AMD's Dual-core Athlon 64 X2 reviewed 309
ChocolateJesus writes "Weeks after formally announcing its dual-core Athlon X2 desktop processor, reviews are finally trickling out. The Tech Report's coverage tests two flavors of the Athlon 64 X2 against a whopping 17 competitors, including AMD and Intel's fastest single- and dual-core offerings. They've even thrown in a handful of dual-processor systems (and dual-core, dual-processor systems) for good measure. Testing focuses on multi-threaded applications, and the X2s deliver remarkable performance. Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that unlike Intel's dual-core Pentiums, AMD's X2s consume no more power than single-core chips." Looks like this story has come out of embargo - if you've find more reviews, post them in comments.
Anand's Take (Score:5, Informative)
Row, row row your boat, gently down... (Score:5, Informative)
No actually, they're going to be launched in June. The fact that this would be lost on the submitter was so obvious, I was able to prepare this message in advance and just paste it in.
These look to be amazing CPUs. After the initial linpack-with-large-matrices benchmark, you have to go thirteen pages into the benchmarks at TechReport [techreport.com] to find some of note where the Intel solutions are able to score off a win!
Don't Forget the [H] (Score:5, Informative)
Or you can jump right to their conclusions [hardocp.com].
Re:Cooling (Score:5, Informative)
On top of that, A64 platforms are known for their low power consumption compared to Netburst based processors.
Re:Cooling (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx
On that page they compare a 130nm single core Athlon to a 90nm dual core. Even under a full load, the 90nm dual core uses less power than the single core 130nm chip.
Re:whitebox linux on dual core Opterons (Score:1, Informative)
Keep this spamming fuck at -1, and certainly don't bid for his domain.
Cooler than the old AMD 130nm designs and Intel (Score:5, Informative)
It's about the interactivity (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cooling (Score:2, Informative)
I don't get how this can run on the same power level as the single core chips. Can someone explain on how this is possible?
It isn't.
Under load, the dual core system consumes about 25 watts more power than the single (178 watts vs. 154) -- and 25 watts is just less than what a single-core A64 consumes under load.
I think the poster was looking at the numbers for idling.
Re:Redsigning your applications. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Redsigning your applications. (Score:5, Informative)
And a singlethreaded badly written application will be less prone to lock your computer, too, since the other apps will still be able to run from the second core.
The main issue is not the multithreading abilities of the applications, but the multithreading abilities of the OS itself. If the OS handles multithreading well, multicore (physical or virtual) will always give a slight to impressive improvement over single core.
Re:vs (Score:5, Informative)
The best example of what you're looking at that i've found is at http://www23.tomshardware.com/index.html [tomshardware.com]
It's an interactive chart of all major processors available now and plenty that aren't available, it's a good idea to compare what you might have not and what an upgrade could do for you.
Fast and INEXPENSIVE to run! (Score:3, Informative)
This is significant if you live in say Honolulu where electricity is 14cents/KWh or on Kauai where it's close to 22cents/KWh.
Re:market for this? (Score:3, Informative)
The question is, other than gamers and graphic artists, who needs them? You have a point in that almost every other application that the average guy uses has been saturated in terms of (quite prolific) features for years. I really don't think that will change much, hence MS is having a hard time maintaining the "Buy a New Office Suite every 3 Years" business model.
More and better multimedia applications MAY be the next killer app that requires this power, but a significant amount of work needs to be done to make tools for this accessible to the masses.
Check out Linux (Score:3, Informative)
A lot more common apps are multithreaded than people think. Nautilus, Firefox, OpenOffice, Gnome Terminal, and, um Gnome Weather Applet are all mutithreaded.
Even if no apps on your system are multithreaded, if you're like the 99% of users who run multiple processes simultaneously, you'll still get an advantage. Your updating app runs on one core while your desktop runs on another, for example.
Re:Cooling (Score:3, Informative)
Other considerations factor in to determine the power consumption (total number of transistors, other elements, arrangement, etc.), but the smaller size drops the power level quite a bit beforehand.
Re:Does dual core == 2xProcessor or hybrid? (Score:2, Informative)
The point is, it wouldn't matter if you plant a 2800+ core with a 4000+ core, because as far as AMD is concerned, they cost the same to produce. The bigger question for them is what the market value is for a CPU of any given speed, e.g. how much would a dual core CPU be worth.
^1 For a dual core setup, I'd assume it can really only be done with cores of the same processor line, e.g. Athlon 64 vs. Athlon XP. The 64's have an onboard memory controller and Hypertransport, Athlon XPs require a memory controller in the chipset and don't support Hypertransport. It'd be like trying to mate an orange tree to a potato plant.
No 'update' necessary (Score:2, Informative)
Server's slow, but we have a mirror (Score:5, Informative)
this is a software problem... (Score:1, Informative)
Your machine always has 1 CPU free because someone didn't write their code well enough to use both. If they did, your panorama might take only an hour to fix instead of two.
Keeping your machine useable is a separate issue from number of cores. A single core machine could be useable if the system scheduled it such that there was still some CPU available when other tasks needed it. For example, if it only dedicated 50% of the CPU to the GIMP there would always be CPU available. Of course, it'd be wasting CPU, but then again, it is in your dual core example too.
I have to say, I've used plenty of dual-core machines (Macs) and I don't see the effect you speak of anyway. You can still chew up your CPU. And besides, non-responsiveness usually comes when there is a fight over the drive head (swap fight, etc.) and add all the cores you wish, you won't fix that situation.
