Athlon64 Motherboards And Chips Compared 205
An anonymous reader writes "Just noticed that OverclockersClub has a new article (free, no reg, blah blah blah) that describes the AMD64 processors. The article talks about the differences in each processor and compares them as well as puts everything in a nice easy to read chart. Pretty nice article if you aren't familiar with all the new tech."
Makes a good match for
Johnny-boy's submission. He writes "HardwareZone has a 46 page article out that compares many of the Athlon64 motherboards out on the market now. If you are planning to get that Socket-754 motherboard, maybe this article is worth a look."
Don't get socket 754 (Score:5, Interesting)
Now really isn't the time to get an Athlon.
The 939 pin athlons are just around the corner, which is the migration path of most of the athlon sets.
754 series sets will still only have a single channel 128 bit pathway. It's not worth it.
Wait until the 939 pin, and get dual channel memory transfer in a non-FX Athlon64. Even if you're only getting half the cache (1 meg vs 512kb) on the 939 pin versions, chances are you will be able to overclock it more because it's a smaller die space.
46 pages... I wanted a motherboard review, not a dissertation :)
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:5, Insightful)
C'mon, we all know that the week we buy the latest gizmo it will be obsolete.
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:3, Informative)
If you're willing to live with the increased
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:4, Insightful)
could provide, but now days, any computer you buy will have a processor
sufficiently powerful to be useful for the majority of needs. Also, computers
are so cheap that it rarely makes sense to put money into an older machine
when a newer, more powerful machine is available for about the same price
that it would take to upgrade the older machine.
Of course, special needs require special hardware considerations, but that
will never change.
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:2)
Could it be the fact that the A64 is still a best of breed 32-bit system as well?
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:3, Insightful)
Gee, this sounds familiar.
How many years were 286 systems shipping before anybody shipped a mainstream OS to take advantage o
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:3, Informative)
It's not like you can take any old Pentium 4 motherboard and drop the latest and greatest processor into it. The first P4 boards were socket 423, then came the socket 478 boards that only supported 400MT/s bus speeds, than the 533MT/s bus speed boards. None of these are capable of supporting the current 800MT/s bus speed P4s, even if they share the same socket, and they certainly
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:BOW DOWN TO YOUR CORPORATE MASTERS (Score:2, Funny)
See 6 zeros after my bank balance would be a pretty effective suicide deterrent for me.
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember that CPU pricing is non-linear, where the current top-of-the-line generally has a very stiff price premium. One thing I did a while ago was to chart the price/MHz of a particular line of CPUs, then I bought the CPU right at the top of the linear range before the curve upward began.
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:5, Funny)
Feeling lucky? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:5, Insightful)
Then I noticed that I never swap CPUs out anyway. Motherboards are cheap enough, I swap an entire motherboard with its CPU. In fact, usually I swap out entire computers.
Since we use all our computers, I usually build a complete new computer, get it working, swap it for the older one, and keep the older one handy for a while as a hot spare in case something goes wrong with the new one. Then later I find a good home for the older computer.
(Now that I'm buying Lian Li aluminum cases, I'll probably start swapping motherboards into cheaper steel cases, and putting new motherboards into the Lian Li case.)
But anyway, I might get a socket 754 motherboard and chip. It will outperform any computer I currently own, and it should have adequate horsepower to play Half-Life 2 and Doom 3.
steveha
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:4, Insightful)
I find this to be the single most efficient way to keep on top of technological evolution.
Someone wants a PC from me, they get a KT400 and AthlonXP, I get an Athlon64 and mobo to replace it. RAM, video and HDDs stay here until I need faster parts, or in the case of HDDs, they get dumped for being too small.
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:2)
Of course I've sometimes swapped some parts around while upgrading. But since we usually don't upgrade our computers that often, by the time we do want a new computer it's easiest just to swap the whole computer.
steveha
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:5, Informative)
In any case, it is important to remember: Athlons are not Pentium IVs. Athlons do not have the performance hit that P4s have with lower bandwidth. Currently, very few applications care whether you have single or dual channel memory--the performance difference is in the low single digits. After Athlon64s significantly ramp up in clock speed, we wil begin to see a greater advantage of having more bandwidth, but not before.
