AMD's 'Bulldozer' chip to hit mkt in Q3 2011

SUNNYVALE, USA: Chip major Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced that its upcoming 16-core server platform based on the "Bulldozer" core has been selected by the editors of HPCWire as one of the top 5 new products or technologies to watch in 2011. AMD said that it will start shipping next-generation Opteron server chips based on the new Bulldozer architecture starting in the third quarter next year.

AMD was also selected as one of the top vendors to watch, and the highly technical readership of HPCWire named the AMD Opteron 6100 Series processor as a top new product, said a press release.

“The HPC community demands the very best in current products and is always looking at the leading edge of innovation,” said John Fruehe, director, Server and Embedded product marketing, AMD.

“The AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform is continuing to gain traction with our customers, as it simply offers more cores and more memory for less money. We know that for HPC workloads, more cores mean more performance and clearly they are excited about the idea of a highly-efficient 16-core processor based on the new 'Bulldozer' architecture that is platform-compatible with current offerings,” he said.

Scheduled for production in 2Q11 and launch with widespread availability in 3Q11, the "Interlagos" processor features up to 16 cores and 4 channels of DDR-3 memory, ideally suited for HPC environments, said AMD.

The 8-core, 2-channel processor code-named "Valencia" will be well suited for smaller HPC clusters where power or price are significant concerns. "Bulldozer," the first new server processor core technology from AMD since the introduction of the original AMD Opteron processor, features a modular design with 256-bit floating point capabilities and other features that complement high performance computing, the chip maker added.