Ampere Altra, the new processor for data centers with 80 cores and ARM architecture

Robert Sole 24 June, 2020

0 2.989 2 reading minutes

One of the strongest markets is servers and advanced computing. Currently this market is undergoing important changes, due to the strong rise of AMD in this market. Today the Ampere Altra high-performance 64-bit processor based on the ARM architecture. This processor has no less than 80 cores and is designed for servers and Data Centers.

Competing in the server and data center market is not easy, since great competitiveness is necessary. AMD is making it very difficult for Intel with the new AMD EPYC processors. Not only large supercomputing systems choose the EPYC, the NVIDIA DGX-A100 for AI mount EPYC processors.

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Ampere Altra arrives stomping with an 80-core processor

The specifications of the Ampere Altra processor based on the ARM Neoverse N1 architecture are impressive. This processor has been manufactured in TSMC's 7nm lithography, with 80 cores and working at a frequency of 3.0GHz. This processor supports an Octa-Channel DDR4 @ 3200MHz configuration with support for 4TB in total and support for 128 PCI-Express 4.0 lanes.

Ampere offers the Altra processor with 80 cores and a 3.0GHz frequency with a TDP of 210W. We also have a more powerful Altra model with also 80 cores but working at 3.3GHz with a TDP of 250W.

Jeff Wittich, Vice President of Ampere, has indicated that data centers currently consume 3% of the energy generated in the world. He also highlighted that by 2030 a consumption of approximately 11% is expected. This is why we must seek to develop highly efficient solutions and this is the reason why many companies look at ARM architecture.

Renee James, President of Ampere and former Vice President of Intel, has said that this processor is 4% more powerful than the AMD EPYC 7742. The AMD EPYC 7742, for those who do not know, has 64 cores and 128 threads and has a 225W TDP. It has also highlighted that it is 223% more powerful than the Intel Xeon Platinum 8280 with 28 cores and 56 threads with a TDP of 205W.