Mediante il comunicato stampa di seguito allegato, AMD ha annunciato la disponibilità su larga scala dei suoi processori quad-core Opteron di nuova generazione, prodotti con un processo tecnologico a 45 nm e spesso citati con il nome in codice di "Shanghai".

I chip, già inclusi in alcuni server high-end realizzati da system builder di rilevanza internazionale come Dell, Sun e HP, hanno un valore dell'ACP (Average Computer Power, si tratta di un indice, ideato dalla stessa AMD, per la misurazione della potenza media dissipata dal complesso costituito dal processore, dal chipset e dal bus HyperTransport, ndr) pari a 75W ed una frequenza di clock per core che va da un minimo di 2.3GHz ad un massimo di 2.7GHz. Durante il primo trimestre del prossimo anno, AMD lancerà, inoltre, varianti ancora più evolute delle cpu Shangai, gli Opteron HE (ACP di 55W) e gli Opteron SE (ACP di 105W).

In accordo al produttore, i nuovi Opteron sono in grado di offrire, rispetto alla precedente generazione, un boost prestazionale pari al 35%, nel caso migliore, a fronte di un consumo di potenza che si riduce fino al 35% in condizioni di idle. Il conseguimento di tali risultati è stato reso possibile, tra l'altro, dalla maggiorazione della memoria cache di terzo livello o L3, che è pari a 6MB, dal supporto delle DDR2 a 800Mhz e della nuova AMD Direct Connect Architecture con tecnologia HyperTransport 3.0 (per quest'ultima si dovrà attendere, però, il secondo trimestre del 2009).

AMD ha colto l'occasione per sottolineare che parte delle soluzioni adottate nei suoi Shangai saranno incluse anche nei futuri chip per desktop, che saranno parte integrante della nuova architettura Dragon, destinata a succedere alla ben nota Spider. I primi Phenom 2 X4 quad-core saranno sul mercato nel primo trimestre del 2009, accompagnati dai chipset della linea 700 e dalle gpu della gamma Radeon HD 4000, nel segno di Dragon, appunto.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- November 13, 2008 --AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced widespread availability of its 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor, delivering up to 35 percent more performance with up to a 35 percent decrease in power consumption at idle.² With IT decision-makers looking to do more with less, the newest Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor can help drive data center efficiencies and reduce complexities with innovations that offer superior virtualization performance and increased performance-per-watt. Global OEMs are expected to immediately offer enterprise and SMB customers more than 25 systems, available between launch today and the end of the year, based on the 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor, codenamed "Shanghai."

"Flawless execution in bringing the 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor to market early results in new performance leadership on x86 servers," said Randy Allen, senior vice president, Computing Solutions Group, AMD. "In concert with our OEM and solution provider partners, AMD is addressing the need for enterprises to focus on their bottom line while giving them the innovations they need to build for the future. This enhanced AMD Opteron processor represents the most dramatic performance and performance-per-watt increases for AMD products since the introduction of the world’s first x86 dual-core processors by AMD nearly four years ago. Simply put, the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor is the right technology at the right time."

Performance Leadership that Addresses Urgent Business Requirements Today
Data center managers are facing escalating pressures from the computing demands of enterprise workloads, like web serving and database applications, and the need to do more with less in the current IT spending climate. Emerging technologies such as cloud computing and virtualization, which has posted 60 percent year over year growth³ in the second quarter of this year, are being rapidly deployed but require a balanced solution. The latest Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors further enhance AMD’s unique Direct Connect Architecture and offer a superior balanced and scalable solution to support today’s increasingly heterogeneous computing environments.

Unsurpassed Virtualization Performance
Through improvements to AMD’s Direct Connect Architecture and innovative AMD-Virtualization (AMD-V) technology, 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors build on AMD’s legacy as the virtualization platform of choice, with the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor already powering nine global OEM servers specifically designed for virtualization. The new processors deliver faster "world switch" time, which enhances virtual machine efficiency, and feature improved Rapid Virtualization Indexing, AMD’s innovation in AMD-V that reduces the overhead associated with software virtualization.

