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AMD launches first 45nm CPUs
Shanghai workstation and server chips provide a glimpse of what we could expect from AMD's next line of desktop CPUs
AMD has been stuck on the 65nm boat for a while now, and its current chips are now looking pretty crusty when you consider that Intel’s 45nm Xeon CPUs were doing the rounds at the end of last year. However, the wait for AMD’s next-gen CPUs is finally over. The company has now officially launched its first 45nm ‘Shanghai’ Opteron chips for servers and workstations, which may well give us a glimpse of what we can expect from its forthcoming desktop CPUs, codenamed 'Deneb'.
AMD’s move to a 45nm process relies on immersion lithography, where a refractive fluid fills the gap between the lens and the wafer, which AMD says will result in ‘dramatic performance and performance-per-watt gains.’ It’s also enabled AMD to increase the maximum clock speed of the Opterons from 2.3GHz with the Barcelona core to 2.7GHz with the Shanghai core. Given that current Barcelona-based Phenoms top out at 2.6GHz, this could mean much faster clock speeds for AMD’s future desktop chips.
Shanghai chips also feature much more cache than their predecessors, with 6MB of Level 3 cache bumping the total up to 8MB, and the chips share the same cache architecture as Barcelona CPUs, with a shared pool of Level 3 cache and an individual allocation of Level 2 cache for each core. As well as this, the Shanghai chips use HyperTransport 3.0, allowing bandwidth of up to 17.6GB/sec. Meanwhile, AMD plans to start introducing its six-core ‘Istanbul’ Opteron chips next year.
AMD is expected to launch its 45nm Deneb desktop CPUs before the end of the year, and they will also be fabricated on a 45nm process. However, unless the chips offer a serious improvement in performance over the current Phenom CPUs, the new chips will have a hard time competing with Intel’s recently launched Core i7 CPUs unless AMD dramatically undercuts them in price.
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There are rumours on t'interweb that the Denebs can oc to 4GHz on air. If this is true, and depending on their pricing strategy, hopefully this means that there will be some healthy competition again.
Comment by adidan at 4:29pm 19th November 2008
AMD have always managed to maintain respectable performance in the server market. i expect nothing less than this from shanghai, but it still seems to me AMD are going to take a major beating once again in the desktop market, dragon is due early next year so we will find out. but theres nothing in the shanghai numbers that indicate this architecture can beat down core i7, in order to even match core i7 AMD need to find at least 30 percent more performance per clock and scale the speeds past 3ghz. unfortunately thats as good as impossible
Comment by vulcanproject at 5:08pm 13th November 2008
Well, with this current credit "crunch", I can't afford to upgrade my entire rigs mobo and ram, So this will be a nice way to get that CPU performance that I've been dreaming of! :P - and with the AMD fusion utillity running in the background, those framerates will be amazing!!! - I feel like a kid, the night before xmas! :P
Comment by NikoBellic at 4:39pm 13th November 2008
http://it.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3456&p=1
Comment by crackowitz at 4:02pm 13th November 2008
amd has made some big improvements to it's designs in the past few years, but it's not enough. their chips still have a phobia of high frequency's and they just can't keep up with intel for performance. i think that if they keep working on their architecture and bring out some higher frequency's they will be able to beat intel again, so they have to keep working at it. i have never doubted amd, and there was plenty of doubt about amd buying ati, but look at the 4850, they own the midrange market for graphics cards with it, i think they can pull off another intel eating cpu architecture.
Comment by yougotkicked at 3:53pm 13th November 2008
amd has made some big improvements to it's designs in the past few years, but it's not enough. their chips still have a phobia of high frequency's and they just can't keep up with intel for performance. i think that if they keep working on their architecture and bring out some higher frequency's they will be able to beat intel again, so they have to keep working at it. i have never doubted amd, and there was plenty of doubt about amd buying ati, but look at the 4850, they own the midrange market for graphics cards with it, i think they can pull off another intel eating cpu architecture.
Comment by yougotkicked at 3:53pm 13th November 2008
A bit dissapointing for AMD in the cpu business.. maybe its time to redirect itself to the GPU business and bring out a better card before nvidia brings out another. AMD is competing in two markets against two biggest competitors... thats got to be hard work! But if they are still sitting in the under 3Ghz barrier it suggests they never tried any overclocking and so forth which probably makes them the underdogs yet again.
Comment by Lightning_Pete at 3:12pm 13th November 2008
I've heard a lot of positive things about them - believe it when I see it of course, but it's about time something went right for AMD!
Comment by Sifter3000 at 2:40pm 13th November 2008
This is true...I am a self-confessed AMD fanboy, and own an overclocked Phenom 9950BE rig...so any improvement on that would be good stuff! If they can price these right they have every chance of producing something special, even if it isn't quite as quick as the i7.
Comment by smartwasp at 1:55pm 13th November 2008
20% faster than they are now puts them between the Core 2 and i7's which is not a bad place to be a lot better than where they were.
Comment by Cool_CR at 12:52pm 13th November 2008
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20081113PR204.html
Comment by smartwasp at 1:12pm 13th November 2008
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20081113PR204.html
Comment by smartwasp at 1:12pm 13th November 2008
They are 75W parts for now, with 55W and 105W parts coming later. They are also claiming a 20% processing speed increase on the 65nm parts. This coupled with a higher standard clock and a lower TDP...could point to it being a much better overclocker that the outgoing chips. Sadly, no i7 killer here, not even close, but they should be a fair bit cheaper...could compete on a bang-per-buck scale...
Comment by smartwasp at 12:23pm 13th November 2008
Any word on the power requirements? And when can we see some test results?
Comment by Spreadie at 11:40am 13th November 2008
can challange Intel's Core 7. I have some doubts but it would be real shame for us consumers if CPU market became even more Intel dominated.
Comment by jonisaksson at 9:51am 13th November 2008
Sorry, Custom PC comments are now closed.
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