Also, I wanted to note that currect 512K Athlon64s DO NOT have a smaller die space. They are more or less 1MB chips with half the cache disabled. Future revisions will actually cut out the cache, but for the time being AMD needed to market a cheaper Athlon64, and didn't have the time or money to modify manufacturing equipment to manufacture a third completely different die. That said, die space doesn't directly have anything to do with how overclockable a chip is.
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:2)
I think the current biggest benefit of dual channel on AMD is being able to run more memory.
Re:Don't get socket 754 (Score:2)
http://www.elrosewood.com/archives/000014.html
Well..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Right now, there's no GREAT 64 bit OS out there (linux, forget XP 64bit) I think we should treat Athlon64 like MacOS 10.0 (sorry, i'm a mac guy) for early adopters only
Give it another 6 months, then it'll be a great server/workstation solution
Re:Well..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, to put it less obliquely, that's a strange comparison. A PowerMac G5 is for someone who wants a Mac. An Athlon64 motherboard is for... well, not someone who wants a mac.
Hope this helps.
P.S. The Athlon64 actually offers great price/performance in plain old 32-bit mode. It gets even better in 64-bit mode, but there's no reason to wait for ready availability of 64-bit software. Just as there's no reason to hold off on buying a G5 for a fully 64-bit MacOS.
steveha
Re:Well..... (Score:2)
The Athlon64 (and all AMD 64-bit processors) have additional features that are only available in 64-bit mode. In particular, there are extra general-purpose registers available in 64-bit mode. Since x86 is starved for registers, the extra registers help speed up your programs.
This isn't just theory; the benchmarks show that the AMD 64-bit processors are faster in 64-bit mode.
steveha
Re:Well..... (Score:5, Informative)
It was less than _half_ the price of an 1600 MHz G5 Mac with a Radeon 9800 Pro (i.e. previous generation), 512 DDR 333 RAM (yep, slower), a smaller hard drive, etc.
Even after changing the Mac's DVD writer to a DVD/CDR drive, it still stayed more than twice as expensive, and offering far less horse power. Go figure.
And if I'm to factor in the cost of buying all my software again, if I were to "switch"... well, you get the idea.
So there you go. Maybe you can't see it, but half the cost for _more_ power, sure looks like enough of a price advantage to me.
Re:Well..... (Score:2)
But, hey... I know that some finer points, like "a computer is only useful if it runs the software _I_ want to run", are lost on most Mac fans.
alternately... (Score:2)
I'm not knocking Macs at all, I like them, but you can't criticise someone or call them cheap because they have the ability to build from scratch what you have to buy.
It's also fun to build from parts. (Score:2)
Re:Well..... (Score:2)
Not if enough early adopters don't adopt RIGHT NOW. If you warn everyone off buying the technology today, who'll be your early adopters? Somebody's got to show up to prove there's a market, otherwise AMD64 will be just like Itanium or Alpha -- a good idea that never really caught on. Obviously, it's going to get better over time as the technology matures. And maybe the smart thing for some people is to wait for that maturity.
Re:Well..... (Score:2)
If you need a real 64bit OS for amd64 try FreeBSD-5.2 if you are waiting for Microsoft, it will never happen. There are a number of really good 64bit OS's out there for other platforms like SPARC and Alpha. I've been using 64bit machines for years and they have total advantage over 32bit systems. If you use allot of commercial software then ru
What, is SuSE some kinda taboo term? (Score:2)
Sometimes I wish I were stupid... (Score:3, Insightful)
Am I the only one who is a little perplexed at the complexity of the AMD cpu roadmap? The constant barrage of codenames and pin settings is really becoming trying. A more solidified upgrade path with a set numbers of goals would be much appreciated.
