AMD Shanghai Opteron CPUs On Linux

From our initial testing of AMD's Shanghai Opteron processors they bring a number of advantages to the table. The Shanghai that is built upon a 45nm SOI process features a larger L3 cache and other architectural improvements that yield significant advantages over AMD's earlier Barcelona. In this article we just compared the performance of the Opteron 2356 to that of the Opteron 2384, and while there is a minor difference in the clock speed, the Shanghai-based processors exhibited excellent performance capabilities. In particular, the GraphicsMagick, GCC, and Sunflow tests with the Shanghai faired very well.

The AMD Shanghai Opteron processors had no problems running atop recent Linux distributions, as we would expect from server/workstation parts, and the experience was pleasant. The two Opteron 2384 CPUs also had no problems running with the Tyan Thunder n3600M motherboard once we upgraded its BIOS.

Succeeding Shanghai will be the six-core Istanbul CPUs later on in 2009. It is anticipated that the Istanbul design will be quite similar to Shanghai but with two additional processing cores attached.

We will be back with more on AMD's Shanghai Opteron processors when we deliver our quad CPU Linux results. Discuss our initial Shanghai Linux results in the Phoronix Forums.