Re:Does dual core == 2xProcessor or hybrid? (Score:5, Informative)
But the less powerful core does not exist, so they'd have to design it. And the design cost is killer.
However, assuming unlimited design budget and schedule, there are some academic papers showing that heterogeneous cores are a good idea.
Re:Off topic, but... (Score:1, Informative)
A large part of the greater expense results because Hawaii can not trade electric power between the islands. On the mainland, Georgia can sell power to Florida and buy it from Tennessee.
Not being able to trade makes for additional and more expensive infrastructure if reliability levels are to approach those of the mainland. The reliability if important for the tourist trade and for developing industry other than agriculture.
There are windfarms. The usual arts and letters environmentalists are all for them as long as they don't have to look at them. 'We can afford the electricity, let the poor people have the eyesore', is an attitude shared with the mainland N.E.
There is also heat pump from deep ocean, other geothermal, state tax breaks for solar (you know federal breaks are gone), and on Oahu, a pretty darn good bus system. The climates a big plus. You don't need HVAC in private homes. Sure, it gets so ht in some places that all you want to do is sleep in the afternoon, but overall it's comfortable.
Re:Does dual core == 2xProcessor or hybrid? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:market for this? (Score:5, Informative)
s/always/recently/
Clearly, you've just not been around very long, or not paying attention, or have only short-term memory.
It's only been in recent years that AMD has bested Intel, performance-wise. For many, many years, AMD could release a new chip with good performance similar and then Intel would beat them with another new chip.
There's a long, long history of AMD selling their chips at approximately half the price. Certainly through all of the 90's (486, pentium 1/2/3), AMD chips were substantially cheaper than buying Intel.
During much of this time, AMD's chips also had a strong reputation to run very hot. Intel had a reputation for running cool and being easy to overclock. It was Intel that introduced the multiplier locks to prevent overclocking, which apparantly became quite a problem outside the USA where unscrupulous companies would sand down the tops of the chips (back then they were usually ceramic on top) and print a faster speed and resell them as such.
It wasn't even all that long ago when the infamous celeron 300A, which was multiplier locked, could overclock to 450 MHz (then, nearly the fastest chip they sold) by overclocking the front side bus by 50%. At the time, AMD's chips were far behind, and they were running hot with very little overclocking margin, just to try closing the substantial perforance gap.
Even back in the early Pentium days, even before AMD came out with a comperable chip, the 90 MHz pentium appeared in a new, smaller geometry process that made it run about as cool as the 486 66's.
Intel has indeed been in the lead, technologically, for a very long time... ever since they stopped licensing IP from Intel. For a bit of really ancient history, long ago, some large well known companies had a strong policy of never using any components that were not available from a second source. AMD's business model 20+ years ago was to license designs and be that second source.
Even a number of articles mention how the tables have turned recently, and speculate whether Intel will regain the honor of top performance.
I'm not affiliated with Intel, and in fact the PC I'm using to write this comment runs an AMD chip. When I upgrade, it'll probably be AMD again. Recently, AMD appears to have made some really smart architectual decisions that have put them in the lead, technology-wise.
But to believe such has always been the case, or even been a trend that's anything more than recent, is to ignore or be utterly ignorant of the very long history of Intel dominating the PC / x86 market with the best chips.
Re:Cooling (Score:3, Informative)
ExtremeTech too (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Redsigning your applications. (Score:1, Informative)
I have a dual 1-GigaHertz Pentium III that I've used for 5 years. Just recently I bought a single AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (939). Guess which system is more responsive?
The AMD 64 system is faster in a single application, like a game. But doing ANYTHING ELSE is much nicer on the SMP machine. (I.e., regular system use... browsing, e-mail checking, etc. etc.)
Building the WORLD in FreeBSD took 4 times longer on the dual machine... but YOU COULD DO SOMETHING ELSE AT THE SAME TIME. The single CPU machine is so much faster... but the system is flakey if you try to do anything else while doing that build.
I'll be getting a dual core as soon as I can.
I submit that one reason my SMP machine lasted so long before I needed to get a faster CPU was because it was SMP... if it was a single CPU machine... I'd probably have upgraded several years before out of frustration.
(Yes... the nice fast single CPU machine is often frustrating... after living with the SMP smoothness.)
--Keith Morris
Re:No 'update' necessary (Score:5, Informative)
No, Microsoft's official licensing policy is one socket = one CPU. Therefore, a dual-socket Opteron motherboard with two dual-core chips would be licensed as a dual-CPU system, even though it has four separate cores.
I think your post was trying to get that idea across, but your statement of "one die = one CPU" is misleading to that effect.
What's odd about this is if you bought a dual-core, dual-CPU Xeon system supporting HyperThreading. If you opened up Task Manager you'd find eight CPU graphs. Not that you'd get anything near the performance of a eight-way system, though...
Microsoft's licensing is a bright spot when it comes to commercial software and multi-core CPU's. There are several firms still clinging to the "one core = one CPU" model, and dual core chips are going to immediately make such software very expensive.
I contacted Oracle a couple of weeks ago to clarify their position, and I was told then that dual-core chips would be considered a single CPU for the purposes of licensing. It seems that Microsoft's adherence to the "one socket = one core" idea is forcing its competitors into the same pricing model. Who woulda thunk Microsoft would actually be helpful in this situation?