Re:Sometimes I wish I were stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)
All you have to do is worry about how much computational power you want and how much money you want to spend on a CPU and motherboard.
Let's face it, if you hope to see an appreciable speed bump when you upgrade, buying a first-generation chip and plugging it into a first-generation motherboard with the expectation that you'll get that big speed bump when you plug in a second- or third-generation chip a couple of year's down the line is the wrong way to go about it. Yes, the new CPU will have a faster clock speed but the rest of the motherboard will be two years out of date.
Take my AMD Athlon motherboard as an example. When I bought it a couple of years back, together with an 1200MHz CPU (then the second fastest chip in the range), it had all the latest bells and whistles. But today, its support for USB 1.1, DDR2700 RAM and even PATA RAID make in far inferior to the vast number of motherboards out there that support USB 2.0, DDR3200 and 3500 RAM and SATA RAID, not to mention IEEE 1394 (FireWire), Gigabit Ethernet, better POST reporting, etc.(I won't even start to debate the performance benefits of newer nForce2 Ultra chipsets over their older counterparts.)
To match the features of the latest AMD Athlon/Athlon XP motherboards with my older motherboard I would have to add in at least two, maybe three or four, PCI cards. This would work, but it would be an inelegant (taking up valuable PCI slots), costly (PCI cards aren't free) and inefficient (PCI cards require drivers, configuration, etc) solution. Far better and cheaper to upgrade the motherboard along with the CPU in one go, allowing me to put the older motherboard and CPU combination into another machine/my spares box/the charity bin.
Seriously, when buying a motherboard and CPU, look past the upgrade path. It's a serious red herring, even for PC enthusiasts such as ourselves.
Re:PCI cards require drivers... (Score:2)
Also, you know if all your devices are on the motherboard that they'll work together smoothly and that there won't be any conflicts between them. Conflicts of thi
Re:Sometimes I wish I were stupid... (Score:2)
Seriously though, Anandtech has a decent explanation of AMDs rather creative roadmap here [anandtech.com].
Speed for speed's sake (Score:4, Interesting)
I will admit, though, that if you use KDE/Linux there are some things that could definitely use a speed-up like switching between apps and loading the GUI shell. However, beyond that, modern operating systems work just fine with today's processors.
The argument to this is always "what if you're doing serious number crunching or graphical rendering?", but the answer to that is that there are dedicated DSPs out there that can perform those computations much more efficiently than the CPU. Relying on the CPU to give good Quake framerates is like relying on your auto-body shop to soup up your ricer. Yes, there are some increases in performance, but the real horsepower behind these things lies in the video card and engine, not in the CPU and rice spoiler.
I'm all for improvements in chip technology, but software lags so far behind the capabilities of modern CPUs that it's preposterous to climb on the upgrade cycle, regardless of the circumstances.
Tired old flamebait argument (Score:3, Insightful)
Every time a newer/faster/better CPU comes out, someone says it is not needed for the majority of computing users. While that may be true currently, who would want to tolerate using a 386SX/16 today just because current 32-bit X86 proccessors are really just souped up 386s?
If you're happy with your old processor, keep usi
Re:Tired old flamebait argument (Score:2)
That is probably something you do not need any computing power for as it can be done in constant time.
Re:Speed for speed's sake (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all, games are not necessarily limited only by the video card. Certainly if you run the latest games in the highest resolution with 8x AA, your video card will be the bottleneck, but often times only these extreme situations make that true.
Morrowind, for example, doesn't really care much about your video card. If you have a Geforce 3, it is happy. It does, however, care about your CPU. If your CPU is not god incarnate, your frame rate will be limited, particularly in some of the more dynamic scenes. The fastest CPU at the time of release, the P4 2.53GHz, could not muster much of a frame rate regardless of video card.
Any 2D game will be CPU limited as well. Baldur's Gate 2 still chugs on some of the extremely large fights even on my AthlonXP 2500+.
In Starcraft, I assure you that my carrier attack will slow your frame rate regardless of your CPU.
