At OCP Summit 2022, Ampere Computing showed off its next-gen platform. This one is called Ampere Mt Mitchell. This is a next-generation DDR5 and PCIe Gen5 platform. We assume that this is an AmpereOne platform.
Ampere Shows AmpereOne based Mt Mitchell Next-gen DDR5 PCIe Gen5 Arm Server
We did not get exact specs on AmpereOne, as the company has been careful not to release them. At OCP Summit 2022, the company gave some clear indications of its next-generation Arm server CPU’s capabilities. It says that the new platform supports DDR5, PCIe Gen5, and has 2 DPC (DIMMs per channel) operation. Given we will have AMD Genoa launch this quarter (it is already showing up at OCP) and Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon (launching Q1, but expect to see some benchmarks next-week on STH) with DDR5 and PCIe Gen5 support, this is great to see. The one spec aside from more on cores missing from this is CXL support.
Here is the shot inside the Mt Mitchell server with Ampere Computing’s Jeff Wittich filling in as a hand model. Inside, we can see dual heatsinks with the trend of using copper heat pipes to move heat to larger fin areas away from the CPU socket itself. Usually designs like this are used for >250W TDP designs, so we expect that AmpereOne will have more thermal headroom.
Ampere says AmpereOne is 2DPC, and we can see black and white DDR5 DIMM slots in Mt Mitchell. Counting 2DPC slot pairs, we can see that there are eight memory channels per CPU in this system. That would equal Intel’s Sapphire Rapids, but be 50% less than AMD EPYC Genoa. The Genoa comparison is a little more nuanced than that, but we need to save that discussion for our launch coverage since we are under embargo on a detail there.
In terms of who is making the server, our best guess is that Inspur is making Mt Mitchell. It has seen a lot of success with the Ampere Altra / Altra Max generation. We saw its Inspur NF5280R6 at last year’s OCP Summit. One can see the same fan latches, the same DIMM slot coloring, and ordering, as well as the same riser design.
We do not know for sure that Inspur is making Mt Mitchell, but if we were going to guess, that feels like the most likely manufacturer given what we saw.
Final Words
After his keynote, I asked Jeff about the new platform. He was scant on details. My sense coming away from the conversation is that Ampere Altra has enough momentum and with Sapphire Rapids delayed until Q1, AmpereOne will not be rushed to market in a limited release.
Still, the next generation of Ampere servers is looking good. We saw the HPE ProLiant RL300 Gen11 at the show, but have been told those are supply constrained. Now the big question is when will Dell start offering Ampere servers (and Lenovo for non-China customers.) Not having an Arm server offering in worldwide availability in 2022 is quite amazing, especially as companies like NVIDIA are plowing full-speed ahead on Arm as we saw in our recent The Most Important Server of 2022 The Gigabyte Ampere Altra Max and NVIDIA A100 piece.
More on Ampere Arm servers coming at STH when we can provide details.
