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.
Re:Redsigning your applications. (Score:3, Insightful)
vs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:market for this? (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact of the matter is if you build it, they will come. I'd bet that it won't be more than a couple of years before you see a recommendation for 2 processors on games.
Re:market for this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, in an industry where if you don't come out with something new frequently you die, it seems likely that it won't be too many years down the road before dual-core may be the only option for consumers in the market for a brand new machine.
Just my two cents...
Re:vs (Score:1, Insightful)
http://www23.tomshardware.com/index.html [tomshardware.com]
Not everything you want, but a good start.
Re:market for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
AMD on the other hand has always started out chips on the enthusiast / enterprise market because they simply don't have the fabrication capacity that Intel does. Thus they market first for the high end users and over time the processors find their way into the desktop market when they've been dated by yet another new, improved processor being marketed at the first group. Their whole revenue plan is based off of the 'rich' people niche (which includes many medium to large businesses). Based on their success, I'd say that they've done really well with this business model and continuing to do so would likely continue to work for them.
The common misnomer that is latched onto with many processor reviews nowadays is that both AMD and Intel are prodcing processors for the desktop platform, when in reality their business goals for their processors are on opposite spectrums. Intel starts desktop side, AMD starts server side. It is only after both have matured to some degree (and software caught up to both of them) that the processors can be meaningfully compared for the average joe user that just bought a new computer (or had one built for him).
Most people who go crazy over these new technologies are either wanting it for pure bragging rights, or simply aren't aware of how little it will actually do for them... or both in all liklihood.
Re:market for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows Licenses (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:market for this? (Score:3, Insightful)
who is going to buy computers with these new ultra powerful dual core processors?
I will. I'm often running applications that take 100% CPU. Having another core around to make the system nice and responsive would be wonderful.
gamers don't need dual core
Right, and when video cards that supported an accelerated transform and lighting (i.e. the GeForce) came out, they didn't need that either since current games didn't support it. You can bet the next core of games will be multi-threaded.
everyday users have had plenty of power for the last 5 years
That's true, but thats been the case for several years now (as you yourself said), and Intel/AMD are still selling processors. Dual cores will make an OS seem a lot more responsive though. That alone isn't enough to convince the average user to upgrade, but multiple cores is the only place to go now that the heat dissipation problem has reached a crisis point for CPU makers.
Re:What's that burnt intel smell? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes.
Re:It's about the interactivity (Score:3, Insightful)
Certain image process apps (e.g.: enblend, a panorama enhancing app) drive my single athlon into a state where it is sluggish and hard to use (1.8ghz athlon, 768 mb ram, fedora core 3).
So, while the Gimp can be compiled to do some multiply-threaded stuff, the real boost is that my computer should still be useable for other things while it's off fixing my panoramas.
Since some of my panoramas take over 2 hours to fix, I'm looking into a faster system and will definitely be trying to make sure I can get something that lets me plug one of these guys in when they become available.
Mark
simple. It can't. (Score:1, Insightful)
Clearly, as little power as this uses, if you turned off one of the cores (permanently) it'd use less. So it uses more power (probably almost twice the power) of a single core processor.
That's not to say that it doesn't run relatively cool.
Re:RISC (Score:2, Insightful)
http://arstechnica.com/cpu/4q99/risc-cisc/rvc-1.h
Re:Sounds nice, BUT.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The machine I'm typing this on (just a simple diskless workstation) currently has 75 different processes running. The server it's connected to has 145. With a dual core processor in either of them, the number of processes able to run simultaneously would be increased by 100%.
The idea of running just one application on your box went out more than 10 years ago. Wake up and smell the coffee.
(If nothing else, all those blasted Flash animations can run without chewing up CPU cycles I would rather use for something else.)
John
Re:Does anyone buy performance anymore? (Score:2, Insightful)
AMD's processor business had another excellent quarter, posting record revenue and profit figures. Overall company revenue was $1.23 billion, slightly higher than the estimates of analysts polled by Thomson First Call. The processor business accounted for $750 million of that revenue in the company's first quarter, which ended on March 27.
Now does that sound like "not making any money" to you?
Re:Not enough comparisons ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What would have been even more interesting... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying its impossible to compare 2 different architectures, I'm just saying its not practical to compare 1 part of 2 architectures and expect to get results that mean anything (though Macs are getting closer and closer to the x86 architecture as time goes on).
Re:Cooling (Score:4, Insightful)
You would expect to see less than 100% increase in the case of a dual core CPU due like the shared components which are not replicated:
- The X2 chips still have a single, 128-bit wide memory controller. Since the memory controller charges/discharges external bit lines going to DIMMs, they do burn quite a bit of power. This power consumption is not duplicated in the case of a dual core CPU.
- The X2 chips still have a single HyperTransport bus. The power consumption of this bus is the approximately the same between a dual core and single core CPU.
However, power scaling due to these shared components would probably not explain how a dual core chip can burn only 20% more power. For both of the above cases, you could argue that one should expect to see higher utilization of the memory bus and the HyperTransport bus, so the exact power consumption contribution is not entirely clear.
One thing to note that, AMD Athlon 64 cores tend to burn much less power in idle state compared to Intel chips. This is probably due to choices AMD made both in architecture and process. So the fundemantal reason why AMD X2 chips have such minimal incremental power consumption over single core chips is that one of the cores is typically underutilized most of the time and therefore burns much less power.