AMD Opteron X4 Architecture

1. AMD Opteron X4 Architecture Fang Li

2. Outline History of Opteron 1 Features of K10 2 AMD Balanced Smart Cache 3 Memory Optimizer Tech 4

3. The first AMD Opteron processor (single core) is released on April 22, 2003. • Opteron is AMD server and workstation processor line, and was the first processor to implement the AMD64 instruction set architecture

4. AMD launched its Third-Generation Quad-core Opteron implementing K10 architecture on September 10, 2007 • The new K10 architecture is based on the K8 (a.k.a. AMD64) architecture with some enhancements. • AMD never released an architecture called K9, from K8 they jumped to K10.

5. New features introduced by K10[1]

6. Shared L3 Memory Cache[2] • K8 architecture used separated cache. Each CPU core has its own L2 memory cache. • K10 architecture adds a shared L3 memory cache inside the CPU.

8. Independent Memory Controller[3] • Dual-channel memory, a way to access two memory modules simultaneously, as if two 64-bit memory modules became one single 128-bit module. • Since there are benefits, there is also a problem

10. Reference • [1] Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ Processor Key Features http://www.amd.com/us/products/server/processors/opteron/Pages/3rd-gen-server-features.aspx.[2] Inside AMD64 Architecture(K8 architecture) http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/324/7.[3] Inside AMD K10 Architecturehttp://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/480

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