Unparalleled Price/Performance
The enhanced Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor delivers some of the most dramatic performance and performance-per-watt gains ever between AMD Opteron processor generations through the following:

• Significantly higher CPU clock frequencies in the same power envelope in comparison to previous generations of the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor. This is the result of processor design enhancements, industry-leading AMD 45nm immersion lithography technology, and strong execution on processor design and validation.
• A 200 percent increase in Level 3 cache size to 6MB to help speed memory-intensive applications like virtualization, database, and Java.
• DDR2-800 memory support which delivers greater memory bandwidth than current AMD Opteron processors, and remains significantly more energy-efficient than Fully-Buffered DIMM technology found in competitive offerings.
• Upcoming enhancements to the revolutionary AMD Direct Connect Architecture with coherent HyperTransport 3.0 technology, providing up to 17.6GB/s of bandwidth for processor-to-processor communication planned for Q2 2009.

Unequaled Energy-Efficiency
Already offering industry-leading x86 server processor performance-per-watt, 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors draw up to 35 percent less power at idle compared to the previous generation while delivering up to 35 percent more performance, and feature a number of new power-saving technologies. AMD Smart Fetch technology can help reduce power consumption by allowing cores to enter a "halt" state during processing idle times with zero impact on application performance and compliments AMD CoolCore technology, which reduces power to unused sections of each processor to further reduce power consumption.

In similarly configured platforms, the enhanced Quad-Core AMD Opteron 75W processor-based platform offers up to a 30 percent performance to power ratio advantage over the 50W processor-based competitive platform. For these platforms, the Quad-Core AMD Opteron Model 2380 processor-based platform only used 138W at Active Idle compared to the Quad-Core Intel processor-based platform using 179W at Active Idle. The Quad-Core AMD Opteron Model 2380 processor-based platform had a SPECpower_ssj2008 overall 731 ssj_ops/Watt, (308,089 ssj_ops @ 100% target load). The Quad-Core Intel processor-based platform had a SPECpower_ssj2008 result of 561 overall ssj_ops/Watt (267,804 ssj_ops @ 100% target load).⁴

Unmatched Platform Stability
45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors continue AMD’s leadership as the only x86 server microprocessor manufacturer to serve 2P to 8P servers with a single architecture, while maintaining socket and thermal compatibility with the previous generation of Quad-Core and Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors. This helps customers reduce platform management complexity and costs and increase data center uptime and productivity. These new processors fit into the existing Socket 1207 architecture and are also planned for use in the upcoming "Istanbul" processor, the next generation of AMD Opteron processors.

Global OEM Support
Due in part to the AMD Opteron processor's status as the industry’s most manageable and consistent x86 server platform, global OEM and system-builder partners enjoyed a rapid validation process and are expected to begin shipping their next-generation systems powered by the enhanced Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor this month. The number of available enhanced Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor-based systems is expected to grow rapidly throughout this quarter and the first quarter of 2009.

"Customers can drive down costs through new "Shanghai"-based HP ProLiant servers that set new levels of power efficiency and performance," said Paul Gottsegen, vice president, marketing, Industry Standard Servers, HP. "HP has experienced unparalleled success over the past four years working with AMD in bringing AMD Opteron processor-based platforms to customers of all sizes. Early results indicate "Shanghai" is a winner."

"Sun's innovative systems design together with Solaris and the enhanced Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor creates an incredibly powerful, scalable, energy efficient x64 platform for virtualization and consolidation," said John Fowler, executive vice president, Systems Group, Sun Microsystems. "Sun's servers based on the enhanced Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor can handle the most complex data sets and scale as the data center grows, and with generation-to-generation platform continuity, customers can be confident the new systems will fit seamlessly into existing AMD Opteron deployments."

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