Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processors deliver more scalable performance, better performance-per-watt and more efficient virtualization than before, while protecting customers' infrastructure investments. Partners and customers alike were eager to get the first native quad-core technology from AMD — and with good reason.

Soon, if not by the time you read this article, AMD's ecosystem of hardware and software partners and enterprise customers will have servers, motherboards and components powered by Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processors.

The Third-Generation AMD Opteron processor was introduced on September 10 at global launch events in San Francisco; Beijing; Tokyo; Barcelona, Spain; Seoul, South Korea; and Taipei, Taiwan. Processors began shipping in August 2007, with systems available from OEM partners starting in October.

"At AMD, we make a promise with every solution we sell to deliver innovation that maps to our customers' needs and creates opportunities for value, for differentiation and for growth," says AMD Chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz. "The new Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor delivers on that promise."

Due to the native quad-core design - it is the world's first x86 processor to integrate four processing cores on a single silicon die -and with many other microarchitectural enhancements, the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor represents a leap forward in processor architecture. It delivers better, more scalable performance, better performance-per-watt, more efficient virtualization and protection of infrastructure investments.

"AMD has introduced a balanced architecture that allows platform and channel partners to [enhance] performance at the many component levels that make up the [Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor's] approach - whether at the CPU, memory, I/O or operating system levels of the architecture," says Brad Day, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, a Cambridge, Mass.-based market research firm. "The significance is that it allows game-changing differentiation and customization in what was once a commodity x86 server market.

"In short, the seamless upgradeability, micro-architecture breakthroughs to [help reduce] potential processor and memory overhead associated with virtual environments, and a systems-level approach to improving power and cooling inefficiencies add to the differentiation and value proposition for [the quad-core processor's] technology attributes."

Performance-Per-Watt

This is the first time AMD has made both standard- and low-power parts immediately available as part of a new processor launch. With availability at launch in a range of frequencies up to 2.0 gigahertz, AMD expects its native quad-core processors to scale to higher frequencies in the fourth quarter of 2007 in both standard and energy-efficient versions, as well as the high-performance AMD Opteron SE processors.

Designed to operate in the same electrical and thermal envelope as Second-Generation AMD Opteron processors, the new Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors are estimated to provide a substantial performance increase over previous-generation AMD processors, with subsequent higher-frequency processors expected to add significantly to this performance advantage in the fourth quarter.

"More than ever before, customers are expecting higher levels of energy-efficiency and performance-per-watt, as much or more than absolute performance," says Randy Allen, corporate vice president, Server and Workstation Division at AMD. "With this new reality of computing, greater performance at the expense of greater power consumption is no longer an option.

"AMD has prioritized production of our energy-efficient and standard-power products because our customers and ecosystem demand it. We anticipate that the introduction of our native Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor will deliver on the promise of the highest levels of performance-per-watt the industry has seen."

Because they are designed to be backward compatible with existing AMD Opteron processors with DDR2 memory, quad-core processors can provide higher performance within the same infrastructure. What's more, AMD's commitment to a consistent processor architecture and a sustainable roadmap ensures low operational and maintenance costs over the long haul - facilitating a low total cost of ownership while protecting customer investments.

This appeals to solution providers like David Gilbert, owner and founder of Appalachian Computer Systems in South Charleston, W.Va. "The fact that AMD's quad-core processor fits into the same slot as its dual-core processor means that customers can upgrade the processors to quad-core as necessary - or as budget permits," he says. "It will help customers address a primary challenge: keeping existing platforms running, while still being able to increase available processing power without spending too much money."

Gautam Shah, CEO of Colfax International, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based manufacturer of custom systems, agrees that customers that have standardized on AMD Opteron processors are very likely candidates for upgrades. "Customers who buy AMD Opteron processors value the stability of the platform and appreciate that they can upgrade processors as new technology arrives without having to replace the entire platform," Shah points out. "We expect demand to be robust."

Quick to Market

Seamless upgradeability ensures that AMD's platform partners will be able to bring Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor-powered rack, blade and pedestal servers to market quickly. This is a boon to integrators and value-added resellers, which will likely experience strong interest among market segments ranging from small and medium businesses (SMBs) to the largest enterprises.

