We're the geist in the heist in the deus ex machina
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Shanghai arrives early to fight Nehalem
COMPARE SHANGHAI and Barcelona, and you couldn't find two more different cities - yes, both are cosmopolitan and famous, plus of course fun to be in. However, Barcelona is a symbol of Mediterranean relaxed slow lifestyle with long afternoon 'siestas' and midnight dinners, while the gigantic Shanghai runs everything early and fast, in sixth gear - even their Maglev train whisks you at 430 km/h from the ultramodern airport into an even more futuristic downtown.
By the way, that one was completed AHEAD of schedule in just two years, shorter than it'd take one to just consult the hostile neighbourhoods anywhere in Europe on such a project - not to mention certain "Green" parties that often somehow end up obstracting any such really environmentally friendly non-oil infrastructure setups, if you look at the Munich example. But then, "Green" is the colour of oil too, isn't it?
So, It seems it was a lucky decision for AMD to, after the long Barcelona 'siesta' with all its delays and such, pick the highly energetic Shanghai name for its next spin. It seems the new CPU inherited the speed and efficiency of its mega-city namesake. And, for the first time in a long while, and AMD high end CPU came out earlier - instead of 1Q 09, we'll have the "Shanghai" 45 nm Opteron generation sometime this coming quarter!
Cynics would say that AMD should stick only with Chinese city codenames from now on, as that's one place on Earth where things get done really fast.
Anyway, "Shanghai" Opterons are expected to push performance forward while improving a bit on the power consumption. I feel the performance alone is the primary focus here: combining an expected 15 per cent - 20 per cent better per clock throughput compared to Barcelona with up to 3 GHz initial clocks (3.2 GHz early next year) will not beat Nehalem Gainstown DP, but will come sufficiently close to keep the competition going.
Also, unlike Nehalem, "Shanghai" will be available in the 4 to 8 socket MP version right away, which could keep them superior performance-wise prior to the Intel Dunningtons for a while, until the Beckton Nehalem generation is out in a year's time. Talking about those AMD MP boxes, an early HT3 speed support introduction would definitely help scale better across more sockets.
In our opinion, AMD has to focus on pushing the Shanghai speed bins further up as far as possible, while also having a decent speed 2.6++ GHz 80W or less bin too. Remember, Intel right now has a wonderfully performing quad-core 2.66 GHz reduced power LV Xeon SKU, and 2.66 GHz Nehalems might be out there in an 80W flavour soon upon launch.
A combination of good performance top bins with decent speed power-saving ones would give AMD a chance to gain back a bit of HPC and workstation on one side, and compact dense blade servers on the other side. Since these are some of the more attractive market segments right now, it's worth doing it I guess.
And, if they do the 3.2 GHz bin soon, at least they can claim they came back to the frequency parity with top Nehalems. It may sound odd, but it'd be an important marketing asset at the end-user level.
So, the next few months will - after a long lull - finally turn out to be exciting in the competitive high end CPU landscape. µ
Tags: Amd
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Reminds me of the Fast Show, in particular Rowley Birkin, Q.C.

BTW, what is (was?) life like in Conroe? Or Nehamlem? I've thought these are places, too. No?

If Shanghai doesn't get the job done, I suggest AMD's next server codename should be Hong Kong, where I am from (incidentally).
Actually the Chinese fast train ravaged villages and there's a bunch of pending lawsuits, or at least attempts to complain - probably like their river expansion-destruction, nobody will listen there either.

Oil, is black. How is it green? Do you mean it has a green sheen to it in certain types of light?

CPU design would be best avoiding the kind of expansion equivalent going on in China, especially in the power consumption area.
I'm tired of the INQ cheerleading in general - I hate it when news people "want" something. Just tell me what "is" and not try to make things sound better than they are or creatively twist the facts to make things fit or to generate a headline

@Knutson - read my comment again instead of trying to read INTO it. Where exactly did I say AMD did not do any of the quotes? My point was/is - AMD has always suggested and provided roadmaps that 45nm server parts would be Q4'08. So why would AMD releasing the chip in Q4'08 now be interpreted to mean 'arriving early'.

Call me a simpleton but when something occurs at the time it was projected to occur that means "on time" or "on schedule". Arriving early kind of implies.... earlier than previous schedules. As I have now seen similar story on a couple of other 'tech' (I use this term loosely) sites the conspiracist in me thinks AMD is spinning this hard or people are just lazy and copying others' "analysis" on the web.

So can anyone explain how a part being released in Q4'08, with a roadmap that said Q4'08 means "arriving early". Or do people now just assume AMD is completely incompetent and will blow their roadmap dates? (and therefore meeting schedule now means "early")
WTF? I mean, you must be talking about the weekends!! Otherwise, barcelona is a boiling city, with rush hours just as busy as london man...
And... where a real 10 hours working day (including the minimum 1 hour launch break) is the absolutely minimum in this city... I guess shangai is busier city, but from a business productivity per worker standpoint barcelona kicks ass any uk based city.

