AMD Opteron A1100 Processors With 64-bit ARM Cores Announced
In 2014 we learned that Advanced Micro Devices would be creating and shipping their first 64-bit ARMv8-A-based Opteron microprocessor code-named ‘Seattle’ in the months ahead. It took AMD nearly two years to bring the Opteron A1100 series to market, but they are ready to bring something other than X86 chips that have been used for years and to release RISC-based IP, with ARM designs that can be used in entry-level servers and the enterprise market. The AMD Opteron A1100 processor is designed to run I/O intensive and scale-out applications with lower compute power, costs and energy consumption than standard x86 servers. AMD hopes this new direction will allow them access to new business opportunities and the ability to increase their market share.
The AMD Opteron A1100 uses up to eight off-the-shelf 64-bit ARM Cortex-A57 processors that use the ARMv8-A 64-bit instruction set. These also happen to be cores used in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 SoC and Samsung’s Exynos Octa 5433 SOc that are found in the premium smartphone market and in tablets today. The ARM Cortex-A72 is flagship processor out right now and we just reviewed the Huawei Mate 8 smartphone that is powered by an SoC that uses them. When AMD started designing and working on the Opteron A1100 series processor years ago they wen’t with the Coretex-A57 as it was what was available at the time and trusted.
AMD Opteron A1100 Series SoCs also have up to 4MB of shared Level 2 and 8MB of shared Level 3 cache. They also support dual-channel 64-bit DDR3/DDR4 ECC memory at speeds up to 1866 MHz with ECC for up to 128GB of RAM, dual integrated 10Gb Ethernet network connections, 8-lanes of PCI-Express Gen 3 connectivity, and 14 SATA III 6Gb/s drive headers. AMD also plans on supporting the Opteron A1100 series for 10 years.
The AMD A1100 Opteron series has been announced for years, but now that it is ready to be released we have some model numbers to talk about! AMD showed us that there will be three initial A1100-series Opterons. The flagship A1100 series sku, The Opteron A1170, is a 32W TDP processor with 8 cores and a max CPU frequency of 2GHz. The A1150 is identical to the A1170, but has a lower clock speed of 1.7GHz. The final offering is the AMD Opteron A1120 quad-core processor with 2MB of L2 cache that runs at 1.7GHz and has a lower 25W TDP rating. All of the chips have the same exact specifications when it comes to memory speeds and operating temperatures.
AMD hasn’t announced final pricing just yet, but we were told that the flagship AMD Opteron A1170 will priced below $150, think $149.99, and that the series will scale down from there. AMD believes that the AMD A1100 Opteron series will be able to compete against Intel Atom processors when it comes to compiler performance. Will the AMD Opteron A1100 series be able to compete with the Intel Xeon Processor D product family? AMD didn’t show us any benchmarks, but we are sure that those will be coming here shortly!