AMD Stumbling In China

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AMD is currently preparing presentations for next week’s annual stockholder meeting to the tune of one million quad core chips have shipped to customers. This includes AMD’s latest run at the Top500 courtesy of the Chinese government. After witnessing the Tata Group hit #4 on the coveted Top500 list, China decided to outdo their Asian neighbor. Their goal was to upgrade the Shanghai Supercomputer Center [SSC], currently holding at #250 on the list, to an estimated 200 Tflops. This would edge out the Tata system by roughly 30 Tflops [peak].

How does AMD play into this quaint little tale? AMD jumped on the chance to edge out Intel on another Top500 machine. They offered the SSC their latest Barcelona silicon at bargain basement prices, $1 to be exact. This is not so out of the ordinary for microprocessor manufacturers to do such a thing. Intel routinely does this on similar high profile installations.

Apparently, the problem arose when the SSC techs opened the AMD crates to find 1.9 Ghz Barcelonas as opposed to the 2.3 Ghz cores they were promised. This could be a big problem when trying to hit 200 Tflops. Rumor has it, AMD is desperately trying to help SSC add equipment and swap silicon to try and meet the deadline to make the June 08′ Top500 release.

When it rains, it pours. For more info, read the full article here.