AMD’s Torrenza platform attract IBM and Sun

Torrenza is a very interesting plaform from AMD which will use a licensed processor socket that will not only accept AMD’s own server processors Opteron but also third party processors. The Torrenza platform will rely on AMD’s use of HyperTransport and its Direct Connect architecture which means that processors fitted into a Torrenza-compatible processor socket have the same possibilities to use the system’s resouces as AMD’s own processors. What is extra interesting is that you will be able to pair up different processors and that a Torrenza processor doesn’t have to be a regular CPU.

E.g. you can complete a conventional Opteron CPU with a specialized processor which has been developed for handling a specific kind of calculations. This is something several processor manufacturers have shown interest in and now IBM has announced that it will not be making any motherboards of its own for its coming Power7 processors, instead it will use specially designed Opteron motherboards from AMD, Torrenza-compatible. IBM and AMD have already signed a deal for the cooperation but none of them wants to officially confirm this, which however have been confirmed from several sources according to The Register.

The same sources have revealed that Sun is also interested in AMD’s Torrenza platform and that we may see UltraSPARC and UltraSPARC T1 in Opteron motherboards soon.

“This week, AMD revealed a new partner program that will let third-parties such as Sun, IBM and smaller vendors build products that fit directly into Opteron sockets. Most analysts believed that IBM and Sun were just experimenting with how they would make use of this Opteron option. But The Register can confirm that engineering efforts have started within IBM to fit the far off Power7 chips right into the Opteron sockets.”

This cooperation should lower IBM’s costs and it is going to be interesting to see how other RISC processor manufacturers react to AMD’s popular Torrenza platform.