
AMD Debuts New 12- and 16-Core Opteron 6300 Series Processors - brokenparser
http://www.techpowerup.com/197114/amd-debuts-new-12-and-16-core-opteron-6300-series-processors.html
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Matsta
I imagine these will be popular with CPU based mining such as primecoin?

I've heard there's a shortage of Xeon L5639 servers (6 core CPU, usually ex-
lease) as people are using them to mine cryptocurrencies. I tried out a
primecoin mining calculator and it claimed it was pretty profitable (don't
think the calculator is very accurate however).

According to
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=255782.msg3025191#ms...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=255782.msg3025191#msg3025191)
a dual L5639 server does 3.77730295 chains per day, which actuates to 19XPM
which is 58.55USD a day. I've seen these server being rented for $85/month, so
it could be worth it.

Can't find out much about mining with the 6300 series, but I'm guessing it
would be around the same, so I'm guessing if you built a mining box for under
$1500, you can break even in under a month.

~~~
fsiefken
price performance wise the amd processor is in the lead, but if price is not
an issue intel still leads. also check the memorycoin performance database:
[http://agran.net/memorycoin2_calc.html](http://agran.net/memorycoin2_calc.html)

~~~
Already__Taken
Does price performance count when talking about directly earning money from
the computation?

~~~
sp332
In that case, performance/watt is more important. You still have to take the
upfront cost, but first-order effects tend to dominate 0-order effects over
time :)

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nwh
That's one crazy wide heatspreader —
[http://www.amd.com/PublishingImages/Public/Photograph_Produc...](http://www.amd.com/PublishingImages/Public/Photograph_ProductShots/PNG/AMD-
OPTERON-6000-355W.png)

~~~
gsnedders
Note that these are MCMs, with multiple semiconductor die on the IC, so a
large heatspreader is unsurprising.

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rektide
Comes with a single PCIe 3.0 x16 link on die, good for 16Gbyte/s. Kaveri was
the first PCIe3 capable chip, good to see that in server-land too.

There are a couple people out and about for whom 8GB/s just wasn't enough-
dual port IB-FDR, & storage controllers are right at that threshold.

Apparently the PCIe competes with one of the HT channels? Kind of under the
impression one is limited to 2P if using the on-chip PCIe, but not 100% on
that.

~~~
erichocean
_Comes with a single PCIe 3.0 x16 link on die, good for 16Gbyte /s._

This is the area where Intel is just killing it with their E5 chips, along
with being able to write directly to the L3 from I/O. (I have no idea if AMD
does this.)

The E5 is so good that it lets you do entirely different architectures from
what came before it. Total game changer.

~~~
nly
> The E5 is so good that it lets you do entirely different architectures from
> what came before it.

As an example: Luke Gorrie is one such person who is actively talking about
doing so by talking directly to Ethernet controllers via DMA from user space.
Here he is in a 30 minute talk about exploiting 512 Gbit/s of PCIe in his
project called Snabb Switch. He's even written a 10 Gbit/s Intel Ethernet
driver in Lua. The idea, as far as I can tell, is you can turn a common Xeon
server in to a very low latency, zero-copy, multi-gigabit, software defined,
layer 2 network appliance.

[https://cast.switch.ch/vod/clips/26uo9i576i/](https://cast.switch.ch/vod/clips/26uo9i576i/)

[https://github.com/SnabbCo/snabbswitch/wiki](https://github.com/SnabbCo/snabbswitch/wiki)

------
Zenst
What I find most interesting is the TDP per core/speed with the TDP of both
parts being 99W range. My old core2due 2.4ghz affair does 65W for only 2 cores
at comparable raw clock speeds. So for 6-8x more cores it's only an extra 34W
odd. Ok comparing yesteryear to todays cutting edge is unfair. But the point
being whilst clock speeds have not changed and cores have gone up, they have
been pretty fairly balanced of with power savings. This is excluding extra
power saving levels and options in that 7 odd year timeframe.

Whilst electricty demand is still increaseing, I do wonder at what time we hit
the point when we hit a tech usage apex when these power savings become
measurable at the demand level. That said I still wonder at home much
electricty is was used on the SETI client project and the search of extra life
out in space whilst adding to the carbon footprint upon our own `intellegent`
planet. Still I still wished the processing for bitcoins was based upon
actualy useful computational units - that too me is a market - but cluster
cloud computing and trust of running data on external unknown systems is a
hurdle on that one. Though for medical/reasearch that becomes viable and if
BOINC was to reward blocks of work with a virtual currency akin to BITCOIN
then I and many would be happier I suspect.

