Details on AMD Bulldozer: Opterons to Feature Configurable TDP
by Johan De Gelas & Kristian Vättö on July 15, 2011 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
- CPUs
- Bulldozer
- AMD
- Cloud Computing
- Zambezi
- Valencia
- Interlagos
Final Thoughts
In the last few years, AMD hasn't really been able to fight against Intel in the high-end CPU market. Pretty much since the release of the Nehalem microarchitecture in late 2008, Intel has held the crown of fastest CPUs and AMD has only been the best option for budget builds. Bulldozer has suffered from delays and recently AMD delayed it even more because the performance didn't meet their expectations. However, Bulldozer could have the potential to shake Intel's position in other than the budget CPU market.
According to leaked product positioning slides, Zambezi is aimed to fight against Intel's Core i5 and i7 lineups. Zambezi will feature up to eight cores, which is twice as many as i7-2600(K)'s four cores. AMD said that they won't join the Hyper-Threading club and they will deliver as many physical cores as Intel delivers physical and virtual cores combined. It looks like AMD is keeping their word, though they're only delivering half as many "FP/SSE cores". Intel will probably still provide the best single-threaded performance but AMDs aggressive approach with many physcial cores may bring them the trophy of best multi-threaded performance. We shall hopefully see this very soon.
In the server market, AMD's role is a lot more complex. For some HPC applications, AMD offers the best performance at a much lower price. In the midrange, AMD based servers offer more cores (quad-socket) and (in most cases) higher performance for a relatively small price premium over the typical dual-socket Xeon servers. At the same time, if your applications cannot make good use of all those cores, dual-socket Xeon servers can offer a better performance/watt ratio and lower response times. In the high end, Intel Xeon E7 completely dominates, and AMD has left this market for now. In the low power market, Intel's low power Xeons offer a better performance/watt and AMD can only compete when every dollar counts. In most cases, the price of the server CPU is less important in the grand TCO scheme.
In other words, AMD really needs a server CPU with a much higher performance per core and a better performance/watt ratio. TDP Power Cap or configurable TDP helps AMD's server CPUs keep the electricity bill down by avoiding "bursty" power usage. At the same time, with their implementation, TDP Power Cap should have little effect on the real world (not pure throughput benchmarking) performance if you do not lower the TDP too much. We won't be sure until we have measured it, but it looks like a big step in the right direction: lower TCO and more predictable power usage without a (large) performance penalty.
AMD's Future Plans
| Second Generation AMD Fusion lineup | |||||
| Codename | Krishna and Wichita | Trinity | Komodo | Sepang | Terramar |
| Architecture | Enhanced Bobcat | NG Bulldozer | NG Bulldozer | NG Bulldozer | NG Bulldozer |
| SOI | 28nm | 32nm | 32nm | 32nm | 32nm |
| Core count | 1-4 | 2-4 | 6-10 | Up to 10 | Up to 20 |
| DX11 IGP | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Socket | N/A | N/A | N/A | C2012 | G2012 |
Bulldozer will make its way to mainstream CPUs in 2012. Llano's successor, Trinity, will feature up to four next-generation Bulldozer cores. Next-generation (NG) in this context appears to mean that AMD will tweak the architecture because the CPUs will still be manufactured using 32nm SOI. Zambezi's successor, Komodo, will again increase the core count and make it up to 10.
As for the server market, AMD's approach will be a bit more aggressive. AMD will again increase the amount of cores to up to 20 NG Bulldozer cores. Valencia's successor will be 10-core Sepang and Interlagos' will be 20-core Terramar. The server CPUs will also feature PCIe 3.0 support.
Krishna and Wichita will also replace AMD's current Ontario and Zacate APUs. There will be a die shrink from 40nm to 28nm so at this point, Krishna and Wichita look the most interesting from the 2nd gen Fusion lineup. Doubling the cores should yield a nice performance boost in heavily threaded scendarios, though single-threaded performance is still a sore spot for Bobcat compared to other architectures.
