As we’re wrapping up 2020, one final massive assessment merchandise for the yr is Ampere’s lengthy promised new Altra Arm server processor. This yr has certainly been the yr the place Arm servers have had a breakthrough; Arm’s new Neoverse-N1 CPU core had been the IP designer’s first true devoted server core, promising targeted efficiency and effectivity for the datacentre.
Earlier within the yr we had the prospect to check out the primary Neoverse-N1 silicon in the form of Amazon’s Graviton2 inside AWS EC2 cloud compute providing. The Graviton2 appeared like a really spectacular design, however was reasonably conservative in its objectives, and it’s additionally a chunk of {hardware} that most people can’t entry exterior of Amazon’s personal cloud companies.
Ampere Computing, based in 2017 by former Intel president Renée James, constructed upon initial IP and design talent of AppliedMicro’s X-Gene CPUs, and with Arm Holdings becoming an investor in 2019, is at this second in time the only real “true” service provider silicon vendor designing and providing up Neoverse-N1 server designs.
To date, the corporate has had a number of merchandise out within the type of the eMAG chips, however with rather disappointing performance figures – comprehensible on condition that these have been basically legacy merchandise primarily based on the outdated X-Gene microarchitecture.
Ampere’s new Altra product line, however is the end result of a number of years of labor and shut collaboration with Arm – and the corporate first “true” product which might be seen as Ampere pedigree.
Today, with {hardware} in hand, we’re lastly having a look on the very first publicly obtainable high-performance Neoverse primarily based Arm server {hardware}, designed for nothing lower than most achievable efficiency, aiming to battle one of the best designs from Intel and AMD.
Mount Jade Server with Altra Quicksilver
Ampere has provided us with the corporate’s server reference design, dubbed “Mount Jade”, a 2-socket 2U rack unit sever. The server got here provided with two Altra Q80-33 processors, Ampere’s top-of-the-line SKU with every that includes 80 cores working at as much as 3.3GHz, with TDP reaching as much as 250W per socket.
The server was designed with shut collaboration with Wiwynn for this twin socket, and with GIGABYTE for the only socket variant, as beforehand hinted by the two company’s announcements of leading hyperscale deployments of the Altra platforms. The Ampere-branded Mount Jade DVT reference motherboard is available in a typical server blue color scheme and options 2 sockets with as much as 16 DIMM slots per socket, reaching as much as 4TB DRAM capability per socket, though our assessment unit got here geared up with 256GB per socket throughout 8 DIMMs to totally populate the chip’s 8-channel reminiscence controllers.
This can be our first take a look at Ampere’s first-generation socket design. The firm doesn’t actually market any specific identify to the socket, but it surely’s a large LGA4926 socket with a pin-count in extra of some other industrial server socket from AMD or Intel. The holding mechanism is considerably much like that of AMD’s SP3 system, with a holding mechanism tensioned by a 5-point screw system.
The chip itself is totally humongous and amongst the present publicly obtainable processors is the most important within the business, out-sizing AMD’s SP3 form-factor packaging, coming in at round 77 x 66.8mm – about the identical size however significantly wider than AMD’s counterparts.
Although it’s a large chip with an enormous IHS, the Mount Jade server shocked me with its cooling answer because the included 250W kind cooler solely made contact with about 1/4th the floor space of the warmth spreader.
Ampere right here doesn’t have a recessed “lip” across the IHS for the mounting bracket to carry onto the chip like on AMD or Intel methods, so the precise IHS floor is definitely recessed in relation to the bracket which suggests you can not have a flat floor cooler design throughout the entire of the chip floor.
Instead, the included 250W design cooler makes use of an enormous vapour chamber design with a “pedestal” to make contact with the chip. Ampere explains that they’ve experimented with completely different designs and located {that a} smaller space pedestal truly labored higher for warmth dissipation – siphoning warmth off from the precise chip die which is notably smaller than the IHS and chip bundle.
The cooler design is kind of complicated, with vertical fin stacks dissipating warmth straight off the vapour chamber, with further massive horizontal fins dissipating warmth from 6 U-shaped warmth pipes that draw warmth from the vapour chamber. It’s positively a extra complicated and high-end design than what we’re used to in server coolers.
Although the Mount Jade server is certainly a really fascinating piece of {hardware}, our focus at this time lies across the precise new Altra processors themselves, so let’s dive into the brand new Q80-33 80-core chip subsequent.