But certainly good to see AMD still pulling them out to the market and keeping
Intel in check, albeit a relay race being passed onto ARM. Though that is a
more open and diverse area, so good times and however AMD plays the future, I
thank them for being there and keeping Intel in check.

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hoopism
AMD stock has been tanking (down 10% in pre-market today). Any opportunities
here?

(Tanking bit strong... down from a recent high of 4.50 not long ago)

~~~
sliverstorm
They just announced their financials, which is probably why it has been
dropping.

Of course, the financials matched the projections, but the stock market is
funny.

~~~
zanny
I feel like they have a strong portfolio going forward, though. Diversifying
into ARM, Southern Islands is behind the door conquering the consumer compute
space, focus on heterogeneous compute.

They are only in trouble in the spaces where their x86 processors have to
compete with Intel. They don't have their own fabs anymore, they aren't a die
node ahead like Intel, and they are also just in terms of raw revenue an order
of magnitude smaller than Intel. That isn't a fight to win, and they have been
stuck in this low-cost no-margins commodity cpu space for a while.

~~~
sliverstorm
They are definitely a potential opportunity. To my understanding, many
analysts are disturbed by falling gross margin, because in the Intel space
high gross margin is important. But, according to some articles I've read,
lower gross margin is a natural part of the semi-custom sort of work the
company is doing now, like the Xbox & Playstation chips.

An article that explains the shift:

[http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/12/30/can-amds-
se...](http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/12/30/can-amds-semi-custom-
chips-save-its-2014.aspx) ("Semi-custom could be the answer")

So, depending on what you believe, the future of the stock could be rather
undervalued.

------
szatkus
Piledriver, boring :/

~~~
dragontamer
Someone who knows what they're talking about. It may be boring, but the fact
of the matter is that AMD doesn't have the resources to make a Steamroller-
based Opteron.

Intel continues to make new architectures and revisions of their chip, but AMD
is still stuck on a several-year old architecture. Granted, this one has a
solid price/performance ratio... but being stuck on Piledriver is a real
downer for AMD's server line.

~~~
Sanddancer
I'm not sure it's such a bad thing. Intel already does something similar to
their server line; Ivy Bridge-EP came out after Haswell was released, Sandy
Bridge-EP came out after Ivy Bridge was released. Thinking this could very
well be a way for AMD to use the consumer line to get the arch out the door,
and then give it over to the server team for fine tuning. In fact, it could
give a good way for AMD to get back into the performance desktop market as
well -- given the leaks on how the arch is going to have three sets of pcie 3
lanes for single/dual proc machines, I can very much see AMD leapfrogging in
terms of getting 3+-way crossfire rigs for people who want ridiculous gaming
machines. But, as you mentioned, the difficult part is seeing if AMD has the
engineers to properly exploit all the groundwork they've made for ridiculously
parallel system. I'm hoping so, because I like the direction AMD's going, I'm
just hoping it's not a case of too little too late.

~~~
dragontamer
AMD has not "chosen" to do this strategy, they were forced to. With a $1
Billion shortfall in 2012, and millions of dollars shortfall in 2013 (despite
cutting tons of staff and selling off their headquarters)... AMD is strapped
for cash and their strategy proves it.

Its probably the best AMD can do for the moment. It will take them several
years to build up the staff and resources to once again compete against Intel
in the high-end CPU market, but the time is not now.

On the other hand, AMD is pushing very interesting technology in the form of
APUs, which honestly are going to be the future of general purpose computing.
APUs are good enough to serve as the primary CPU/GPU hybrid for XBox One and
PS4... and while their Desktop / Laptop APUs aren't quite as powerful... the
concept has been proven.

Anyway, Bulldozer was years ago. AMD has shown the world 12 and 16 core
devices at lower GHz, but people prefer to buy Intel's 4 or 6 core devices at
higher GHz and IPC. Waiting a few years... or even a decade, before another
"high-core count" CPU is in the works.

The current market prefers high IPC devices at higher GHz still. Single
threaded performance is king in current games. Only when games and
applications take advantage of the _massive_ amounts of cores should AMD bet
on heavy multi-core boxes again.

------
sounds
Anandtech review: [http://www.anandtech.com/show/6508/the-new-
opteron-6300-fina...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/6508/the-new-
opteron-6300-finally-tested)

~~~
carlob
Why is this review over one year old? Are they just releasing more cores of
the same architecture?

~~~
Uberphallus
The old one is code named Abu Dhabi, this new one is Warsaw. Looks like the
parent was too quick to post.

According to [1] they are about the same but more energy efficient

[1] [http://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-
shilov/amd-16-co...](http://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-
shilov/amd-16-core-opteron-warsaw-already-available-for-663/)

