Intel has upstaged Advanced Micro Devices at DreamWorks Animation. The movie studio has decided to drop AMD and go with processors from Intel, citing better performance and a more promising roadmap.
DreamWorks specifically mentioned Intel's upcoming Nehalem processor and Larrabee graphics chip as reasons for the switch.
Intel and DreamWorks announced Tuesday that they had formed a strategic alliance for 3D filmmaking technology. DreamWorks plans to produce all its feature films in stereoscopic 3D--which requires the viewer to wear special glasses for enhanced 3D--beginning next year. Intel will provide DreamWorks with "the latest high-performance processing technologies, including future chips with multiple processing cores," the companies said.
This is a setback for AMD. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based chipmaker rolled out its quad-core Barcelona last year at George Lucas' Lucasfilm campus in San Francisco to make a point: Barcelona would be big player in the movie industry. But a series of delays related to a processor bug put a damper on the high expectations for Barcelona.
"AMD maintained a long and fruitful relationship with DreamWorks Animation, beginning in early 2005. Earlier this year, AMD and DreamWorks decided not to extend our marketing and technology relationship. However, DreamWorks Animation is still an important and respected AMD customer and we look forward to having the opportunity to work with them again in the future," AMD said in a statement.
Essentially, DreamWorks looked down the road and liked what it saw coming from Intel better. "When we look at the Intel roadmap, it is more closely aligned with our needs," John Batter, president of production at DreamWorks Animations, said during a conversation with Nanotech: The Circuits blog. "The rendering times have been going up because of the complexity and richness of the images. Then you layer on top of that 3D. Something that's already growing--and doubling it."
Intel had the best technology, Batter said. "You need a lot more horsepower. On Intel's upcoming generation, the number of cores is going to help us satiate the big spike in our needs."
DreamWorks had been in a three-year partnership with AMD, Batter said.
He explained that Intel is also helping DreamWorks to redesign its animation tools. "Our animation tools are all proprietary here. Intel is rearchitecting our software tools...to take advantage of multicore and make our renderer highly scalable as well as making our character animation tools highly scalable."
DreamWorks uses rendering farms with as many as 5,000 cores to create animation and its tools need to be adapted to the increasing number of processor cores, Batter said. The Nehalem chip, for example, is expected to integrate as many as eight cores. Currently, Intel offers no more than four cores per chip. Larrabee is expected by many to offer as many as 32 cores.
Intel Nehalem architecture
(Credit: Intel)Batter specifically mentioned both Nehalem and Larrabee as a reason for the switch to Intel. He said that Larrabee would be "complementary" to Intel's general-purpose CPUs.
Nehalem is due in the fourth quarter of this year and Larrabee is expected in the 2009-2010 time frame.
The first Intel-Dreamworks release will be Monsters vs. Aliens, which is slated to hit movie theaters in March 2009.
Intel Xeon processors--particularly the "Harpertown" variety--dominated the top 500 supercomputer list. But IBM's Power chips made a strong showing as usual at the very top of the list. AMD's Opteron processor landed in the No. 1 and No. 4 ranked systems.
Top 10 processors in Top500 supercomputer list
(Credit: Top500.org)The Top500 List--updated twice a year--of supercomputers was released Wednesday. Intel's Xeon, AMD's Opteron, and IBM's Power chips vied for most of the spots in the list.
The most dominant chip was the Intel Xeon E54xx series "Harpertown" processor. Appearing in 116 systems for 23.2 percent of the total. The largest for any single processor model.
The Xeon 53xx series "Clovertown" processor was next, appearing in 92 systems for 18.4 percent of the total. Following Clovertown was the Xeon 51xx series "Woodcrest" processor with 18.2 percent of the total.
Harpertown and Clovertown are quad-core processors, Woodcrest is dual-core.
In the No. 4 slot was the AMD Opteron dual-core chip (8.4 percent), followed by the X54xx series of Intel Harpertown processors (7.8 percent), then by the PowerPC 440 (4.22 percent).
(Note: Combining the Intel Harpertown E54xx series and X54xx series boosts the total for this chip model to 31 percent.)
The IBM Power processors passed the AMD Opteron family and "are now (again) the second most common processor family with 68 systems (13.6 percent), up from 61 systems (12.2 percent) six months ago," Top500.org said.
