Ampere presents server processor with 80 ARM cores

Ampere has announced its second server processor with ARM cores. The Ampere Altra is made at 7nm and has 80 cores with a turbo speed of up to 3GHz. The manufacturer offers two-socket configurations for a total of 160 cores.

Ampere uses the ARM Neoverse N1 cores that Amazon also uses in its Graviton2 soc for the new Altra server processors. Ampere’s chip is made on TSMC’s 7nm process and configured at a TDP of up to 210W.

Ampere delivers two platforms with the Altra server processor. mt. Jade is a 2U double socket rack server with Mt. Snow is a 1U or 2U single socket variant. Per socket, the platform offers 96 PCI-e 4.0 lanes and eight memory channels for 4TB of DDR4-3200.

According to Ampere, the Altra platform offers many more cores per rack than servers based on AMD Epyc or Intel Xeon server processors. The manufacturer also states that the performance is higher. The company bases this on the Spec cpu2017 benchmark.

The company says the Ampere Altra platform is already being delivered to customers worldwide, including major cloud services. The company does not name specific customers. Customers are currently testing and optimizing their software for the platform.

The Altra is Ampere’s second ARM server processor. Two years ago, the company released its eMAG server processors with 16 and 32 ARM cores. Chip company Ampere is led by former Intel CEO Renee James.