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.
Advanced Micro Devices said the long-delayed quad-core "Barcelona" Opteron processor is available in servers from computer vendors such as Hewlett-Packard.
HP G5 server series
(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)Barcelona had been delayed repeatedly due to production glitches and bugs. AMD is now shipping a "B3" version that includes the bug fix in silicon.
"Customers can get the quad-core AMD Opteron processor today in systems from HP, as well as other system providers," the chipmaker said in a release Tuesday night. The HP ProLiant G5 servers are the first of many systems that are expected to be available in the coming weeks from global OEMs and system builders, AMD said.
The Opteron 8300 Series is currently available in select HP servers at speeds of 2.2GHz (model 8354) and 2.3GHz (model 8356). Opteron 8300 series processors are targeted at multiprocessor servers that typically use four processors (16 cores).
AMD has updated its pricing with the 8360 (2.5GHz) listed at $2,149, the 8358 (2.4Hz) at $1,865, the 8356 at $1,514, and the 8354 at $1,165.
AMD also lists quad-core Opteron 2300 series processors, starting at $316 for the 2352 (2.1GHz) and ranging up to $1,156 for the 2360 (2.5Ghz). These are used typically in two-processor systems.
The quad-core 1300 series for single-processor systems ranges in price from the 1352 listed at $209 to the 1356 listed at $377.
"We are proud to be the first OEM to market with quad-core AMD Opteron processor-based servers," Paul Gottsegen, vice president of marketing for industry-standard servers at HP, said in a prepared statement.
Systems are also expected from IBM, Dell, and Sun Microsystems. IBM and Sun Microsystems have had systems waiting to take the chips since fall of last year.
Barcelona-based computers are also available from smaller vendors such as Rackable Systems and Supermicro, AMD said.
The chipmaker said Monday that it would reduce its workforce by 10 percent this year and that it expects to post first-quarter revenue of $1.5 billion, about 15 percent lower than the fourth quarter and well below seasonal declines.
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.
The government will spend $26 million on high-end computers to cut costs and standardize systems among the three U.S. labs charged with ensuring the safety and reliability of the nation's aging nuclear stockpile.
The Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) awarded the multimillion-dollar contract to Milpitas, Calif.-based Appro to supply Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories with 438 teraflop high-performance computing clusters based on the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor. To date, each of these labs had used its own combination of computer systems, which were not always compatible with the others.
(Credit:
Appro)
"This is the first time NNSA has awarded a single contract for all three laboratories," agency official Martin Schoenbauer in a press release. "Combining the contract for each of the three laboratories not only saves money, but continues to move NNSA towards a smaller more efficient nuclear weapons complex."
The new equipment will provide crunch power to NNSA's Stockpile Stewardship program, under which the labs perform advanced nuclear weapons simulations meant to replace underground testing and extend the life of existing weapons. The computers are expected to be deployed in eight Linux clusters across the "tri-Lab" sites starting later this year.
The Appro systems are composed of modular, scalable units that can be rapidly configured "Lego-style" into clusters of varying sizes and computing power, according to NNSA. Each unit represents about 20 trillion floating-point operations per second (teraflops) of computing power and feature the latest Mellanox Technologies ConnectX IB 20 GB/s dual-port InfiniBand adapters and ConnectX EN dual port 10 Gigabit Ethernet NICs for storage connectivity.
The government relies increasingly on science and technology to extend the life of existing warheads, given the untenability of continuing the Cold War practice of replacing weapons every 15 to 20 years, NNSA's Thomas P. D'Agostino told the House Armed Services Committee (PDF). This was the genesis of the science-based Stockpile Stewardship program whose major focus is predicting the effect of changes in an aging stockpile, he said.
There has been no mention of hooking up the other sites that constitute the nation's nuclear weapons research and production base, namely the Nevada Test Site, Savannah River Site, Pantex Plant and Kansas City Plant. The video below shows what an underground test looks like.
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
As expected, Intel on Wednesday announced its Xeon 7300 line of quad-core chips, models geared for higher-end servers with four or more processors.
Tom Kilroy, general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, shows a new Quad-Core Xeon 7300 series processor, code-named Tigerton, at a press event in San Francisco Wednesday.
(Credit: Intel)The processors will range in frequency from a 2.93GHz for a 130-watt model to 1.86GHz for a 50-watt high-efficiency model. Intel also will offer an intermediate 80-watt class, the company said. Prices will range from $856 to $2,301 in quantities of 1,000.
The chips, code-named Tigerton, bring Intel's Core architecture to high-end x86 servers, replacing the last of the Netburst lineage. Netburst's eventual power consumption problems opened the door for Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron family, but Intel has reclaimed many of its market share losses with the higher performance and lower power consumption of the Core line.
Accompanying Tigerton is a new platform for high-end servers called Caneland that speeds up communications between chips and memory, a key bottleneck in computers in general. At the heart of the platform is the Intel 7300 chipset, which links the processor with other parts of the system.
AMD has been punished this year by Intel's resurgence, a six-month delay of its Barcelona quad-core processor and other problems, but it couldn't resist carping on Wednesday about Tigerton's memory system and the fact that it's made of two dual-core chips squeezed into a single package. Barcelona's approach, with four cores on one slice of silicon, might well offer some advantages, but given how much hay Intel has made with lower-end quad-core chips that use the two-plus-two approach, boasting about "native" quad core sure sounds like nitpicking.
Intel will come with a new way to connect its chips in 2008/2009, a shift that marks a big change in how the company's chips function.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker will move to the Common System Interface, a high-speed way to connect chips, at that time. David Kanter of Real World Technologies provides more details here.
Intel put out the first papers on CSI in 2004 and has provided incremental details as well as changed some of the details over the years. (Sometimes, people called it Common System Interconnect.) Canter, though, gives you a pretty thorough overview on the technology.)
Processors will communicate with each other through CSI. Memory in these computers, however, can also be distributed, thus meaning that processor-to-memory communication will also be helped by CSI. Now, in Intel processors, this traffic goes through a channel called the front side bus, which has been around for years.
Chip interconnects is where the action is in the chip world. Although processor performance has climbed steadily year after year, interconnect performance has improved at a much slower rate, resulting in latency. A couple of start-ups such as Tilera have emerged in recent years to try and solve this problem.
A good interconnect can separate you from the pack. Pat Gelsinger, one of the key execs at Intel, got a huge career boost way back when by leading a team that figured out how to boost the speed of the bus.
When the Opteron and Athlon chips from Advance Micro Devices came out in 2003, some people assumed the big deal about the chip was that it could process data in 64-bits.
In reality, the big things were the integrated memory controller and HyperTransport, a high-speed chip-to-chip connection. The memory controller boosted performance by about five percent while HT gunned it by ten percent, said Dirk Meyer, now AMD's president, back then. (Most Athlon buyers have actually never used 64-bit software.)
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