AMD's 'Shanghai' CPU Enters Production

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The last year has not been kind to AMD. Its 65nm Barcelona processors arrived several months late, and were already obsolete in many ways when compared to the Intel offerings at the time. To make matters worse, the Barcelona chips were also buggy, making the tardy offering even less desirable to consumers and PC manufacturers. All of this built up to AMD’s $1.2 Billion loss in Q2 of 2008, the same quarter Intel saw record-breaking gains.

Now, in an effort to right itself in the CPU market, AMD has begun manufacturing its next generation of processors. Shanghai, a 45nm quad core processor, will be available by the end of 2008, beating original expectations. As per its usual strategy, Shanghai will be available in server processors first, followed shortly by desktop varieties.

In order to gain ground on Intel in performance, these new Shanghai based chips will have three times more cache (6MB total) than previous processors, as well as the third iteration of HyperTransport. AMD claims these additions will boost performance by as much as 20 percent while lowering power consumption. Following the release of the Shanghai processors, the 45nm Deneb desktops processors will hit store shelves in early 2009, followed by Istanbul server processors (six-cores) later in the year.

This could be the boost AMD needs to stay competitive with the house that Moore built, but how will these new offerings compare to the six-core Xeon processors already shipping from Intel as well as the Core i7 chips expected later this year? Only time will tell.

Check out AMD’s full plan for most of 2009 right here in an earlier report.

Devin Connors
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30 Comments Comment from the forums
  • zerapio
    "the house that Moore built" lol, N1
    Reply
  • starhoof
    Well its nice to hear that is AMD doing good. They had so much trouble lately its about time something good happens. I am not sure if AMD's year 2009's processors will be able to compete with Intel's core i7 processors, but i sure hope they will =) It worries me because "Nahalem" will be able to self overclock and such, and intel is thinking about making 32nm processors. It is totaly unbiased comment, I pick my components based on performance
    Reply
  • I don't really see producing a new processor as necessarily doing good. They're just... well... doing really. How good they're doing will be seen once the benchmarks arrive. There are a million things that can still poison the well to this point, so don't count your chickens just yet. I road the AMD wave just like a lot of you in the late 90s to early 21st century... but I have to be honest and say that I think their success is greatly due to the fault of Intel and the poor NetBurst architecture that they road on the whole time. Now that that's the past and since Core 2 has been in... it might not be out of bounds to think that AMD might never really compete again in the CPU market. Not the way it has in the past.
    Reply
  • Shanghai, a 45nm quad core processor..In order to gain ground on Intel in performance, these new Shanghai based chips will have three times more cache (6MB total)...

    AMD can not compete in performance with intel...probably they will have to compete in price. Here is why

    1. Nehalem has 8MB L3 cache (25%) If AMD claims more cache will give shanghai more performance, intel is ahead of them.
    2. Nehalem will have multithreading (8 logical cores) with automatic turbo mode (overclocking).
    3. Intel's 45 nm process is based on metal gates. Extremely power efficient and extremely fast. AMD's 45nm is just a shrink of 65nm old technology.
    Reply
  • the last resort
    to Logan81, this round of processors from AMD is not just a die shrink. They too now incorporate metal gates. And as for the cache, some of Intel's processors, which had like 4 MB of cache or more, were on par performance wise with AMD processors which only has a 1 or 2 MB shared cache. I think these chips could be really nice. It would also be nice if there were benchmarks.
    Reply
  • kschoche
    No official numbers from AMD yet?

    I've heard the 20% performance increase over claim 1,000 times before from all cpu manufacturers.
    However even a 10% boost in practical multithreaded server applications would be astounding and welcomed :D
    Reply
  • kschoche
    Logan81Shanghai, a 45nm quad core processor..In order to gain ground on Intel in performance, these new Shanghai based chips will have three times more cache (6MB total)...AMD can not compete in performance with intel...probably they will have to compete in price. Here is why1. Nehalem has 8MB L3 cache (25%) If AMD claims more cache will give shanghai more performance, intel is ahead of them.2. Nehalem will have multithreading (8 logical cores) with automatic turbo mode (overclocking).3. Intel's 45 nm process is based on metal gates. Extremely power efficient and extremely fast. AMD's 45nm is just a shrink of 65nm old technology.
    The important thing you forgot to mention while comparing Intel's cache and AMD's cpu cache is that AMD's chips even since the Athlon line were optimized to run well (and sickeningly fast) with very little cache. Comparing an Intel chip with gobs of L2 cache to an AMD chip with the same amount of cache wont do anything, its how efficiently the cpu's use the cache that matters. Intel using throwing gobs of memory onto its Netburst line was a crutch and temporary fix which seems to have stuck around. AMD's got its own problems too.
    Reply
  • boduke
    the last resortto Logan81, this round of processors from AMD is not just a die shrink. They too now incorporate metal gates. And as for the cache, some of Intel's processors, which had like 4 MB of cache or more, were on par performance wise with AMD processors which only has a 1 or 2 MB shared cache. I think these chips could be really nice. It would also be nice if there were benchmarks.
    Provide a link showing that these CPU's are using metal gates please.
    Reply
  • onearmedscissorb
    "Shanghai, a 45nm quad core processor, will be available by the end of 2008, beating original expectations."

    Aaaah an anomoly in the time stream! The recent estimate of Q1 2009 has switched places with the original estimate in place of Q2 2008.

    It appears that AMD has played us all for fools, making us think they're falling behind, when they actually built a time machine and are using it against us. We have to stop them before they go too far, for such anomolies could create a time paradox, the results of which could start a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space time continuum, and destroy the entire universe! Granted, that's a worst case scenario. The destruction might in fact be very localized, limited to our own galaxy.
    Reply
  • nlukin_27

    boduke
    Reply