Dual Core Opteron

Omega65

AMDZone has a pic of a 90nm Dual Core Opteron along with a regular 90nm & 130nm Opteron.

Dual Core Opteron Article

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Source: AMDZone

Omega65

WHOA! All Hail the New King!

citrixmeta

MediaMan

Dual core will be interesting. Probably another "10-15%" gain in performance. In layman's terms, for those that don't know, dual core is like two processors on one die. That's a very broad brush stroke but it centers around the cache (not cash...well that too.)

Basically a processor can store data temporarily right on die in its cache. The pathway that connects the cache to the "working" part of the processor is incredibly fast. MUCH faster than processor to RAM or anywhere else.

Intel's Hyperthreading does a psuedo job of improving this but there's still only one cache.

AMD will now have two. Obviously two cache areas will be faster than one or a simulated version of two. The old "two people complete a job faster than one but not necessarily twice as fast" routine.

Optimum would be to have the 4 dimm slots but have one pair of dimms separately connected to each core. (In the case of only 1 or 2 dimm slots filled the dual core would "share" the 1 or 2 dimms.)

Turn sideways and squint at it and it's sort of like a dual processor system in a single processor configuration. And if you acutally have a dual dual core system (2P) then squint sideways and stand on your head...yes...like 4 processors.

But don't think it's four times faster or that each processor will now access a single dimm separately. It starts to become really complicated when you think about servers with 8 and more available dimms.

Nevertheless AMD are holding pretty decent cards in their hand and we'll see what Intel has up their sleeve.

Omega65

Creamy Smooth Computing! GOD I wish Opteron 250's were cheaper... (sigh)