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stmok - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
No it doesn't. It expressly says CPU for Komodo. Not APU. Look carefully!Even the latest leaked slide (Bit-tech.com source in my thread) refers Komodo as a CPU with "Next-Gen Discrete Graphics" as part of the Corona enthusiast/performance desktop platform for 2012.
Kristian Vättö - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
I have added a (?) to suggest that it's not certain whether Komodo features an IGP or not.jjj - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
I don't see any GPU on the slide TimCh provided (and do read the fine print).Anyway there is only 1 botched slide with GPU and 8 cores and if you think about it, it makes no sense.Why have Sepang with 10 and Komodo with 8,it would be a waste of time and money and there would be no reason to have a different name for it,instead of Trinity.Also how big would the chip be with 8 cores and GPU,even if they drop the L2 cache and why add a GPU to a chip adressing the high end where most don't need it (and make the same mistake as Intel using the HD 3000 for K chips).
jjj - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
edit to prev post: obviously i ment L3rnssr71 - Saturday, July 16, 2011 - link
'Also how big would the chip be with 8 cores and GPU,even if they drop the L2 cache and why add a GPU to a chip adressing the high end where most don't need it (and make the same mistake as Intel using the HD 3000 for K chips).'well, 8 core bulldozer(4 module) is going to be over 300sq. mm. larger than llano(on 32nm) but smaller than thuban(45nm).
i would guess that 8 meg of L3 cache that the 8 core bulldozer will have would take up 2/3 as much room as the current gpu in llano. so, quite a lot of space.
so you're right, it would be a mistake to have a full sized gpu......maybe ANY gpu until gpu computing really takes off.
Casper42 - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
Just an FYI, while it is true that Insight Control is required for power capping a cluster of Rackmount (DL) servers, you get Dynamic Power Capping withing a single c7000 chassis today for free.So for Clusters of 16 servers in the same chassis, you don't need IC licenses to see a pretty big benefit. When one server needs more power, the other servers can all be throttled back slightly to let the one burst and still get the workload done, like you mentioned.
DPC in blade chassis also has 3 different settings.
One is Average Load for Thermals
Two is Average Power Draw (80% rule on individual circuits)
Three is Maximum Power Draw (Do Not Exceed - Circuit protection)
So you can not only unlock excess capacity with the Max Draw setting being lower than faceplate value, but you can also tune the other values to hit the appropriate thermal values for the DC.
I've heard there will be an Insight Control powered Multi-chassis DPC coming next year as well. And for those familiar with HP gear, Insight Control licenses, when purchased in 8/16 packs along side a new chassis are only like $50 more per server than iLO Advanced which alot of people already purchase. With normal Enterprise discounts the gap can be even smaller.
Johan/Kristian - where are you guys located? (roughly)
Kristian Vättö - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
I'm from Finland (GMT +3 now) but I don't know were Johan lives. FYI, Johan covered the power capping section so you have to wait for him if you think there are any changes necessary.I would suggest shooting him an email (click his name on the top) if you want to contact him. Not all of us read the comments, even though we are supposed to :)
JohanAnandtech - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
I am located in Belgium. You know the land without a government but with the best beer in the world. Paradise thus ;-).Thanks for the valuable feedback. Are those 3 settings the only choices you have to tune your power draw?
StevoLincolnite - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
Spelling error, Johan!"It will aslo be compatible with AMD's current San Marino and Adeleide platforms (Opteron 4000 Series) for socket C32."
It should be Adelaide, not Adeleide. :)
Other than that, good job.
Hanging out badly for Zambezi's release, my rig is ready to drop a new 8-core chip into it. :)
Kristian Vättö - Friday, July 15, 2011 - link
Actually, I wrote that part. I have fixed it now along with a few other minor edits. I added that the latest word appears to be October release (just saw it in my RSS today) and I also added a (?) to the Komodo's IGP as it seems to be uncertain.Thanks for the feedback :)