Warsaw | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Tue, 28 Oct 2014 03:22:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png Warsaw | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 AMD hires former exec from Dell to head enterprise, embedded, semi-custom businesses https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/dell-hires-former-exec-from-dell-to-head-enterprise-embedded-semi-custom-businesses/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/dell-hires-former-exec-from-dell-to-head-enterprise-embedded-semi-custom-businesses/#comments Tue, 28 Oct 2014 02:23:49 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=218777 Advanced Micro Devices on Monday announced that Forrest Norrod, a former vice president and general manager of Dell’s server business, has joined the company as senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s enterprise, embedded and semi-custom (EESC) business group. “Forrest is an industry veteran whose strong track record of establishing and growing businesses strengthens …

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Advanced Micro Devices on Monday announced that Forrest Norrod, a former vice president and general manager of Dell’s server business, has joined the company as senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s enterprise, embedded and semi-custom (EESC) business group.

“Forrest is an industry veteran whose strong track record of establishing and growing businesses strengthens our leadership team,” said Lisa Su, chief executive officer of AMD. “Forrest’s unique combination of engineering, business management and technical expertise at both the chip and system level make him ideally suited to lead AMD into an expanded set of markets where our differentiated technology assets provide a competitive advantage.”

Mr. Norrod will be responsible for managing all aspects of strategy, business management, engineering, and sales for AMD’s EESC business. Keeping in mind that at present AMD does not have competitive solutions for high-performance enterprise servers, the new executive will have, among other things, promote solutions for low-power servers, including Opteron processors based on ARM architecture.

amd_opteron_6300_g34

It is interesting to note that earlier this year Forrest Norrod was not exactly a fan of micro-servers. In an interview he said that he was not sure about the future of ARM-based servers because software vendors and data-center owners had not made decisions to support and use low-power server chips. As it appears, among other things, Mr. Norrod will have to convince server software developers to support ARM.

“The book's not written yet,” said Mr. Norrod in an interview. “It is not clear. If end-user demand is there, we can certainly fill it. […] It's always going to come down to software. […] There is still a brutal, brutal competition among those guys for what will be a small market at the onset. The battle will be to demonstrate the value of ARM. Is it large enough against x86 [to convince organizations] to support that second instruction set in the data center? We'll have a pretty good idea how it settles out by the middle of 2016.”

It is noteworthy that Forrest Norrod is not the first server executive from Dell hired by AMD to oversee its servers business. Back in 2003 AMD hired Patrick Patla, a former server executive from Dell and DEC. Mr. Patla helped to make Opteron popular among server makers. He left AMD for Samsung in 2012.

Prior to Dell, Mr. Norrod ran the integrated x86 CPU business at Cyrix and National Semiconductor.

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KitGuru Says: While it is definitely nice to see a new leader at AMD, it should be kept in mind that he will have to sell hardware that is significantly behind competition or products that have not become popular on the market yet. As a result, do not expect AMD’s server business to thrive because of Mr. Norrod till 2016, when AMD is expected to roll-out all-new Opteron chips based on the new micro-architecture known as Zen (or Xen?) and ARM servers finally take off (or not).

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AMD officially announces Opteron ‘Warsaw’ microprocessors https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-officially-announces-opteron-warsaw-microprocessors/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-officially-announces-opteron-warsaw-microprocessors/#respond Wed, 22 Jan 2014 12:49:06 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=173461 Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday introduced two new server-class Opteron central processing units (CPUs) based on the code-named “Warsaw” design. The new chips boast slightly better power efficiency compared to predecessors, but feature similar performance and a set of technologies compared to existing code-named “Abu Dhabi” multi-core processors. Initially, there will be only two Opteron …

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Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday introduced two new server-class Opteron central processing units (CPUs) based on the code-named “Warsaw” design. The new chips boast slightly better power efficiency compared to predecessors, but feature similar performance and a set of technologies compared to existing code-named “Abu Dhabi” multi-core processors. Initially, there will be only two Opteron “Warsaw” models available.

AMD Opteron “Warsaw” 6300-series central processing units will feature two six-core or eight-core dies to provide a total of 12 or 16 x86 cores based on the “Piledriver” micro-architecture. The new microprocessors pack 12MB or 16MB L2 cache, 16MB of L3 cache, quad-channel DDR3 memory controller (with support for up to 1866MHz clock-rate), four HyperTransport 6.4GT/s links and so on. The chips are compatible with socket G34 (LGA1944) infrastructure and can work in 2P or 4P configurations.

