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Ampere Altra Max

The Ampere Altra Max is a high-performance ARM-based server CPU designed by Ampere Computing, introduced in 2023. It is part of Ampere’s Altra family, targeting cloud, datacenter, and high-performance computing workloads with an emphasis on high core counts and energy efficiency.

Key Specifications

  • Architecture: ARMv8.2-A (64-bit RISC)
  • Core Count: Up to 128 cores per socket
  • Clock Speed: Up to 3.0 GHz
  • Cache:
  • L2: 1 MB per core
  • L3: 32 MB shared
  • Memory Support: 8 channels of DDR4/DDR5 ECC memory
  • PCIe Support: PCIe 4.0 lanes for high-speed I/O
  • TDP: Up to 250W
  • Socket Compatibility: Standard server sockets for 2-socket configurations

Architectural Features

  1. High Core Count
    With up to 128 cores, Ampere Altra Max is optimized for massively parallel workloads like web servers, databases, microservices, and cloud-native applications.

  2. Energy Efficiency
    Despite high core counts, the Altra Max maintains competitive energy efficiency, reducing power consumption per vCPU and enabling better scaling in large datacenters.

  3. Single-threaded Performance
    Ampere focused on high single-thread performance per core while scaling cores to 128, achieving a balance between throughput and responsiveness for diverse workloads.

  4. Security and Reliability
    The CPU includes hardware-based security features such as memory encryption and protection mechanisms for cloud workloads.

Use Cases

  • Cloud Providers: Ideal for hyperscale cloud providers running containerized workloads and microservices due to high throughput per watt.
  • Web-scale Applications: Perfect for large-scale web hosting, content delivery, and caching infrastructure.
  • Databases: Supports high memory bandwidth and parallelism for database workloads like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and NoSQL.
  • High-performance Computing (HPC): Scales efficiently for workloads requiring many cores and high memory bandwidth.

Comparison to Other ARM Server CPUs

  • Graviton3/4 (AWS): Ampere Altra Max often provides higher core counts and slightly higher clock speeds, while Graviton4 emphasizes deep cloud integration and energy efficiency.
  • Performance-per-watt: Ampere Altra Max is highly efficient, competitive with AWS Graviton3/4 in throughput, making it suitable for private datacenters or public cloud providers who want flexibility outside AWS.

Summary

The Ampere Altra Max is a next-generation ARM server CPU, combining high core counts, energy efficiency, and strong single-thread performance.
It is designed to handle demanding cloud, HPC, and enterprise workloads, making it a competitive alternative to AWS Graviton and other ARM-based server processors.