Ampere Announces Altra Max 128-Core Server Processor

Back in March Ampere Computing detailed their next-gen Altra ARM-based server CPU with up to 80 cores per socket. Today the company is revealing more roadmap details including the forthcoming Altra Max that offers 128 cores per socket.

We were already quite eager to get our hands on Ampere Altra when it was just known as topping out at 80 cores and significant performance and power efficiency advantages over existing Ampere eMAG hardware, but now the prospects are even more exciting with the Altra Max that will top out at 128 cores.

The Altra Max is socket-compatible with the 80-core Altra. The Altra Max will begin sampling in Q4'2020. Like the Altra, the Altra Max remains focused on delivering leading cloud-native performance. Similarly, both the Altra and Altra Max are 7nm processors with eight channels of DDR4-3200 support and up to 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes while supporting up to two sockets per system.

Ampere Computing also reaffirmed their commitment to delivering next-gen 5nm server CPUs in 2022 while their test chip is being taped out this year.

That's it for today with this Ampere road-map update while hopefully this year we will be able to get our hands on the Ampere Altra for extensive Linux benchmarking to see how this cloud-native Arm 7nm server CPU stacks up against the latest-generation AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon CPUs.

It's been quite the week for Arm as on top of this 128-core Altra Max announcement today was the news yesterday of the world's fastest super-computer on the TOP500 list being powered by the Fujitsu A64FX and separately the news of Apple moving away from Intel to their in-house CPUs for future laptop/desktop models.