"Customers have been hearing about the benefits of quad-core f or some time, and our Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor is the first native quad-core design that finally delivers on the promised benefits of multi-core computing," says Bruce Shaw, director of product marketing, Server and Workstation Division, AMD. "AMD's partners should be able to capitalize on the demand because of the processor's compatibility and seamless upgradeability with servers that are powered by existing AMD Opteron processors.

"We've made the transition to quad-core as easy as possible from a product and platform perspective. This frees partners to focus their resources on customer opportunities, rather than on validating, testing and training for a new platform."

At Fremont, Calif.-based SYNNEX, one of the largest distributors of systems, motherboards and processors to the channel, executives expect strong demand for Quad-Core AMD Opteron processorpowered servers and components. "We are excited about the adoption of quad core among larger enterprises, as well as among small and midsize businesses," says Doug Bone, vice president of Enterprise Products in the Systems Integration Division of SYNNEX. "Our customers tend to embrace anything that allows them to increase the computational capabilities of a server, so we expect that our Dual-Core AMD Opteron processor customers will quickly adopt Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors."

His positive assessment is based in part on the seamless upgradeability from Second- Generation AMD Opteron processors. "The fact that you can [increase] the compute power while keeping the power and cooling requirements the same is very important," Bone says.

Bone expects fast adoption of Quad- Core AMD Opteron processor-powered servers and motherboards that leverage Second-Generation AMD Opteron processor designs. He says that will be followed by innovative new systems featuring Dual Dynamic Power Management™, which can increase performance and help reduce power consumption.

Appalachian Computer's Gilbert agrees that servers powered by the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor can offer advantages to enterprises of all sizes. "When budgets are tight, a single server is often required to wear many hats," he says. "A single [Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor] would give SMBs the computing power to run many software applications without requiring them to buy multiple servers or more expensive machines."

With such broad appeal, Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors should deliver countless sales opportunities to solution providers. Experts expect demand to be robust in situations that leverage the processor's innovations, such as native quad-core's fast processing of different tasks and processes in parallel; low-latency communications from AMD's Direct Connect Architecture; and microarchitectural enhancements in memory management, floating point execution and power efficiency. Promising opportunities include:

• Server consolidation and server virtualization
• Database management and database-driven enterprise applications
• Large-scale Web and e-mail serving
• Replacement of proprietary servers running enterprise applications
• High-performance computing (HPC) and scientific computing; and
• Any deployment that requires scalable performance and energy efficiency.

Peak Performance

Amy Belcher, director of product marketing for Advanced Infrastructure Solutions at Tech Data, a Clearwater, Fla., distributor to the channel, expects "positive demand" for Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors in the server consolidation and virtualization space.

 "[Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor]- powered servers running virtualization software should allow customers to purchase fewer, more powerful servers and [therefore] reduce their hardware costs," she says. As fewer servers are needed, energy costs could go down as well.

Fast communications from Direct Connect Architecture benefit virtualization performance, as do enhancements to the memory controller and AMD Virtualization™ technology with the new Rapid Virtualization Indexing. As a result, servers powered by AMD's new quad-core processor are able to host virtual machines with sustained performance and ample headroom for scalable consolidation.

Belcher also expects solution providers to win business by replacing RISC servers with Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor powered systems. She says that these 4- and 8-processor-powered servers from major platform partners feature the performance, functionality and support levels needed for compute- intensive enterprise-class applications.

According to Michael O'Brien, the director of Commercial Systems Channel at AMD, "We expect that Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor-powered servers with 32 cores will offer the equivalent of a UNIX box that four or five years ago could have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Forrester's Day anticipates demand for Quad-Core AMD Opteron processorpowered servers in several markets - especially among deployments that are pushing the limits of blade servers. Additionally, he expects the processor will have immediate traction in the Linux® high performance computing segment and within the "heavy-lifting " commercial applications server segments, such as supply chain management, enterprise resource planning and data mining/warehousing.

"People are excited about the balanced systems architecture," states Day, which allows Quad-Core AMD Opteron processorpowered servers "to be customized for a variety of infrastructure and office productivity application segments, as well as select LOB-specific custom applications environments."

Enterprise database applications leverage the sheer number of cores and the Direct Connect Architecture, as well as AMD's enhanced memory and cache technology. This results in more database transactions without increasing power consumption. And the performance of both online transaction processing and business intelligence applications can efficiently scale as data loads increase.

