Say hello to dual-core Opteron

groveratgroverat
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
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Quote:

Penn State currently runs a cluster of about 100 four-way Sun servers that are based on single-core Opteron processors. Sun's new dual-core Opteron systems will allow the university to double its processing core capacity while maintaining the same heat and real-estate footprint, Agarwala says.



That's fairly amazing.



I hope this technology makes its way to the desktop sooner rather than later, even though the insinuation of a 100% performance increase is dubious at best.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    dmzdmz Posts: 5,775member
    Here's a dumb question:



    Will the programs have to be written to thread across both cores, or this a case of the proc splitting insrtuctions and running them in parallel?
  • Reply 2 of 6
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    I'd be cautious to believe that they have the same heat output. While the bulk of a modern processor is memory, the core is definitely an extremely active region that doesn't scale as nicely in power dissipation, like memory does, when activity goes up or down. If it has clock scaling, then what I said is wrong, but you get the idea.



    Anyway, it will be interesting to see. One nice feature of the Opterons is that they continue to push down the cost of the Athlon 64. It is becoming very inexpensive to make a very nice render box.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dmz

    Here's a dumb question:



    Will the programs have to be written to thread across both cores, or this a case of the proc splitting insrtuctions and running them in parallel?



    i have recently read one software company, could be Sorenson, but it has really just slipped my mind which company it was, as *announcing* that their software is/will be optimised for dual-core. so yes, i think some software tinkering can help rather than just leaving it to the operating system/cpu
  • Reply 4 of 6
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,425member
    I smell BS here.



    As for the software there are plenty of apps in Windows land that support multiple procs. I think most are probably networking apps rather than creative apps however.



    Lightwave just announced support for DP. Other to follow. I don't believe the heat output claims as well as the 100% improvement. Sounds like this was ripped right from the marketing pages.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel

    I'd be cautious to believe that they have the same heat output. While the bulk of a modern processor is memory, the core is definitely an extremely active region that doesn't scale as nicely in power dissipation, like memory does, when activity goes up or down. If it has clock scaling, then what I said is wrong, but you get the idea.



    Anyway, it will be interesting to see. One nice feature of the Opterons is that they continue to push down the cost of the Athlon 64. It is becoming very inexpensive to make a very nice render box.



    Especially since word is out that heat output for the dual core 2.2 is 190W! or 2x95W! No black magic here, hardly the same heat output as single core.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    *slaps own forehead* well duh...



    it was NewTek's Lightwave!! that announced support for multi-core (on top of dual proc. support):

    http://www.newtek.com/news/releases/04-18-05e.html



    can't believe i forgot that especially since just 2 weeks ago i went to a Lightwave 8 product demo and spoke with one of the 3d guys that works for the main Lightwave distributor in south east asia (here in the jungles)
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