CeBIT 2003 editorial

Guru3D events and tradeshows 19 Page 4 of 14 Published by

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Meeting - AMD

AMD
Again funny story ... I was leaving Gainward stand where they asked me who I would be meeting at AMD. Hilbert opens up the organiser ... OMG ... it's true once you get past 30 you start forgetting things .. i did not write down the name of the person I'd be talking to. So at the AMD reception I tried to explain I had an appointment with 'someone' from desktop products. After about 5 minutes the person still was not found so they got me another person, two actually.

First one, Julia Steinberg PR manager from Sweden and secondly Dave Everitt who is responsible for European Strategic Marketing. Unfortunately for me he was really focussed and targeted at server products mostly. So he had a lot to tell about AMD Opteron and a little less about Athlon 64.  One of the questions I often asked myself and therefore asked him was why is there a need to to change from 32 towards 64 bit ? Although he did not expect that question he had a very good answer. Actually more a rethorial question. It's simply the next step in the evolution of processors and these steps always need to go forward. He said it's not the question of IF but rather WHEN. Serverside applications will have heaps of bandwidth and raw calculation speed in a 64-bit environment and can be so much more efficient plus keep in mind that the Opteron is backwards compatible, thus it will run any 32bit application.

He closed that question with a very nice statement, would you prefer still to be working on a 386, 486, 8 or 16 bit computer ? Then things fall together and make sense. AMD it going to introduce the new CPU's later this year. For the Opteron series you can expect a new chip numbering line.

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imageview.php?image=219The CPU above is of course the all new Opteron.

The new Opteron lines will include the 100 Series, for single-processor machines; the 200 Series, for dual-processor systems; and the 800 Series, for computers using up to eight processors. The individual chips will start their numbering at 40, so under the new nomenclature there would be a model 140, a model 240 and a model 840. As chip speed increases, so would the model number--a model 142, for instance, would be faster than a model 140, and a model 144 would be faster still.

The model numbers are likely to increase by two each time a new chip comes out. The Opteron 100 series would start at 140, for example, and then move to 142 with the introduction of a new chip. Very confusing and not clear for the end user at all.

In the pictures below you can see some shots of a small backroom where Opteron, Athlon 64 and the new mobile products ran. The PC in your far right is actually an Athlon 3200+

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The new Mobile line-up, in fact some prototypes. Where the screen is on the left an opteron system has been running 100% load tests. Ever since the CeBIT started last wednesday it has been testing, it did not crash even once as it was still running.

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Dual Opteron configuration

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