Time for New Server CPUs!

While the network fabric and optimized motherboard designs were the key features of the micro server, it is clear that there is room for a “specialized micro server CPU” between the current anemic Atoms and the low power Xeons and Opterons.  AMD announced last week the quadcore Opteron-X series, based upon the Jaguar core.   The quadcore X1150 is claimed to perform twice as fast as the current Atoms at 2 GHz, but needs 17W to achieve this. You can lower the power usage by fiddling with a p-state cap in the BIOS. Unfortunately the 9W number that so many publications talked about without further commentary is only achieved at 1 GHz. At that clockspeed the performance per Watt advantage will be negligible compared to the 2 GHz Atom S1260 at 8.5W. The best performance/watt will be achieved somewhere between 1.5 and 2 GHz, but the advantage that the new Opteron-X has over the Atom is not as large as many people thought. Unless of course you can make use of the floating point processing power of the integrated Radeon core in the Opteron X-1250 APU.

But although the new Opteron-X can not offer a massive performance/watt improvement over the Atom, it is a much more attractive micro server chip. It can deliver the “good enough” horsepower that an Atom can not deliver. But then again, the current low power Ivy Bridge based Xeon, the Xeon E3-1220LV2 was already a very good micro server chip.  But those who think that AMD will be contend with an underdog role once again, are wrong.  AMD has a pretty ambitious roadmap to attack this market.

Low power server CPUs Berlin: Radeon mixed with Steamroller
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  • JohanAnandtech - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link

    thx. fixed :-)
  • Denithor - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link

    "It is clear that the micro server market gets the lionshare of AMD’s attention."
    lion's share

    "While the Opteron-X, Opteron 6300 and “Berlin” CPU will all face stiff completion from the Intel alternatives."
    competition

    "but it looks like Intel will probably have the upperhand in most traditional server markets."
    upper hand

    Wow, did you guys not edit this piece before going live?
  • JohanAnandtech - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link

    To be honest, I wrongly assumed that I still had some time left, then discovered that the deadline was already a few hours ago and just hurried. So I humbly thank you for making this article more readable for our readers :-)
  • JDG1980 - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link

    I'm hoping we will see some relatively inexpensive Mini-ITX Kyoto boards. An Opteron-X paired with ECC RAM could make a good, reliable platform for a DIY firewall or low-end NAS.
  • iwod - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link

    I didn't known the 9W for X1150 was for 1Ghz Core. If so i guess Intel will have Zero competition for Atom Servers. Intel will want to get as much market shares between now to end of 2014 when ARM will have a low power server product. Seattle seems interesting, I wonder if it is possible to have 4x 16 Core Seattle in a server. Seems like a good candidate for Hosting environment.
  • SuperMecha - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link

    Remember that the X1150 has 4 cores vs the 2 for the Atom chip. It also has much better IPC and support for ECC and 32GB (DDR3-1600) of RAM vs only 8GB (DDR3-1333) for the S1260.
  • JDG1980 - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link

    The Centertron (S1200-series) Atoms already have ECC support. But the performance is still subpar, so AMD will have an advantage there. Also, as far as I have been able to determine, there is only one Centertron board available to DIYers (the Supermicro X9SBAA-F) and it's hard to find and quite pricey (>$250). If AMD could get Mini-ITX Kyoto boards out at the $150-$200 price point, this would be a quite attractive option for small servers.
  • iwod - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link

    So how would next Gen Intel Arch compared to Jaguar? Since Intel has ( I think ) Hyper Threading in their Next Gen as well, so a Dual Core isn't so far off from Quad Core, And it seems Intel can ups the Ghz a bit more then the X1150.

    I would love to see some comparison done.
  • milli - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link

    "Berlin will use the same 28 nm process technology as the Opteron x1150 and x2150"

    Jaguar is made at TSMC.
    Rumors for Steamroller derived processors point to production at Globalfoundries. Most go as far as claiming that it will be FD-SOI (see STMicroelectronics). That makes sense because 28nm bulk would be a step back compared to 32nm SOI. I don't think AMD is going to stop using SOI for their high-end CPU's anytime soon.
    Either way, be sure that they won't be using the same process technology (even though they're both 28nm) for these very different CPU's.
  • rocketbuddha - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link

    Please...
    AMD specifically said in the DEC 2012 WSA amendment with Global Foundries. It is in Page 6 of the 11 Page PDF titles

    <quote>
    Separately, AMD will move to standard 28nm process technology and significantly reduce reimbursements to GF for future research and development costs.

    We anticipate these savings will be approximately ~$20M per quarter during the next several years which also helps achieve our OPEX target of $450M by Q3 2013
    <end quote>

    Read again and again. The standard technology at 28nm is Bulk HKMG. not SOI.

    Even GF's powerpoint roadmap states that the 20nm as well as 14XM process will both be successors to 28nm Bulk HKMG will continue to be Bulk HKMG and bulk with FinFETs respectively. And the SOI line stops with 28nm FD-SOI (in collaboration with STM) and just a ambiguous dotted line for the future.

    With FDSOI we still do not know if GF has agreed to manufacture FDSOI parts in large volume. All we know is the license agreement between ST Micro and GF.

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