(AMD) Dual Core A64 and HyperThreading

X86-Secret ^ | April 14, 2005 | Samuel D.

[ASTM36]

And of course the HPC crowd doesn't usually have anything to do with Windows, with Linux being the leader.

[spodefly]

The AMD chips of the least two years run cooler that the Intel equivalents

If they are equivalent in speed, this would be a big factor for me. I have 6 computers in this one room, including overclocked 3.2 Prescott chipped machines, 2 2.8 Ghz machines, and a 2.4Ghz. It is like having 6 space heaters in the room with me. This room is 10 to 15 degrees hotter than the rest of the house.

The CPU temps on the Prescott machine under load is over 50C and the air that comes out the back is 90F or more. The others aren't quite as bad, but it adds up. The 525 Watt power supplies are adding to this, but they would be cooler if the chips drew less wattage for the same speed.

How much cooler are the AMD chips?

[spodefly]

I think Win2K Advanced Server is the only Win2K flavor that can handle HT

Plain ol' Win2K Server will see the HT ... I am seeing 2 procs on my Win2kServer boxes ...

[dennisw]

This chart is useful as far as the wattage drawn. The general consensus at silentpcreview is that at this time AMD is the leader in cooler chips


http://www.silentpcreview.com/article31-page1.html

[tortoise]

How much cooler are the AMD chips?

Measured draw for high-end dual Opteron systems used in clusters is usually 175-185 watts from the wall running at max load. Similar Xeon systems run well north of 200 watts, closer to 225 as I recall. The rule of thumb for power cost is $1/watt/year, so that is another reason Opterons are popular for large clusters -- the savings in power consumption alone are enough to pay a good salary.

So yes, substantially cooler and typically faster.

[MD_Willington_1976]

They have enabled hyperthreading "optimization", ie enabled HT bit recognition.

Any CPU that runs X86 code can have hyperthreading "optimization".

[MD_Willington_1976]

Sempron is based on 2 cores, K7 & k8

The K7 or socket 462 cpu aka socket A Sempron is simply a socket A cpu with the MP bridge connected (see specifications), they come with 256k L2 (except the Sempron 3000+ = full 512K L2), 32bit support.

The K8 Semprons are based on the A64 architecture, are socket 754, have cool & quiet and the non execute bit, 32bit support.

Here's a little known trick about the Socket A Sempron, you can use them in any dual socket A configuration straight out of the box, you can pick up 2 Sempron 3000+'s cheaper tha 2 MP2800+'s, the only draw back is the Semprons will only go to 1.6GHz instead of the 2.13 of the MP2800+'s

Sempron specifications

http://forums.amd.com/index.php?showtopic=23474

A64's will support 32 & 64 bit processes, at this time they come in Socket 754, 939, & 940. With a few new sockets on the way.

The price of the socket A & 754 products is going up as production ceases or heads inot different directions, socket 939, 940 prices are coming down as production ramps up.

Come visit us at the AMD Corporate processor support forum and have a look around or post any general questions.

http://forums.amd.com/index.php?act=idx

MD Willington
Group: Moderators
Posts: 5,237

[Liberal Classic]

I believe the real scoop for AMD was releasing backwards-compatible 64-bit processors. Both AMD Opteron and AMD Athlon-64 will run 32-bit applications without modification. In the case of Opteron, it is positioned as a server chip to compete with Itanium. Even though it will run 32-bit applications, the performance will not be as good as some of the desktop processors because it is optimized for 64-bit instructions. The Athlon-64 on the other hand is marketed as a consumer processor and has both excellent 32-bit performance as well as 64-bit capability all on one chip. This is the market niche where Intel was lacking. I believe Intel will be releasing (if they haven't already) a Xeon 64-bit/32-bit capable processor. I think Intel made a serious error in believing that the world would stampede to upgrade to the Itanium, which has a very similar though not completely backwards compatible instruction set. The Intel's instruction set badly needed a housecleaning, but Intel has made a reputation for backwards compatibility. I can take software developed on a 386 and run it on any P4. I believe customers, particularly the consumer market, have come to expect it. That's why Itanium was a business-class server-only processor. Intel had the misfortune of releasing a non-backwards-compatible server processor when everyone was tightening their belts.

[Liberal Classic]

I think there's something like an inverse-Moore's Law at work, which says the faster computers get the more bloated the software applications become and therefore the net increase in computing speed is zero.

[Paul C. Jesup]

That is interesting to know, thank you.

[VeniVidiVici]

Bump for later.

[Abcdefg]

8-Way AMD Opteron Servers to Show Up This Week.
AMD Opteron Gains 8P Designs
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20040405044711.html

[Abcdefg]

From the shrink wrap box: "Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition supports up to eight CPU's on one server."

[Abcdefg]

Tyan Quad Zeon mainboard:
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8qspro.html

[Abcdefg]

Ooop! Make that quad AMD CPUs

[1L]

I noticed you got several serious responses. Even though the joke wasn't THAT funny, it was still a joke and shows that too few people have a sense of humor.