Chip maker AMD is starting to provide details about its first ARM-based processors, and while the new chip are more efficient than a typical x86 processor, they’re kind of low-power powerhouses.
In mid-2014 AMD will start shipping ARM-based chips code-named “Seattle,” packing up to 16 ARM Cortex-A57 processor cores.
AMD Seattle chips will be 64-bit processors that come in 8-core, and 16-core versions, and which will run at clock speeds of 2 GHz or higher. The chips support up to 128GB of RAM.
According to AMD, the new chips will offer more performance-per-watt than the company’s Opteron X-series chips for servers.
On the other hand, a 16-core Cortex-A57 processor will likely be way too power-hungry to find its way into a smartphone or tablet anytime soon. They make more sense for server racks, where energy efficiency is important, but battery life isn’t really a factor.
But now that AMD is taking its first steps into ARM-based chip designs, it may not be long before we see the company adopt ARM architecture for future low-power chips aimed at mobile devices. The company has already hinted at that possibility. For now, the company is positioning its x86-based Temash and Kabini chips for notebook and tablets.
via Engadget
What? Eurocom has a Mobile Server? Like a server I can carry around? I am looking into this. This sounds almost too good to be true.
16-core arm chips, that might work in a laptop or even a low-end desktop, exspectially with the new a-57 design. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
These are strictly for servers and cluster computing applications… They’re not going to be putting one of these in a laptop… Desktop, maybe, but not a laptop… Power consumption would be too high and it would take up too much space!
they could still show up in a “laptop” built by eurocom though. Having that said those things tip the scales at 12 lbs 🙂
Do you have any idea how large grouping 16 SoCs and all the associated RAM and storage drives would take up?
There’s no way to fit that into a laptop of any size!
Eurocom ( https://www.eurocom.com/ ), the one mattC mentioned might do it. Those “latops” are huge. They even have one with an 8-core Xeon and discrete GPU as a mobile server.
Hmm, well the Panther 5SE might pull it off… But not much point to going to that extreme when the XEON 8-cores would provide a lot more performance.
It’s going to take a few generations before they can scale up performance of ARM SoCs as they need more than just to go 64bit to really scale up performance and the first generation ARMv8 SoCs are basically just 64bit updates to the existing Cortex A15 and A7 SoCs…
This is great news! I have been wondering for several years why AMD did not get into the ARM sector. They must move quickly though. They will have stiff competition from nVidia and Samsung, both are eyeing the same server market.
AMD is a market follower, not a leader. Right after they released the athlon64 they basically went on cruise control and havae been more than happy to play follow the leader. What used to be 1-2 year lag seems to have turned into 3-4 year lag.
And thus the reason why AMD IS FINISHED!!!!!
More reason, less emotion? AMD actually turned a profit last quarter.
Heh that doesn’t matter because AMD is so far in debt it doesn’t matter if they turn a profit. AMD becoming a me too company will be the death of them.
Well, the game console design wins for both the XBox One and PS4 will net AMD over 3 billion… So that’ll help them for awhile but this is still after years of losing billions.
While being a “me too” product maker was one of the reasons why they didn’t push ARM before now but they have nothing that will be able to compete in that power efficiency range even in the works right now. So they had little choice in the matter for now…
Though, ARM is a supporter of the push for establishing HSA as a industry standard and that means using ARM processors still lets them push their own technology, especially their GPUs, and that wasn’t something that was really available before… Not to mention 64bit ARM to allow for better scaling of performance that could finally offer something competitive for the server market.
However, they still have to wait for about a year before they’ll be able to get this out and a lot can happen by then…
AMD is finished!!!! These ARM chips SUCK they are nothing compared to Apples and Qualcomm’s Cortex A-50 designs!!!!!
Apple is an ARM chip, the same goes for Qualcomm, Yes, both Apple and Q are licensed by Arm to make changes to the architecture, nontheless, this is ARM technology.
It’s a server chip you muppet, AMD are not going to be competing with either either Qualcom or Apple. Besides, neither Qualcom nor Apple have the technology to make server chips using ARM cores.
Oh yeah I know that already and thus that makes it much worse because AMD has even more competition in the form of Samsung and a few others.
If you knew that, why the stupid comment?
No company makes ARM server chips yet, so there’s no indication of where competition will come from.
Because ARM will fail for AMD. Because everyone else is better than AMD at ARM and they have more experience and can create chips that are faster, use less power, or even better BOTH!!!!
Are there any other large server chip makers planning to make ARM chips….. No…..
Having a server chip infrastructure is much more important than you realize.
Here: https://semiaccurate.com/2012/10/30/amd-announces-an-arm64-server-soc-for-seamicro/. AMD is too late too late for servers. Its going to get its rear end handed down to it on a sliver platter.
Not a single ARM server chip has been made to date (true server chips must be 64bit), and AMD is somehow too late? I think you’re drinking too much of that bloggers kool-aid.
Wrong again. Everyone else’s designs will be better than AMD’s. AMD is just using plain ARMv8 cores everyone else has theirs customized at least a little bit. why are you such an AMD fanboi?
Just because other designs might be slightly modified does not mean that they will be better for servers. AMD have a lot of server technology that the other ARM-Server makers do not have. Thus AMD have as good a chance as anyone of making a good ARM server.
Why are you such an AMD troll?
Because AMD sucks and they can’t compete with Intel and I want people to see that so that either AMD puts out worthy products or DIES OFF A QUICK death and lets someone else put something of worth out.
Calxeda ARM-based server chip are already available. Marvell does a few too. Applied Micro ARMv8 server chip will be available later this year.
So quite a few companies already make ARM server chips, just not the most famous ones.
The 32bit efforts are not serious attempts at making an ARM server chip, they are just experiments with re-tooled phone chips.
The true ARM server chips must have ARMv8, and yes these are going to come towards the end of this year.