Opteron Month!

Well, this is it guys. The month of Opteron, no more delays (or so it seems). THG hopefully will be reviewing them soon.

I don't expect top performance though since they will have only 1.6GHZ max models. However a 40-50% IPC boost is expect so hopefully they will behave with strengh. I am eager to see the SSE2 results in Lightwave as well.

Disappointment or a road to be paved?
Who knows!

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<A HREF="http://hardocp.com" target="_new">[H]</A> is showing a rumor (news item timestamp April 3, 2003 2:29 PM CST) that Opteron motherboards will not support an AGP slot. So even if THG reviews the Opteron, the benchmarks will likely be limited to the non-video type. Like, forget 3DMark, CAD, games, etc.

Also, since this is a server processor I don't expect a slew of web sites benchmarking this thing. Most will probably just write a technology overview and wait for the A64 to do real benchmarking. I do expect THG, Anandtech, and Ace's to give it a thorough grilling however.

Ritesh

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by ritesh_laud on 04/03/03 04:31 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

And the Opteron date is 22nd April

<b><A HREF="http://geocities.com/spitfire_x86" target="_new"> My Rig</A></b>

I don´t expect many people will buy the Opteron as a performance desktop, particularly if lacking an AGP port. Thinking the A64 is the Duron in this line paints a bright picture for AMD´s future, but the way things are going, that seems to be a little too optimistic. That´s just my opinion - could be wrong, of course.

So maybe Opteron and A64 are not that much architecturally different - but hey, neither are Xeons and P4s or MPs and XPs. And people still see them as different processors.

THG in the past reviewed Xeons aplenty (with HT I believe). I have no doubt Opteron will be reviewed, since it was discussed so much in too many articles on THG. They barely covered Itanium II, so it makes sense they don't show interest in reviewing one. They will mainly review it against the top of the line Xeons most likely.

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Opteron without AGP slot would be an ugly way of AMD to disable gamers. Hopefully this wouldn't be the case.

Note the <i>in the past</i>. Yes, it was indeed in the past, because they haven´t reviewed any multi-processor configuration for more than <b>one year</b> now. In this industry, things change quickly! Their last review pitted 2x2000+ MP against 2 Xeons 2.2Ghz. Nowadays, one 3.06Ghz P4 with HT renders as fast as that 2x2000MP they reviewed! We have the 3.06Ghz Xeon and MP 2600+! They don´t review multi-processor configurations any more, quite simply... And their lack of interest in Itanium insults my intelligence. Give me one good reason not to do so! Look at extremetech, they did show interest in Itanium´s architecture. The smaller AMD gets complete coverage, though. Protect David against Goliath! Talk about an open mind!... If we´re talking about 64 bit, then go all the way. I´d like it if some reasonable words about Itanium were included in the Opteron reviews this month. Why not? I´m not saying Itanium will compete against Opteron, and I don´t pretend to know the answer as to performance comparisons, but I´d be interested to find out, that´s all.

Try <A HREF="http://www.2cpu.com" target="_new">2CPU</A> and or <A HREF="http://www.Aceshardware.com" target="_new">Aceshardware</A>. You'll get more reviews on server type chips on those websites.

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

Does anyone think it will be possible to extrapolate the performance of A-64 by seeing the Opteron benchmarks? I realize A-64 will likely be clocked a fair amount higher than Opteron.



<-----Insert witty sig line here.

Twitch don't hold your breath with AMD!!! A64 may come out the same as Opteron or slower. You know AMD new chips they release have no speed.

There about 99% that opeteron wont be on the retail channel for at lease a year like IA-64 is only for OEM Super micro and deerfiled may change this it the pefect blade server and super micro is a retail channel mobo producer.

2 there is no boards up to now with only 1 cpu socket only for sever as Intel PLacer dont have a AGP slot but a PCI-X support.

3 The cheapest may be around 1000 buck each the same price as the cheapest Madison (11XX).All in US dollar.

Benchmark will be made be OEM systemes builder and be offer at SPEC/TP-C........

4 i dont think that AMD will send sample to website exception to insight64.com and the like.If they do it will send a image of mod desktop with a possibility to run server apps at low cost so just a competitor to XEON (wich is true)

5 Stability will be judge in 64 bit mode and compare to HP-unix and solaris red hat IA-64 version compare to beta linux with beta compiler with beta SSE support beta bios beta driver.Perf will suffer so it may just end like Itanium 1 compare to Itanium2 that have a 700% sale increase in 2002 (been on the market for less that 6 month in 2002).SO it may just be the Opteron 2 that make competion to others RISC/VLIW.

[-peep-] french

I personally saw an MSI beta board for the A64. This was last year, at an AMD invite only show. The roadmap i last saw does not call for replacement of athlon in desktop systems until 2 quarters after the server version are released. AMD beleives there is plenty left in the athlon chip to compete against most of the intel chips.

There is more bandwidth coming in the pci-x revisions. Does anyone here remember that agp is really just a modified and updated VLB slot?

Now i admit i haven't fully kept up with AMD, the place i work has many more contacts with intel. But we just have to wait and see what happens.

I never thought you would buy an Opteron. It is Canterwood month.

I was under the impression that Opteron would be too expensive to be considered a reasonable desktop alternative, but might be priced comparably to Xeons. It´s just wild guessing, of course. From some sites I´ve seen, however, it could be possible that the Opteron will be priced very competitively... Remains to be seen. We have only very vague hints as to the performance of Opteron, really. I´d bet more on Canterwood right now than on Opteron.

On one hand, I agree. The extremely high prices are a weak point, but hey, as long as there is hardly any competition, why should they lower prices? They can charge like about any price they want ... But once Opteron is there, there will be competition. For just a while they let AMD have their joy of selling lower priced CPU's ... As far as they can, since new proc's always have trouble getting to the market in reasonable amounts. Anyway, after a few weeks or months, Intel will have to cut their prices due to AMD's competition in order to stay competetive in that segment.
On the other hand, cansider this: How long has Intel been in the Workstation/Server market? And how long has AMD? (Actually I don't know, but let's name those questions 'retoric,' so I don't have answer myself ) Also, what is Intel's reputation in comparison to AMD's? I think Intel has a HUGE advantage in this segment. Marketing is -the- keyword there, and that is where Intel is strong at. Intel has a name and a reputation that is solid as a rock. And even a very furious 'refreshing river of competence' coming from AMD will have to work hard, long and harsh to tear that rock down. If it ever manages, to ... Get my point?

Though I am not into that world, you know, but hey ... Just take a look at my sig ...

Greetz,
Bikeman


<i>Then again, that's just my opinion</i>

Another thing to point out is that the reason the Xeon MP's are so expensive is because of the L3 cache. 2MB of L3 cache can bring up costs a lot. It's not just overly inflated prices. The chips actually cost more to make. And less of them are sold (not many people buy 4-way systems) so you don't have economy of scale in your advantage.

"We are Microsoft, resistance is futile." - Bill Gates, 2015.