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AMD Opteron X4
Architecture
Fang Li
Outline
1
History of Opteron
2
Features of K10
3
AMD Balanced Smart Cache
4
Memory Optimizer Tech
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
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.
New features introduced by K10[1]
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.
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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
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Reference
[1] Quad-Core AMD Opteron™
Processor Key Features
http://www.amd.com/us/products/s
erver/processors/opteron/Pages/3rd
-gen-server-features.aspx.[2] Inside
AMD64 Architecture(K8 architecture)
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/ar
ticle/324/7.[3] Inside AMD K10
Architecturehttp://www.hardwaresec
rets.com/article/480
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