AMD plans 16-core server chip

From InfoWorld: Advanced Micro Devices is designing a server chip with up to 16 cores, quadrupling the count of its current quad-core server chips, the company said Wednesday.

Code-named Interlagos, the chip will have between 12 and 16 cores and be released in 2011, the company said at a press conference that was Webcast. Interlagos will be a follow-up to the 12-core chip code-named Magny-Cours that AMD plans to release in the first quarter of 2010.

Increasing chip core counts is a way for AMD to improve performance while trying to reduce the power drawn by the processors. Adding more cores also squeezes more performance out of servers, which can reduce the total server count in datacenters. That helps cut hardware acquisition and energy costs, said Pat Patla, vice president of the server platform unit at AMD.

The 16-core chips could go into servers with between two to four sockets, which could mean a maximum of 64 cores per server. The chip will be part of the Opteron 6000 series of chips, which the company said will likely be used in datacenter servers.

The chips will be more for servers that handle a variety of applications -- including simulations and databases -- that need plenty of processing power, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research.

View: Article @ Source Site