Other than in video games, I am currently transcoding a Babylon 5 video from MPEG-2 to DivX (using Xvid) on my laptop. It is an Athlon64 3200+--the fastest laptop processor money can buy (well, strictly for video transcoding, the highest end Pentium IVs are actually slightly faster) and it takes about 6 hours for a 2hr movie, 3 hours for an episode. If I had a 20GHz Athlon64 it would still take forever.
To come to a point, yes, modern operating systems do tend to run fine on modern fast processors (with the possible exception of WindowsXP and anything running KDE or Gnome2
A few other examples:
- There isn't a computer on the planet fast enough to install Gentoo Linux quickly.
- FreeBSD's make world will be noticeable non-instantaneous for many GHz to come.
- Waiting for Visual C++ in Windows to compile... Well, anything at all, is not instantaneous even on an 8-way Xeon.
- Waiting for Regedit in Windows to search for a certain key or value will NEVER be fast on ANY computer. I don't know what search algorithm Microsoft chose for that thing, but it's damn slow for searching through just 10 or so megabytes of data.
- Anything ever written with SWING in Java. It was slow in 1996 and it's slow now. To avoid flames, I love Java as a language, but SWING is slower than a dead slug stuck in frozen molasses.
The opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the poster.
Re:Speed for speed's sake (Score:3, Interesting)
That's funny.
I wrote a very complex Swing GUI in 1999, complete with highly customized look and feel, font anti-aliasing, and overkill use of graphics. Guess what? It ran perfectly ok on a 400 MHz K6-II with a TNT graphics card. Go figure.
Yes, Swing is _not_ newbie friendly. If you're clueless, Swing gives you enoug
Re:Speed for speed's sake (Score:2)
Re:Speed for speed's sake (Score:2)
SWING is so high level, I am really not sure how one could screw it up. Well, actually I take that back--Seibel Systems sells a trouble ticket package that gets GUI widget data from a remote server every time--when you click on a drop menu, when you open a list, etc. It does no caching, even if the values don't change for months. THAT is
Off-topic, about Swing (Score:3, Informative)
But now seriously, it's not even about _my_ GUI. I know of other teams which have programmed Swing GUIs too. E.g., there's one big Swing-based enterprise front-end being built two floors up from my office.
I can't recall any of them having _Swing_ related performance problems. Performance problems with the database or the EJB back end, yes. "Swing is too slow" problems, no.
A Swing GUI may take milliseconds for the whole form to be paint
Re:Speed for speed's sake (Score:2)
Then again, even a high end GeForce (because the Radeon wouldn't work with the AGP bus) won't make a P100 with 512MB of RAM and Windows XP Pro SP1 get over 14.5FPS on Q3A (if THG is to be believed - they usually aren't).
Re:Speed for speed's sake (Score:2)
In my case, the Babylon 5 DVDs are a bit noisy too, so may be more difficult than so
Re:Speed for speed's sake (Score:2)
Re:Speed for speed's sake (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Speed for speed's sake (Score:5, Insightful)
Applications for more speed (Score:2)
T
Re:Applications for more speed (Score:2)
Re:Applications for more speed (Score:2)
CPU speed still matters (Score:2, Interesting)
There are still a lot of situations where faster CPU is great. I do scientific calculations for my work and, surprise, the faster the CPU, the quicker you get the results. Actually, cheap commodity PCs made a revolution in my field, where you no longer need an access to a terribly expensive supercomputer to do reasonable simulations.
I've got also a digital camera and image manipulation is very CPU intensive. Unsharp mask on a 6Mpixel f
Re:Speed for speed's sake (Score:2)
I have a Radeon AIW 7500, I want to play Savage, but the 7500 makes it look like shit. So I want a new video card and can buy a 8x AGP one, but my motherboard is only 4x. So I am already upgrading two components, why note spend a little more and get a new proc and mobo and make everything faster?
