AMD JUST DOUBLED the count on their 6-core “Istanbul” Opteron CPUs, going from 5 to 10 SKUs. The new parts are in the SE and HE line, on the top and bottom of the speed and power curves respectively.
Not much more to say, the feature list is the same on everything but clock, power and price, nothing new and unexpected, just more niches to fill. If you recall, when the 6-cores were launched on June 1, there were five models, the 2435, 2431, 2427, 8435 and 8431.
The AMD numbering scheme has the socket count as the first digit, core count as the second (2 = 2 cores, 3 = 4 cores, and 4 = 6 cores), with the last two digits connoting clock speed. 35 is 2.6GHz, and it drops 100MHz for every 2 units. All of these were 75W parts.
That mean the Istanbuls went from 2.2-2.6GHz on day one. Not bad considering the quad core Shanghai’s that it is based off of only hit 3.1GHz, and that is with a higher power envelope SE model. At the same 75W of power, (Note: AMD uses ACP not TDP, so it isn’t comparable to Intel’s quoted power figures) Shanghai only hits 2.9.
The new parts today are 2423HE, 2425HE, 2439SE, 8425HE and 8439SE. HE is a low power 55W ACP version, and SE is the speed demon 105W ACP. If you haven’t done the math by now, these new ones are at 2.0, 2.1 and 2.8GHz respectively. On the low end, the HE’s power savings of 20W doesn’t seem like all that good a deal for the loss of between 100 and 600MHz. The SE’s on he other hand are only 300MHz off the quad cores for the same 105W.
In the end, the short story is that you can now get a 6-core Istanbul from 2.0-2.8GHz. If history is any guide, there will be an even lower power EE part soon, AMD tends to launch those a bit after the HEs debut. If AMD can keep the 40W power use of the Shanghai EEs, that could be a very interesting part for power limited servers and racks.
So, question of the day, how much do the things cost? The older Shanghais were $455, $698 and $989 on the 2S end, and $2149 and $2649 for the 8S parts. The new ones cost $455/2423HE, $523/2425HE, $1019/2439SE, $1514/8425HE and $2649/8439SE.
In the end, not much to shout about. The new parts fill market niches, and serve customers that want a little ‘more’ than the standard SKUs offer, be it speed or efficiency. These five new 6-cores should make database and CRM users very happy.S|A
Charlie Demerjian
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