AMD Releases Expanded Tools and Support for Developers to Fully Utilize Three Generations of Multi-Core AMD64 Systems

MD’s Developer Center offers Smith v2.0, PGI compilers, and robust tier one testing systems including native quad-core “Barcelona” processors

SUNNYVALE, Calif.-AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced new and upcoming upgrades to its AMD Developer Center facility. Beginning this quarter, AMD will offer customers and technology partners easier-than-ever access to a testing environment that will span all three generations of multi-core AMD Opteron™ processors including the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor, code-named “Barcelona.”

To address the growing need for applications that are optimized for multi-core processor environments, the AMD Developer Center offers customers and technology partners access to fully configured Dual-Core AMD Opteron clusters and servers to develop, test and optimize applications. The Center provides developers with an easy path from single- to dual- and soon quad-core processors as demand for more data processing power increases.

“The AMD Developer Center was designed with the software eco-system in mind,” said Terri Hall, vice president, Software Alliances and Solutions, AMD. “These new offerings ensure the AMD Developer Center caters to a wide range of customers and technology partners and their diverse needs. From financial services companies managing large trading applications, to media companies running rendering farms, to individual developers looking to stay competitive by harnessing the processing power of multi-core applications, the AMD Developer Center is a vital resource for software developers around the world looking to tune their software to harness the full power of multi-core computing.”

Later in Q207, the AMD Developer Center will offer a platform to test software applications on the upcoming Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor, in addition to the current first- and second-generation AMD Opteron testing platforms. Because of the seamless migration path between its Dual-Core and Quad-Core processors, AMD will be able to offer customers and developers the ability to get a head start on testing and optimizing their applications for Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors.

In addition, AMD is actively working with leading software tools vendors and the open source software community to deliver tools that help developers utilize the multi-core benefits of the latest generations of AMD Opteron processors. The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) and The Portland GroupTM (PGI) newly released high-performance compilers and tools are some examples that now support the AMD Quad-Core processors. The 7.0-3 release of PGI compilers offers an environment to create optimized code for AMD Quad-Core technology. PGI compilers also offer a development environment that can generate a single PGI Unified BinaryTM that is fully optimized for both AMD and Intel processors, giving developers all the benefits of a single x64 platform to leverage the latest processor innovations.

AMD is working with Microsoft® and Sun to ensure that their popular development tools, Microsoft Visual Studio and Sun™ Studio software, will also provide support code optimization for AMD Quad-Core processors. AMD is also updating its performance libraries, the AMD Core Math Library (ACML) and the AMD Performance Library (APL), to provide highly optimized routines for AMD Quad-Core Processors.

The AMD Developer Center provides richly configured systems for developing and testing multi-threaded application environments. The latest enhancements which are available today include:

An upgraded Smith v2.0 cluster: Built in conjunction with technology partners Colfax International, Mellanox™ Technologies, W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc., and QLogic® Corporation, the upgraded cluster consists of 40 nodes of Second-Generation AMD Opteron processors on an InfiniBand® DDR Network. The 160 AMD Opteron Model 8220 processors combined with DDR InfiniBand have yielded an efficiency rating of over 84-percent with all 40 nodes on the industry standard benchmark HPL. This cluster provides customers and technology partners with a test bed for their most demanding compute-intensive applications.

An upgraded Emerald cluster: The Emerald cluster in the AMD Developer Center has been upgraded to AMD Opteron Series 290 processors, resulting in a 30-percent performance increase while keeping power and cooling needs the same as the previous system. Customers and technology partners will find this cluster useful for developing and testing datacenter-class applications.

A total of more than 80 Dell SC1435 and Sun Fire™ X4100 servers: These fast, reliable platforms are geared toward individual developers wanting to gain experience running software on AMD hardware, conduct performance testing, and tune their applications. These systems will be the first clusters available for remote benchmarking that will be upgraded to AMD’s upcoming “Barcelona” quad core processors.

Customers and technology partners worldwide can access the AMD Developer Center to test on AMD multi-core systems working onsite or remotely. AMD’s Developer Center is actively working with the software ecosystem to create an environment to help ease code testing and development as well as make sure that tools and systems are available to help utilize the multi-core benefits of AMD’s Barcelona processors.

“AMD helps developers transition into a multi-core world,” said Prashant Sridharan, Director of Marketing, Visual Studio, Microsoft. “With these software tools and testing capabilities, the AMD Developer Center helps Visual Studio developers harness AMD’s world-class hardware for building reliable next-generation applications on Windows Vista™ and Windows® Server coded named ‘Longhorn’.”

Established in 2002 and located in Sunnyvale, Calif., the AMD Developer Center delivers incomparable services and infrastructure to support customers looking to create or upgrade HPC environments and enterprise applications based on AMD64 technology. For more information about the AMD Developer Center, visit http://devcenter.amd.com.