I am sure many who upgrade are in this circle. Their computer works fine, but when they need to upgrade one part they may need to upgrade others to get
Another article (Score:5, Informative)
I wrote an AMD64 article a while ago... something a little simpler, for those not so technically-minded:
AMD 64 Explained [thejemreport.com]
Someone said above that there are no good AMD64 OSes... bullshit... SuSE 9.0 AMD64 is more than usable, and FreeBSD 5.2 AMD64 is almost perfect; in fact I'm typing this from Mozilla Firebird on FreeBSD 5.2-RELEASE AMD64 right now.
-Jem
Re:Another article (Score:2)
Re:Mozilla on amd64 (Score:2)
Re:Another article (Score:4, Informative)
Almost the entire FreeBSD ports tree works just fine on AMD64, although some programs have to be compiled with -fPIC.
OpenOffice doesn't work yet because Java doesn't compile yet, but this will be fixed very soon as Sun is working on porting Solaris and Java to AMD64 right now. KDE, GNOME, and all associated programs work just fine in FreeBSD/AMD64. Grip, XMMS, Mozilla, Evolution, Bluefish... they all work perfectly.
-JemRe:Another article (Score:2)
I don't have any data on if they work any faster, but each program certainly compiles faster in 64-bit mode than in 32-bit mode. Noticeably faster. I have numbers to prove it, but I'm waiting to publish all my data in an article sometime soon.
-JemWould someone mind telling me the difference... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Would someone mind telling me the difference... (Score:5, Informative)
940 = 1-8 CPU's. 1MB of L2-cache, 128bit mem-controller.
Re:Would someone mind telling me the difference... (Score:5, Funny)
Cheers,
Re:Would someone mind telling me the difference... (Score:2)
For all the good it does you here.
Re:Would someone mind telling me the difference... (Score:2, Informative)
939 won't be 512 kB L2 cache only, the 939 pin Athlon 64 FX series will have 1 MB L2 and cheaper Athlon 64 will have 512 kB L2 (both will have dual channel memory controller), also 939 pin Athlon 64 will get 1 GHz HyperTransport bus, soon enough die shrink to 90 nm (currently 130 nm) and will not require registered/ECC DDR memory. It's been covered in The Reg/The Inq for many times.
940 pin Athlon 64 FX-51 was just rebranded Opteron, Socket 940 will remain Opterons domain, single channel DDR So
Re:Would someone mind telling me the difference... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Would someone mind telling me the difference... (Score:5, Informative)
In English: Cheaper motherboards for the dual channel Athlon64s.
Athlons are efficient with their use of memory bandwidth, so current Athlon64s don't really care about the second memory channel much at the moment. It has a minimal effect on performance. However, since processor technology moves more quickly than memory technology, future 3+GHz processors will start to see a significant benefit from the added bandwidth. Of course, by then, DDR2 will be readily available so we'll just have to see how it all turns out.
Athlon64 Motherboards And Chips Compared (Score:5, Funny)
!opteron == no dual proc (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, 754 is being deprecated and all that, but I thought I'd put a word in for what I'd buy... if it weren't so damn expensive. *sigh* Will we ever have dual athlon64 goodness?
Re:!opteron == no dual proc (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the only reason not to move to the AMD 64 platform is the entry price, currently. The early adopters will take care of knocking that down for the rest of us.
Re:!opteron == no dual proc (Score:2)
Re:!opteron == no dual proc (Score:2)
Give or take an athlon 64 3000 is about the same speed as a p4 3.0. According to pricewatch:
Athlon 64 3000: $211
P4 3.0 Ghz: $259
The motherboards are about the same price. I got a really nice one with 2 raid chips, gigabit ethernet, firewire, lots of usb ports, pci slots, etc. For $130.
Granted, it's no $150 board/chip combo. But it's a near top of the line system for just over $300 + ram. I would have killed for these prices a few years ago. Not to mention with cpu speeds these days and it be
Re:!opteron == no dual proc (Score:2)
Will we ever have dual athlon64 goodness?