AMD's strongest showing was in the top five supercomputers. Opteron processors played a major role in the No. 1 IBM Roadrunner system, which connects 6,562 dual-core AMD Opteron chips as well as 12,240 IBM Cell chips (on IBM Model QS22 blade servers).
See: IBM's Roadrunner breaks petaflop barrier, tops supercomputer list.
The No. 4 Sun Microsystems' SunBlade system uses over 62,000 cores running inside AMD Opteron quad-core processors running at 2.0GHz.
The No. 2 and No. 3 systems were based on IBM PowerPC 450 chips.
Other Top500 processor highlights:
A total of 375 systems (75 percent) are now using Intel processors. This is up from six months ago (354 systems, 70.8 percent) and represents the largest share for Intel chips in the Top500 ever.
56 systems (11 percent) are using AMD Opteron processors, down from 78 systems (15.6 percent) six months ago.
283 systems are using quad-core processor based systems.
On Monday, Advanced Micro Devices announced availability of low-power quad-core Opteron processors targeted at servers.
AMD quad-core Opteron
(Credit: AMD)The HE (high-efficiency) processors have a thermal envelope of 55 watts. Other AMD quad-core server processors have higher thermal envelopes of 105 watts or 75 watts.
The low-power Opterons are available in both the 2300 and 8300 series. The 2300 series processors are designed for servers that use two processors, while the 8300 series processors are for systems that use four or eight processors.
The new parts include the 8347 HE (1.9GHz, $873) and the 2347 HE (1.9GHz, $377).
"Our new Quad-Core AMD Opteron HE processors were designed to help data center managers who see power consumption and virtualization as the keys to solving their overall performance equation," Randy Allen, general manager at AMD's Server and Workstation Division, said in a statement.
Intel announced in March energy-efficient quad-core Xeon processors with a thermal envelope of 50 watts at core frequencies as high as 2.50GHz.
AMD's quad-core Barcelona chip for servers is ready to launch--really launch this time.
AMD is shipping the quad-core Barcelona Opteron to channel and distribution partners this week, according to an AMD representative on Thursday. System vendors such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard are readying systems for shipment in the second quarter.
(Correction: AMD is shipping samples of the Barcelona processor to channel and distribution partners not production versions of the chip.)
AMD is shipping the B3 version of the processor that fixes a TLB bug. Large vendors such as Dell, HP, and IBM have been waiting for this version of Barcelona to arrive before they begin shipping systems.
HP ProLiant DL585 G2 Server
(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)"We expect to start shipping systems in early Q2," HP spokesman Eric Krueger said Thursday. "We are anxious to get these systems moving soon," he added. HP has had documentation on its site for almost a month describing the HP ProLiant DL585, which Krueger confirms will carry the Barcelona processor.
"Look for us to expand our portfolio (of systems) too," Krueger added. A Dell representative confirmed that his company is also on track for shipment in the second quarter.
Barcelona was launched back in September and has faced repeated production and bug-related delays. Earlier "B2" versions of Barcelona have been going to sophisticated, high-performance computing (HPC) customers who know how to work around the bug.
Hewlett-Packard has committed to Advanced Micro Devices' quad-core Opteron "Barcelona" processors in its Proliant DL585 servers, according to company documents.
This comes as AMD is preparing to send samples of its "B3" quad-core Opteron processor to customers. The B3 stepping (or version) fixes, in silicon, a rarely occurring glitch in the Barcelona chip, referred to as the TLB bug. The bug has delayed shipment of quad-core chips to top-tier U.S. server vendors, giving Intel a leg-up in the high-end server market.
Currently, Proliant DL585 G2 servers use dual-core Opteron processors. But HP documentation updated last month makes copious reference to the quad-core Opteron used in HP's High-Performance Technical Computing (HPTC) DL585 models. For instance, documentation states: "The second generation (G2) HP ProLiant DL585 server offers the performance and efficiency of quad-core AMD Opteron processors, enhanced by improvements to all major subsystems in the server." This is found in a paper entitled "HP ProLiant DL585 G2 server technology."
Specifications for the DL582 G2 architecture include AMD Opteron 8200 series dual-core or 8300-series quad-core processors, Nvidia nForce Professional 2200 and 2050 chipsets, and the AMD 8132 chipset. Also: two 100MHz PCI-X slots, four PCI Express x4 slots, three PCI Express x8 slots, and two embedded multifunction gigabit network adapters.
