AMD Announces Its First 64-bit ARM Server CPU

[movieman]

Have you seen a photo of the board? The heatsink on the CPU is a very tiny passive heat sink. The size of a postage stamp, and no fan. That's pretty damn efficient. Based on the heatsink size, I'm guessing it is no more than ~6 watts. That's pretty damn power efficient.

My dual-core (four thread) Atom server CPU from 2008 is 8W. So while 6W would be a good TDP for a home server CPU, I'd want to know how peformance compares to an Atom first.

[curaga]

My dual-core (four thread) Atom server CPU from 2008 is 8W. So while 6W would be a good TDP for a home server CPU, I'd want to know how peformance compares to an Atom first.

They claim it outdoes Jaguar at the same clock, and Jaguar outdoes Atom.

[schmidtbag]

They claim it outdoes Jaguar at the same clock, and Jaguar outdoes Atom.

I would believe that. If this Opteron is A15 based or better, then it will definitely be better than Atom and maybe even Celeron.

@PMtorsionbar28
No, I personally haven't seen the board for this yet, but that's exciting to know it can run off passive cooling. On the other hand, depending on how this is mounted, AMD might expect the rack or casing to supply the fans. The CPU probably runs efficient enough to not rely on direct cooling but I doubt it could run at 100% 24/7 without some form of controlled air.

[Kivada]

I would believe that. If this Opteron is A15 based or better, then it will definitely be better than Atom and maybe even Celeron.

It's based on far better then the 32 bit Cortex-A15 http://www.arm.com/products/processo...cortex-a15.php These Opteron A1100s are based on the new 64 bit Cortex-A57 http://www.arm.com/products/processo...-processor.php so they should be significantly faster then anything we've previously see out of ARM.

[movieman]

Sounds useful then, particularly if the server boards come with a sensible number of SATA ports.

[wizard69]

ARM is very slow at heavy tasks. Also, what about software compatibility?

This is not your normal 32 bit ARM chip. Rather it is a 64 bit ARM implementation. One site has it registering 2-3 times faster than AMDs Jaguar cores. Obviously with AMD shipping systems is what counts, but this isn't anything auto sneeze at. It will be real interesting when hardware ships.

[wizard69]

With specs like these, it would give a nice workstation too. 8 cores, lots of ram, pcie3, sata and gigabit, add an nvidia gpu and things could get interesting...

Yes it would. The SoC is just a bit short on PCI express lanes but would make an interesting low cost high performance system.

Need to start searching the net for more robust details, I just wonder what else is in the chip. Beyond serving as a work station this would be a nice chip to build a media / home server around. Somebody like Apple could make a high performance version of Apple TV which could pass as a gaming system or frankly multipurpose hardware.

[Kamikaze]

.

On Linux, supporting a new CPU platform is mostly only a recompile away, due to most source being available.
Other distributions too have supported various flavors of ARM (OpenSuse has been shown running on ARM netbooks, Debian has an ARM spin too, etc.)
The only thing that won't run as-is on it are binary-only software, which nowadays is mostly Flash. And nobody in their right ming needs flash on a file server.
.

I just wanted to point out that I run an allwinner A20 device as a Linux box at home and was surprised to find flash binaries that work for it in my repos on ArchLinux ARM and not gnash or other foss reimplementations, but actual flash.

[Kivada]

Yes it would. The SoC is just a bit short on PCI express lanes but would make an interesting low cost high performance system.

Need to start searching the net for more robust details, I just wonder what else is in the chip. Beyond serving as a work station this would be a nice chip to build a media / home server around. Somebody like Apple could make a high performance version of Apple TV which could pass as a gaming system or frankly multipurpose hardware.

Well considering that it'll support HSA, since pretty much every ARM manufacturer has signed up with AMD to expand OpenCL and GPGPU capabilities, and almost assuredly have an AMD GPU built in to make use of it, I'm hoping its at least as fast as the HD8330, which is AMD's fastest low power x86 APU GPU.

These should make for some interesting little machines. I wonder if the OpenPandora guys will update to fit one of these tiny monsters in it...

On your other point, I've always wondered why Apple never merged the AppleTV with the MacMini, that would have made it a much more capable HTPC system then what it was/is.

[curaga]

If it had a GPU, they would've mentioned it, afterall it's one of AMD's selling points. So this board is both server margins and no GPU, not ideal for home use. But if they have any sense, they will make home boards too, with GPUs.