AMD Opteron Processor Barcelona

Synonyms

Microprocessors

Definition

The AMD Opteron^TM processor codenamed “Barcelona” was introduced in September 2007 and was notable as the industry’s first “native” quad-core x86 processor, containing four cores on single piece of silicon. The die also featured an integrated L3 cache which was accessible by all four cores, Rapid Virtualization Indexing to improve virtualization performance, new power management features including split power planes for the integrated memory controller and the cores, and a higher-IPC (Instructions per Clock) core including significantly higher floating-point performance. Finally, the product was a plug-in replacement for the previous-generation AMD Opteron processor – “Barcelona” used the same Direct Connect system architecture, the same physical socket including commodity DDR2 memory, and fit in approximately the same thermal envelope.

Discussion

Previous Opteron Generations

The first-generation AMD Opteron processor was introduced in April of 2003....