Technologies in HP ProLiant G6 c-Class server blades with AMD Opteron™ processors

AMD Virtualization™ technology
AMD Virtualization technology (AMD-V) is a set of hardware extensions to the six-core AMD Opteron
architecture that allows better resource utilization. Hardware-based AMD-V technology translates
virtual to physical memory addresses using Rapid Virtualization Indexing to increase performance and
reduce latency. AMD-V simplifies existing software-only virtualization solutions by reducing, and
sometimes eliminating, the burden of trapping and emulating instructions executed within a guest
operating system.
AMD Core Select
Through the BIOS, AMD Core Select lets administrators select the number of cores per CPU that are
visible to software. Compliant operating systems and applications recognize a reduced core count
with a resulting decrease in software licensing costs. This option also reduces processor power use
and improves overall performance for applications that benefit from higher performance cores rather
than from additional processing cores. In multi-processor configurations, AMD Core Select enables the
same number of cores for each CPU. Administrators can select 100% or 50% of cores per CPU.
Thermal Logic technologies
For ProLiant c-Class server blades, HP designed smaller heat sinks than rack-mount servers use. The
server blade heat sinks have vapor chamber bases, thinner fins, and tighter fin pitch than previous
designs to achieve the largest possible heat transfer surface in the smallest possible package
(Figure 4). The smaller heat sink allows more space on the server blades for DIMM slots and hard
drives.
Precise ducting on ProLiant c-Class server blades manages airflow and temperature based on the
unique thermal requirements of all the critical components. The airflow is tightly ducted to ensure that
no air bypasses the server blade and to obtain the most thermal work from the least amount of air
moved. Ducting produces high pressure that reduces the amount of required airflow, which in turn
reduces the power draw of fans. The lower airflow requirement has the added benefit of optimizing
the available data center cooling capacity.
Figure 4. Processor heat sink using fully ducted design (left) and traditional heat sink used in a 1U rack-mount
server (right)
Top view
Side view
5