...siesta? that's good for weekends, or beer drinking tourists not for working days.
I read the article twice. Honest.

When are these things going to be available for purchase?
Heres todays price & its mighty sweeete'. Next months AM3 say doubler? Those Mains actually look dangerous.

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drashek
it looks like capt dirk has finally managed to put amd in gear. i suspect engineers have the designs up in the closet and wait for hector to be ousted before they took it out. this is good news as amd have the best chipset in town and with the new 45nm procs, this will make intel wet in their pants.
afraid not... and as far as controlling all graphics? Last time i checked, my *ancient* 8800GTS SSCs in SLI were outperforming the 4870x2 in crysis.
"grafics"

I really can't say much more for that comment (lucky).

@shorttermmeory:
"The cheerleading is getting tiresome - rather than attempting to create news, how about just reporting it?"

Nebojsa's cheerleading for AMD is becoming tiresome? 

This is his first somewhat positive article about AMD since he picked up a pen.

So, not to worry. At this rate, all three of us will be old and decrepit before we see another.

PC enthusiasts go ape shitze over CPU speed for no legit reason. Current CPUs process all apps just fine. The only thing the latest, greatest, fastest, trick-of-the-week CPU buys you is bragging rights. It don't mean jack to anyone with a clue.

85% of all CPUs sold are not max speed CPUs. Most consumers couldn't care less if a CPU is clocked at 2.6 Ghz or 3.2 Ghz. Consumers want value and reasonable performance. Both AMD and Intel have delivered this for years. The fact that AMD lost the max speed performance crown to Intel means little other than bragging rights. AMD sells more CPUs based on low power consumption and actual performance than they do on max speed alone. The small quantity of CPUs sold to gamers looking for bragging rights means little to the bottom line for AMD or Intel. It's all status and nothing more.

As long as AMD continues to deliver the goods they will be just fine despite the illegal business practices that Intel has used to try and eliminate any competition. If it were not for AMD we'd all be using Pentium 90 CPUs that cost $1000 ea. so I'd suggest that people chose wisely when purchasing a PC or CPU. Keeping AMD healthy is good for all consumers.
That is Phenom on Q1'09 and Opteron later this year. Keep track of the details before you try to flame. Everything you've listed, they've done and they will have the 45nm Opteron out this year (provided all goes well)
Even if it does scale up properly will it really keep up with bloomfield? And then theres the issues of compatibility.

I think amd lost their edge. Became lazy and then farmed out all of their production.

Are they going to have cpu production problems again? Are we going to have cpu's with too small of yield?

I really skeptical that this is even going to compete with gainstown at all.

I'm interested in seeing how this is going to pan out but I do think DAAMIT has lost is heyday and its gone for good.
Theres Big difference between server, which could be workstation or even desktop, depending on mainboard & that of mainframe Processor on slip in board.

Nahalem, in particular for workstation Desktop, Dunningtons are all recently featured in theInquirer in basic experimtnetal, power, self as Mainframe, add on processor, where if 64 don't fit your fancy, try another 64. Oh,My.

Shangai, has more of preconditioned Blade in heart. barcelona, with two way cache bar, could, at first barely keep one core operating, lets hope present models are better. Somehow buying mainframe that only puts out 1/3 of its rating is harder squeeze on companies & techs that dream up sales at any cost, while blade server, like all other BAD, software ready units, arn't that big loss figuring in replacement series processor upon Blades mainboard.

So AMD may be ahead in guts of it all, if are, there hiding it from US. Intel seems to have size & performance jumps from nearly 30% to near 50%, which is bit more of promise than so many revisions latter it might work as well as replacement item it replaced?

Wake Up AMD. Only Company that Volunteerily Shanghai'd itself.(except few zillion other nuts)
drashek
...finally AMD is getting things done right. Not that they control all grafics but they are going back on track cpu wise ;) Intel is still nr 1 but I hope AMD gets completly back on track.
It would be so nice to have a good cpu paired with the super AMD chipsets. Good CPU + super chipset + super grafics = AMD back on track!!!

I love u AMD ^^
"we expect to ramp 45nm technology H1'08"
"we expect to start production mid-08"
"we expect to ship product H2'08"

And not you want us to take Q1'09 as the release date and then claim 45nm is early? Please! Are you so naive to go for the delay the schedule, then pull it in to make it seem ahead of schedule routine. Before writing garbage/analysis like this look at ANY of AMD's recent CPU roadmaps or ANY of the ernaings call transcripts and show me where Q1'09 was ever the schedule?!?!

Also while the choice of Shanghai story makes a good yarn... the name was chosen long before Barcelona came out and before even Charlie was "dancing in the aisles".

The cheerleading is getting tiresome - rather than attempting to create news, how about just reporting it?