The launch of the AMD K10 architecture is getting closer and closer. The first Opteron server processors, based on the Barcelona architecture, will arrive next month already, but the first desktop processors will not surface until next quarter. Engineering samples have already started circulating though and over at OC.com.tw they posted pictures of what is suppose to be two AMD engineering samples. A first glance tells us that the pictures most likely show us two Agena, quad-core processors, but no Kuma, dual-core . The OPN code has been changed since the ol’ age of AM2 processors, but it can still be interpreted pretty easily.
The OPN code on the left processor says ZD160110J4BGA and the one on the right ZD180110J4BGA. The Z is new for these processors, AM2 processors has an A or S. This is most likely the K10 letter. The ‘160’ and ‘180’ is probably a frequency indicator (1.6 and 1.8GHz). The ‘110’ could mean the voltage, 1.10V. The ‘J’ is for packaging, thus AM2+ (AM2 is I). The ‘4’ is the amount of 512KB cache, which means that this processor has 4x125KB cache, 2MB.
In short, the picture shows two Agenas with 2MB L2 cache, one running at 1.6GHz and one at 1.8GHz. These processors was made back in week 23 and has the infamous B0 stepping. This stepping was first rumored to be golden, but was later speculated to contain more than a few bugs.
Even though the engineering samples are kind of old, it’s nice to see them in circulation. The launch is still slated for Q4 though, and hopefully at higher frequencies. Even though we haven’t seen many benchmarks, 1.6GHz seems a bit low when the competition has an architecture with similar IPC and it runs at twice the speed.