Quad-Core AMD Opteron processorpowered servers are expected to sell well into large deployments such as Web and e-mail server farms, says Bone of SYNNEX. High-transaction applications benefit from the processor's scalability, fast I/O, and efficient cache and memory management, but the greatest economic benefit may arise from more granular power management.

The Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor also features AMD PowerNow!™ Technology with Independent Dynamic Power Management, which can improve energy consumption. "In the Web infrastructure market with its massive number of servers, customers are looking for anything that can reduce power consumption," says Bone. "By lowering the power draw and heat generation when processing cores are running at less than full utilization, [Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors] can lower the cost of operation."

In high-performance computing and scientific applications, granular power management is less relevant, since systems tend to run full-tilt 24 x 7. But the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor's native quadcore and upgraded floating-point math execution units result in outstanding performance for industries such as design automation, oil and gas, government labs and manufacturing. AMD expects impressive floating-point performance gains, suggesting that the quad-core processor will continue AMD's dominance in compute-intensive environments.

"Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors improve our server's value proposition by having an efficient cache structure and by reducing the latency of accessing main memory," says Daniel Kim, CEO of Appro International, a Milpitas, Calif., provider of high-performance enterprise computing systems. "AMD Opteron processors with Direct Connect Architecture are better by design. The architecture can improve the memory and I/O latency for HPC customers that are using 64-bit applications, and it makes 32-bit applications run [quickly] as well."

Action Items 

What's the best way to ensure that your firm can capitalize on the advantages of Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors?

Software vendors can help explain which of their applications will best leverage quad-core processors. Not every application was developed for more than four cores, so servers based on previous AMD Opteron processors should continue to sell well. It shouldn't be difficult, however, to scope out multithreaded applications, overburdened servers, and compute- and process-intensive workloads that could benefit from an upgrade.

System manufacturers will offer training on the areas where their various Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor-powered servers should excel. And application-oriented benchmarks can help to characterize workload performance, as long as the comparison is apples to apples. But, experts say, the true test is hands-on evaluation with real data sets and application workloads.

"There's n o better way to understand how a new technology behaves than to execute your code on it and see what performance you get," says Bone of SYNNEX. " When you conduct such comparison tests, you're likely to find that Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor-powered servers perform as promised, while also maintaining low ownership costs. And that's exactly what you'd expect in game-changing technologies from AMD.

Seamless Upgradeability

Customers can upgrade from dual-core to quad-core in as little as eight minutes — and not have to worry about their infrastructure investments.

A key concern for anyone considering a new processor is migration complexity. If you want to upgrade current systems from one processor generation to the next, how difficult will it be? Will your existing systems be upgradeable or will you have to invest in completely new systems?

AMD has planned for this by providing a seamless upgrade path to Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processors from systems driven by current Socket F (1207) Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors based on DDR2 memory. The upgrade is simple because the new Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor fits within the same Socket F (1207) infrastructure and the same power and thermal envelopes as AMD's second-generation dual-core processors. Since Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors are compatible with existing power and cooling infrastructures at both the system and data center level, you can upgrade without specifying new platforms or losing any data center efficiency.

A key concern for anyone considering a new processor is migration complexity. If you want to upgrade current systems from one processor generation to the next, how difficult will it be? Will your existing systems be upgradeable or will you have to invest in completely new systems?

AMD has planned for this by providing a seamless upgrade path to Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processors from systems driven by current Socket F (1207) Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors based on DDR2 memory. The upgrade is simple because the new Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor fits within the same Socket F (1207) infrastructure and the same power and thermal envelopes as AMD's second-generation dual-core processors. Since Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors are compatible with existing power and cooling infrastructures at both the system and data center level, you can upgrade without specifying new platforms or losing any data center efficiency.

How easy is the upgrade? While users' total upgrade time will vary depending on their particular server, AMD has found that in some circumstances it can be accomplished in as little as eight minutes! We used a chip-based BIOS in the below example, so if you are using a software-based BIOS upgrade, you will need to reorder the steps and complete step 4 before you remove the legacy processors.

Step 1: Power down and remove the cover (in this example) from a dual-socket server powered by two Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors.

Step 2: Remove the CPU heat sinks and the pair of processors.