The code-named “Warsaw” chips feature a number of chip design optimizations implemented to improve their power efficiency compared to the “Abu Dhabi” multi-core CPUs that make them more competitive in certain segments of the server market. The new processors are made using 32nm SOI process technology by GlobalFoundries, just like their predecessors.

Opteron_6300_Series_hand_white_background

According to AMD, the new Opteron 6300-series “Warsaw” central processing units are optimized to handle the heavily virtualized workloads found in enterprise environments, including the more complex compute needs of data analysis, xSQL and traditional databases, at optimal performance per-watt, per-dollar.

“With the continued move to virtualized environments for more efficient server utilization, more and more workloads are limited by memory capacity and I/O bandwidth,” said Suresh Gopalakrishnan, corporate vice president and general manager of server business unit at AMD. “The Opteron 6338P and 6370P processors are server CPUs optimized to deliver improved performance per-watt for virtualized private cloud deployments with less power and at lower cost points.”

Initially, AMD will offer two products based on the “Warsaw” architecture: 12-core Opteron 6338P (2.30GHz default clock-speed, 2.50GHz P1 frequency, 2.80GHz P0 frequency, 28MB total cache, 99W thermal design power) and 16-core Opteron 6370P (2.0GHz default clock-speed, 2.20GHz P1 frequency, 2.50GHz P0 frequency, 32MB total cache, 99W thermal design power). Eventually, the lineup will likely be extended with new offerings.

amd_opteron_6300_warsaw_specs

The first two processors from the “Warsaw” family look like specially-configured chips for particular customers and systems. It is expected that eventually the family will be expanded and then it will be interesting to see by how much AMD will be able to cut power consumption of its high-performance Opteron 6300-series and microprocessors that currently sport 115W – 140W thermal design power. Alternatively, AMD will be able to boost clock-rates of chips aimed at the higher-end of the server market.

The new AMD Opteron 6338P and 6370P processors are available today through Penguin and Avnet system integrators and have been qualified for servers from Sugon and Supermicro at a starting price of $377 and $598, respectively.

KitGuru Says: While AMD can win new server designs with the Opteron “Warsaw” microprocessors, it is hardly unlikely that the chips which are essentially over a year old can help the company to regain any significant part of the server market in general.

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AMD 16-core Opteron ‘Warsaw’ already available for $663 https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-16-core-opteron-warsaw-already-available-for-663/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-16-core-opteron-warsaw-already-available-for-663/#respond Mon, 20 Jan 2014 22:18:54 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=173107 Although AMD’s new Opteron microprocessors code-named “Warsaw” have not been announced yet, select online stores are already taking pre-orders on the new chips. As it appears, the new multi-core central processing units s for high-end servers will not be too expensive, despite their improvements over existing products. AMD Opteron 6300-series “Warsaw” processors designed for 2-way …

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Although AMD’s new Opteron microprocessors code-named “Warsaw” have not been announced yet, select online stores are already taking pre-orders on the new chips. As it appears, the new multi-core central processing units s for high-end servers will not be too expensive, despite their improvements over existing products.

AMD Opteron 6300-series “Warsaw” processors designed for 2-way and 4-way servers with socket G34 are based on the “Piledriver” micro-architecture and in many ways resemble existing code-named “Abu Dhabi” chips. Just like current Opteron 6300-series, the new “Warsaw” chips carry 12-16 cores, 16MB of L3 cache, quad-channel DDR3 memory controller and so on. However, the new chips are expected to feature considerably improved performance-per-watt over today’s AMD Opteron 6300 family.

amd_opteron_6300_g34

AMD is projected to officially launch the new “Warsaw” processors later in the first quarter of 2014, but already today ShopBLT online store is offering to pre-order 12-core Opteron 6338 HE (99W TDP) for $421 and 16-core Opteron 6370 HE (99W TDP) for $663. At present the microprocessors are not in stock, but will likely become available shortly.

Exact specifications of the new processors are unknown, but since they belong to HE [high efficiency] family of Opteron processors, it is likely that the feature moderate clock-speeds in a bid to reduce power consumption, notes CPU-World.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

KitGuru Says: The new Opteron 6300-series “Warsaw” processors will hardly bring any breakthroughs, therefore, will not help AMD to boost its server market share. Still there is a good news too: since “Warsaw” closely resembles “Abu Dhabi” and is even made using the same 32nm SOI process technology at Globalfoundries, transition to the new design will likely happen quickly.

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