The AMD Opteron ™ Processor. News and Information

AMD's Opteron Processor
Opteron is the name for AMD's multi-way enterprise-class processors for servers and workstations. The AMD Opteron™ processor simplifies your business, minimizing integration complexity by giving you simultaneous 32- and 64-bit high performance computing.

The AMD Opteron™ processor enables you to easily transition to 64-bit technology at your desired pace without sacrificing 32-bit performance.

Rely on AMD Opteron™ multiprocessors to help provide a seamless integration with 64-bit applications.

You can be assured the AMD Opteron™ processor can make your servers run smooth today and tomorrow.

AMD Opteron™ Processor for MP Server Systems
Check out Fred Weber's presentation at Microprocessor Forum 2002. (pdf)

AMD's 64-bit Processor Technology

The x86-64 technology is AMD's straightforward approach to 64-bit computing, which builds upon the x86 instruction set, one of the industry's most proven and widely supported technologies.

The x86-64 technology is designed to support applications that address large amounts of physical and virtual memory, such as high performance servers, database management systems, and CAD tools.

By seamlessly intergrating into the current 32-bit computing and support environment, the x86-64 technology is designed to enable enterprises to deploy high performance 64-bit capable systems that build upon the billions of dollars already invested in 32-bit software.

White Paper on AMD 64bit Technology (pdf)

AMD's HyperTransport Technology

HyperTransport technology is a high-speed, low latency, point-to-point link designed to increase the communication speed between integrated circuits in computers, servers, embedded systems, and networking and telecommunications equipment up to 48 times faster than some existing technologies.

HyperTransport technology helps reduce the number of buses in a system, which can reduce system bottlenecks and enable today's faster microprocessors to use system memory more efficiently in high-end multiprocessor systems.

HyperTransport technology is designed to:

Provide significantly more bandwidth than current technologies

Use low-latency responses and low pin counts

Maintain compatibility with legacy PC buses while being extensible to new SNA (Systems Network Architecture) buses.

Appear transparent to operating systems and offer little impact on peripheral drivers.

HyperTransport technology was invented at AMD with contributions form industry partners and is managed and licensed by the HyperTransport Technology Consortium, a Texas non-profit corporation. The full specification and more information about HyperTransport technology can be found at HyperTransport.org.

HyperTransport is a licensed trademark of the HyperTransport Technology Consortium

Integrated DDR DRAM

As processor microarchitecture capabilities have advanced, one of the greatest performance limitations has become the system architecture’s ability to provide sufficient low-latency memory bandwidth to the processor core. The AMD Opteron™ 64 processor and the AMD Opteron™ processor directly addresses this bottleneck by integrating a DDR memory controller into the processor, revolutionizing the way x86-based processors access main memory. By running at the processor’s core frequency, an integrated memory controller greatly increases bandwidth directly available to the processor at significantly reduced latencies. The performance-enhancing effect is even more dramatic within an AMD Opteron multiprocessing environment, because each additional processor has its own memory controller thereby scaling over all memory bandwidth. Features of Integrated DDR DRAM Memory Controller:

Available memory bandwidth scales with the number of processors added

Dual-channel DDR DRAM controller with a 128-bit interface capable of supporting up to eight (8) registered DDR DIMMs per processor

Available memory bandwidth up to 5.3GB/s (with PC2700 memory) per processor