Step 3: Replace the processors with Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors.

Step 4: Upgrade BIOS to support quad-core by replacing the CMOS chip (the easiest way).

Step 5: Reinsert the original CPU heat sinks.

Step 6: Replace cover and reboot.

Total time for upgrade is low and doubles the number of processor cores in the server from four to eight, without changing the motherboard, heat sinks, fans or power supply. The system boots right up and automatically recognizes the four cores per socket — a cost-effective way to leverage current technology for performance, performance-per-watt and virtualization capabilities.

"Customers who want to upgrade existing systems will love this," says Felipe Payet, channel market development manager, Server and Workstation Group, AMD, "but it's also valuable for those who usually replace existing systems. Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors allow them to upgrade from dual- to quad-core within the same power budget, which means they can help enhance server capacity without having to spend more on power, cooling, UPSes or real estate. It can protect their infrastructure investments."

The key takeaway is that whether you choose to upgrade by swapping existing processors or, as most customers do, by replacing current systems, Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors deliver industry-leading performance within existing dual-core power and cooling envelopes. Since you won't have to re-engineer your data center, you can accomplish the upgrade quickly and easily without creating new headaches today and tomorrow.

The Four Pillars of Quad-Core

With a native design featuring four cores on the same piece of silicon, Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processors deliver a balanced architecture for leading-edge performance, performance-per-watt and server virtualization. They also protect customers' investments via a consistent architectural roadmap and seamless upgradeability from Second-Generation AMD Opteron processor-based platforms.

Performance: The Direct Connect Architecture found in all AMD64 processors can improve overall system performance by eliminating bottlenecks inherent in legacy architectures. The Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor's native quad-core design further enhances performance: When data must be shared among cores, it is transferred within the processor at full CPU speed.

The Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor's upgraded cache architecture features an L2 cache dedicated to each core, rather than shared among cores, for improved individual core performance on demanding applications like databases and virtualized environments. The quad-core processor also adds a shared L3 cache to speed access to commonly used data and to provide high-speed memory for large data sets.

Each of the four cores features an upgraded 128-bit unit for floating-point math, which is advantageous for high-performance and scientific computing, as well as for any application that does a lot of background calculations. In addition, comprehensive updates to the memory controller in Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors can provide significantly more memory bandwidth to cope with the added demands of two additional cores.

Performance-per-watt: Power and cooling efficiency are on the short list of criteria for almost every buyer of x86 servers. Adding an additional two cores on one processor die within the same electrical and thermal envelope, Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors should continue to lead the industry.

Enhanced AMD PowerNow!™ technology works with the operating system to provide performance-on-demand capabilities for precise power management, power efficiency and low TCO. Independent Dynamic Core Technology allows processors and cores to operate at various voltages and frequencies, depending on usage and workload to help reduce TCO and to lower power consumption in the data center.

And these quad-core processors can improve power management through the new AMD CoolCore™ technology, powering down unused areas of logic in the processing cores and memory controller.

Virtualization: The Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor is a virtualization powerhouse. With the processor's support for Rapid Virtualization Indexing added to AMD Virtualization™ technology, virtualized applications can perform better by directly managing their own memory pages. What's more, Rapid Virtualization Indexing is designed to work seamlessly and independently with each of the four computing cores.

This can translate into enhanced overall performance because memory-intensive functions executing in any one core operate independently from the other three. The result can be extraordinarily fast, smooth performance in virtualized environments — and in every operating system and application they support.

Investment protection: Investment protection is at the heart of AMD's customer-centric philosophy, and it's evident in the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor's seamless upgradeability and consistent architectural roadmap with few required customer transitions. AMD has provided a clean, elegant upgrade path for systems based on Second-Generation AMD Opteron processors — upgrades that entail little more than swapping out the processors and upgrading the BIOS.

Customers also benefit from AMD's architectural consistency. Since the first AMD Opteron processors were introduced in 2003, the company has had only one socket transition. Just like the socket compatibility between Single-Core and Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors, with Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors, customers once again have a seamless technology transition that will likely see another performance increase in the second half of 2008 with "Shanghai," a 45-nanometer successor. This consistent and sustainable architecture through approximately 2010 is easy to manage and plan for, and protects data center investments via low ownership costs.