AMD Launches 8 and 12-Core Opteron CPUs

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AMD is beefing up its server CPUs with new 8- and 12-core offerings.

AMD announced Monday that its 8 and 12 core x86 Opteron 6000 Series "Magny-Cours" CPUs have been deployed to take over the 2P and value 4P server market. The latter processor doubles the number of cores in the previous-generation 6-core Opteron server chip, coughing up twice the processing level while providing an 88-percent increase in integer performance and a 119-percent increase in floating point performance.

"As AMD has done before, we are again redefining the server market based on current customer requirements," said Patrick Patla, vice president and general manager, Server and Embedded Divisions, AMD. "The AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform signals a new era of server value, significantly disrupts today’s server economics and provides the performance-per-watt, value and consistency customers demand for their real-world data center workloads."

On an individual basis, the per-chip pricing will range from $455 to $1,386--the latter pricetag will be affixed to the 2.3 GHz 12-core Opteron 6176 LE. The only other processor in the 4-digit range will be the 12-core 2.2 GHz Opteron 6174, costing $1,165. For admins who want to stick with 8 cores, the 2.4 GHz Opteron 6136 will be the most expensive, costing $744.

The company said that vendors such as HP, Dell, Acer, Cray, and SGI will soon offer servers based on the two new Opteron 6000's.

Kevin Parrish
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31 Comments Comment from the forums
  • nickmtnman
    That will be remarkable. Look forward to the time when Programs such as Revit will utilize more than 8 cores in it's rendering capabilities.
    Reply
  • dman3k
    As a software developer, I feel guilty about still writing programs for single cores...
    Reply
  • gpj
    dman3k .. I feel your guilt, but the reality is most of the software I write would benefit at most from 2 cores and with today's processors 98% of the time 1 core is sufficient to keep up with the speed of the user (and I write software for other programmers who are usually, though not always, some of the most hard core users). Modern servers need multiple cores to do multiple different tasks.

    The people who need to get on with multiple core development are starting to do that, finally.
    Reply
  • lukeeu
    I'd like to see 4 of those in a server mobo. 5000$ for 48 cores. "$ make -j50" :pt1cable:
    Reply
  • Netherscourge
    How about we max out Quad-Core CPUs before we start delegating more code?

    Look at how much was accomplished on just single-core CPUs over the years. Now we have Dual and Quad-Cores, yet the entire industry is already taking the easy route and just dividing up the work across multiple cores, as opposed to good old-fashioned optimization...

    I weep for today's programmers. In my day, we had 3 months to get a game to run on 1 CPU AND it had to work out of the box! No patches or updates! Our company's entire reputation was based on the final, retail release of our games!

    You kids got it easy these days. You can ship unfinished code and just update it whenever you want, using the "online experience may vary" crutch.

    (doh, sorry - went off on a rant there. move along)

    :)

    Reply
  • builderbobftw
    There was a giveway here a while back,
    Reply
  • welshmousepk
    NetherscourgeHow about we max out Quad-Core CPUs before we start delegating more code?Look at how much was accomplished on just single-core CPUs over the years. Now we have Dual and Quad-Cores, yet the entire industry is already taking the easy route and just dividing up the work across multiple cores, as opposed to good old-fashioned optimization...I weep for today's programmers. In my day, we had 3 months to get a game to run on 1 CPU AND it had to work out of the box! No patches or updates! Our company's entire reputation was based on the final, retail release of our games!You kids got it easy these days. You can ship unfinished code and just update it whenever you want, using the "online experience may vary" crutch.(doh, sorry - went off on a rant there. move along)
    in THIS day, development cycles are longer and much more costly. developers are expected to put in much more work, and deal with much more complex issues. as a result we have much more advanced software, that is being constantly updated free of charge, and most importantly it can scale to more powerful multi-core systems allowing enthusiasts to benefit from increased performance more than ever.

    don't rant about the 'good old days' in an industry driven by hard work and immensely talented individuals. the industry is stronger now than its ever been, so don't bash progress because you think devs have it easy.
    Reply
  • Emperus
    Looks like AMD is having no trouble squeezing out cores.. Although i cannot stop myself thinking about the superior INTEL counterparts which, when they arrive, would cause AMD to lower down the prices and wave the better price/performance flag.. Not a bad tactics i guess though.. It pays after all to be the first in the line..
    Reply
  • mlopinto2k1
    lukeeuI'd like to see 4 of those in a server mobo. 5000$ for 48 cores. "$ make -j50"Why not just spend that money on a mid-entry MacPro? lol
    Reply
  • pharge
    NetherscourgeHow about we max out Quad-Core CPUs before we start delegating more code?
    ugh... if you are talking about desktop/laptop CPU... you are right about it.

    But here we are talking about Opteron which is targeting on the server market. At the server level, software optimized for multi-trend, multi-core, or parallel processing is very common.
    Reply