio uređaj koji bi ih mogao iskoristiti. SSD-ovi bi mogli imati vrlo zanimljive performanse na SATA3 kontroleru.

[greg SE]

samo raid polja istih, ostalo bas i nije limitirano suceljem. Jedan manji dio ponude ali taj bi ionako bio i sa sata 3.
A s obzirom da ima cijela dva konektora (ima li taj kontroler uopce raid mogucnosti?)....blah, marketing prodaje sve pa ce i ovo

[naram-sin]

Autor greg SE