By Christoph Hochstatter, ZDNet Germany
AMD’s 45nm chips have arrived almost exactly one year after the first Intel processors to use the same feature size — currently the most advanced process used in mainstream processor production. Codenamed ‘Shanghai’, the new AMD processors are arriving first in quad-core Opterons for two-, four- and eight-processor server platforms, enabling up to 32 cores per server. Phenom variants for desktops, codenamed Deneb, are due in the first quarter of 2009.
For the most part, AMD is sticking with its previous 65nm processor design, Barcelona. But by investing in miniaturization, AMD has created the space on the chip to increase the L3 cache, which was Barcelona’s weak spot and which promises good performance return on design investment.
AMD’s ‘Shanghai’ processors are the company’s first chips to utilize the improved performance and efficiency of 45nm technology. ZDNet Germany tests show that they have made up important ground on Intel Xeon chips.
