Cisco waiting for Intel Nehalem EX to announce Xeon servers

Cisco is apparently going to wait until Intel announces its eight-core Nehalem EX chip before it unveils its newest Xeon server hardware, which will be dubbed the “M2″ server line.

Most server vendors - HP, IBM, Dell, Fujitsu - made server announcements this week regarding the six-core Intel Xeon 5600 processor, codenamed Westmereand designed for one- and two-socket systems. Intel is expected to make another announcement at the end of this month for the Xeon Nehalem EX, an eight-core chip built for four-socket systems. Sometime thereabouts is when Cisco will announce its newest Xeon servers, according to Daniel Bounds, Cisco marketing manager for its Unified Computing System.

Bounds did talk about some performance benchmarks Cisco acheived. They include results in the VMware VMmark and various SPEC benchmarks, with details available here. The benchmarks do give some insight into the Xeon 5600 servers Cisco will offer. For example, its UCS C250 M2 server looks to be a two-socket machine capable of running two six-core Xeon 5600s. In the benchmark test, the machine included two Xeon 5680s.

Also, will Cisco start offering AMD Opteron-based servers? It did not do so in its first iteration of UCS, and it’s staying mum about the second generation. AMD is planning on announcing a new 12-core chip by the end of this month, dubbed “Magny Cours,” to compete with Intel’s most recent x86 Xeon chips. But Bounds would not reveal whether Cisco will offer AMD-based blades, saying they “can’t comment on any unannounced products.”

See some of our recent coverage of Intel and AMD x86 processors:

• New Intel Xeon 5600 chips can swap into 5500s
• Intel Nehalem processor users content with status quo
• AMD ships 12-core x86 Opteron processor
• Comparing Intel Xeons: 32nm 5600s vs. 45nm 5500s

AMD ships more efficient, faster versions of 45nm Opteron CPU

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is now shipping seven new versions of its latest Opteron processor, the 45 nanometer quad-core chip, code-named Shanghai; five are high efficiency (HE) and two are designed for higher performance than the standard version of Shanghai.

The new versions of Shanghai are essentially identical to the original flavor, only the HE is more power efficient and the SE offers better performance than the standard versions.

The 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron HE processor is 55-watts, compared to the standard 75-watts, and speeds range from 2.1 to 2.3 GHz. A server with an HE version can save 20% more than similarly configured systems during idle times, AMD reported.

The new HE processors are available in eight server systems from HP, Rackable Systems, Dell, Sun Microsystems, and other vendors are expected to start shipping the CPUs by mid-year.

Additionally, two new 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron SE processors (2.8 GHz) are designed for performance-intensive workloads; this compares to the standard Shanghai chip speed of 2.7 GHz. The SE chips aren’t conservative on power though; they come in a 105-watt ACP thermal envelope and are aimed at data centers where performance trumps power efficiency, said John Fruehe, AMD’s director of business development for server and workstations.

“Depending on the application, the SE version offers up to 5% better performance [than the standard version], but it also uses more power,” Fruehe said. “The customers that use these chips are less interested in the power efficiency and more interested in the performance, so we don’t do power testing on these.”

The new SE processors are also immediately available in three new systems from HP and other AMD technology partners.

The AMD Opteron pricing model for HE versions range from $316 to  $1,514, and the two SE models are $1,165 and $2,649.

AMD holds press conference to bash Intel before IDF

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) held a Web-based press conference Aug. 15 to formally attack Intel Corp. prior to the Intel Developers Forum (IDF) in San Francisco next week.

When AMD invited me to listen to a webcast regarding the IDF forum, I expected to hear some news; maybe their 45nm processor Shanghai would be coming out earlier than expected to make up for Barcelona’s delay? That would be big and would help AMD make up some ground in the processor product release wars against Intel.

Instead, the conference served as a means for AMD to plant the seeds of skepticism in the minds of IDF attendees before the conference. AMD executives spent the hour call marketing their existing processing and graphics technologies and bashing Intel.

Randy Allen, the SVP and GM for AMD’s computing solutions group, cited benchmarks showing AMD’s Opteron processors in good light, like the SPECweb 2005 benchmark showing Opteron Model 2356 and Model 8356 hold the top x86 Web performance records for two-and four-processor servers.

Allen also touted AMD’s virtualization assist technology, AMD-V with Nested Page Tables, which recieved high praise from a VMware engineer recently, and he noted that quad-core Opteron is being used in a total of seven of the top performing systems in the most recent Top 500 Supercomputers list, including the No. 1 IBM’s RoadRunner.

“We have our swagger back,” Allen said.

He failed to note, however, that AMD’s Opteron chips were used in only 56 systems (11.2%) on the list, which is down from 78 systems six months ago. Intel processors were used in 74.8% of the world’s supercomputers (about 374 systems), up 4% from six months ago.

When a reporter raised this issue during the press conference, Allen said that having Opteron used in the top performing computer and systems high on the list is more notable than the slip in the number of total systems on the top 500.

In addition to hyping AMD products, Allen also spent plenty of time directly attacking Intel, saying the company has an easy time innovating because it simply mimics AMD’s work.

“Intel adopted our power efficiency technology, our multicore technology and you will see them copying the Direct Connect Architecture and HyperTransport technologies we developed five years ago. … Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it is also annoying.”

Surely, IDF conference goers will hear similar hype about Intel products from Intel executives next week and negative remarks about AMD.

The only mention of AMD’s processor on deck, 45-nanometer chip code-named Shanghai, was that it is scheduled for release later this year and will be delivered on time. Shanghai will consume 20% less power at idle than Barcelona and will have 6 MB of L3 cache (compared with Barcelona’s 2MB of L3 cache).

All in all, the press conference simply re-stated old AMD news.

Thanks for the re-cap, AMD. That is an hour of my life I’ll never get back. And if you just finished reading this blog, hopefully it’s only a few minutes of your time that you can never get back.