The DL585 servers are targeted at the HPTC market in areas including electronic design automation (EDA)/semiconductor, financial applications, petrochemical applications, enterprise resource planning (ERP)/customer relationship management (CRM) applications, large database applications, and video rendering applications, among other uses, according to HP.
HP has also posted a notice on its Web site that states ProLiant Servers Configured with a Quad-Core AMD Opteron Processor "require a Service Pack Upgrade for Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP 3 or Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10 to Support AMD PowerNow! Feature."
Top-tier U.S. server vendors are, for the most part, waiting for the B3 stepping of the Barcelona processor, though selected shipments of earlier versions of the Barcelona are going to specialized, high-performance computing (HPC) customers.
Earlier this week, Advanced Micro Devices finally introduced the first true quad-core microprocessor in the PC market, code-named "Barcelona" and launched as part of AMD's Opteron line. David Kanter provided an excellent technical analysis of Barcelona on his Real World Technologies site.
At the Barcelona launch, AMD played up its statistics on integer performance.
(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET Networks)Barcelona is not the absolutely fastest processor on the market. For single-core performance, both IBM and Intel offer faster chips. With multiple cores working, Intel and Sun can claim higher performance per socket--Intel because it can put two high-frequency dual-core chips in one socket, and Sun because it has an eight-core processor (the UltraSparc T2).
Although I'm sure AMD wishes it could claim those titles, there's another metric that matters even more to some customers. Barcelona delivers high ... Read more
AMD released its long-awaited Barcelona server chip today while Intel upped its earning forecast, underscoring the importance of AMD's latest release. AMD has lost ground in the server market since Intel launched its Core architecture, and things are even more one-sided with desktops and laptops with Intel's Core 2 Duo processors dominating the scene. While AMD has stated it will role out Barcelona chips for desktops under the Phenom name in December, it released new Opteron server chips today based on its native quad-core architecture.
(Credit:
Advanced Micro Devices)
Unlike Intel's quad-core Xeon parts, which simply package together two dual-core processors, AMD's Barcelona chips feature four processing cores on a single piece of silicon, which, according to AMD, results in better performance. In addition to adding a unified L3 cache and bringing improvements to its famed integrated memory controller, AMD also introduced a number of features to improve the chip's energy efficiency. Areas of the processor are turned off when not needed via CoolCore, while Independent Dynamic Core Technology means that each core can adjust its clock speed so that they're not running any faster than necessary. The CPU cores and the memory controller use separate power planes so that each draws only the wattage it needs.
Also helping AMD push the lower power consumption angle is the fact that the chips are clocked slower than many expected. The 2.0GHz Opteron 2350 is the speediest of the chips introduced today, though higher clocked parts are expected to be rolled out in the coming months. Does it all add up to a winner for AMD? The early returns are mixed. While the Barcelona chips are competitive with Intel's current quad-core Xeons and live up to the lower power consumption claims, they don't seem to be the runaway hit AMD had hoped.
The Tech Report tested a number of the new Barcelona chips, including a preview of a 2.5GHz Opteron chip that's not due out till the end of the year. It found some latency issues with Barcelona's L3 cache, less than enthralling floating-point performance, and up and down performance on the whole. It concluded, "Barcelona's gains in performance per clock aren't quite what we expected, especially in floating-point-intensive applications like 3D rendering, where it looks for all the world like a quad-core K8. As a result, Barcelona is sometimes faster, sometimes slower, and oftentimes the equal of Intel's Core microarchitecture, MHz for MHz. Given the current clock speed situation, that's a tough reality." That is, if you want a faster quad-core server part than what you can get in the Opteron line, you can find it among Intel's Xeon line.
AnandTech tested the 2.0GHz Opteron 2350 and found it performed on par with a pricier Xeon chip. It also reported that it was very energy efficient. And in simulating a desktop environment to get a glimpse at the potential of the Phenom processors, it found that Phenom offered "much improved" gaming performance and a 10 percent to 15 percent overall performance advantage compared with a similarly clocked Athlon 64 X2. It'll take more than that to unseat Core 2 Duo in desktops, however. As for the server chips rolled out today, Anand concluded that "AMD hasn't clearly hit a home run this time, but at least they're playing in the same ballpark."
If you'll allow me to continue the metaphor, the problem of AMD showing up for a game against Intel now is that Intel has nearly completed a new stadium. Intel's 45nm Penryn chips are expected on Nov. 11. Perhaps AMD can raise its revenue outlook on that date to return the favor.
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