Probably only if/when Intel brings out dual processor P4 systems. The market for dual-processor Athlon64 chips, when dual-Opteron's already exist, is pretty much zero. Sure, I'd like one and you would like one, but honestly 99% of the people buying computers won't even consider a dual-processor setup and those that do are mostly looking at the high-end (ie Opteron or Xeon).
So, unless Intel makes dual-capable P4's a checklist item, AMD isn't likely to support
Are the apps there? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Are the apps there? (Score:5, Funny)
Starfox 64
Mario Cart 64
Random Nintendo Franchise 64
Oh wait... for the computer then no.
Re:Are the apps there? (Score:5, Informative)
Most open-source projects are now in the process of, or have completed AMD64 compatibility. I'm typing this from Mozilla Firebird on AMD64 FreeBSD 5.2-RELEASE. I have a whole bunch of programs from the Ports system that work perfectly... the ones that aren't ported yet are the proprietary clones, like the Flash plugin, GAIM, and Java. Opera doesn't work in 64-bit mode yet either, neither does TextMaker.
-JemRe:Are the apps there? (Score:2, Interesting)
No 64bit Linux OS??? (Score:4, Interesting)
http://dev.gentoo.org/~brad_mssw/amd64-tech-not
Now, like all new technologies, there maybe certains apps that don't work, compilations errors, and other problems... But how will they be fixed unless people try it, and send back bug reports?
Actually, there are a number of them already... (Score:2, Informative)
For example:
I've been using Gentoo's amd64 stuff for a little while on my new Shuttle Box [shuttle.com]. Things are generally good although there are still a lot of packages that are masked. KDE is also problematic which may be a turn-off for some people.
A colleague just got a new dual-opteron Workstation [pogolinux.com] from P [pogolinux.com]
1 MKB of L2 cache! (Score:5, Funny)
Athlon64 Coming Along Slowly (Score:5, Interesting)
Nvidia Nforce drivers only got released in the last month so my onboard LAN on my ASUS SK8N works. Mandrake 9.2 RC1 recognizes my Promise onboard SATA RAID controller, but SuSE doesn't, and even then the driver in Mandrake is an 0.83 release.
I haven't played with the Fedora Core release candidate test version for Athlon 64 yet.
IMO, If you want to run 64-bit Native Linux on AMD64 without a lot of headaches and weeping, wait another 6 months until the distros and drivers have solidified more. In 6 months, you'll probably be able to get a CPU a generation or two higher than you can today, but for the same money, and you'll be able to install AMD64 native Linux much more easily... It's win-win.
- Greg
Re:Athlon64 Coming Along Slowly (Score:4, Informative)
Right now, though, you're probably right about the immaturity of 64bit Linux distros - IMO Gentoo is the one distro that is most likely to mature soonest on the AMD64 platform.
Why the big fuss over 64? (Score:3, Funny)
Get a cheap, powerfull 64bit platform today (Score:2, Troll)
Still most powerfull cpu for the clock, excellent support by all free unices, excellent hardware (DEC rules)
Nice and hot (like most of today cpus), power hungry as well, usually comes in big boxes with enough room for all the case modding you want.
what the hell (Score:2)
If you're going to get a new MB to run Linux (Score:3, Informative)
I was dissapointed that by Gigabyte K8A Pro motherboard had this chip on it and it DOES NOT WORK under Linux.
But otherwise, the platform is nice.
AMD64 vs. Opteron (Score:2)
Re:AMD64 vs. Opteron (Score:2, Informative)
Re:AMD64 vs. Opteron (Score:4, Informative)
The AMD Opteron is a processor that uses the AMD64 instruction set. It is designed for workstations and servers and can be used in a glueless SMP setup for up to 8 processors (>8 processors is possible but requires extra core logic chips to connect them together). It runs at clock speeds of 1.6GHz up to 2.2GHz (current top speed), has 1MB of L2 cache and 128-bit wide memory controller integrated onto the die, as well as 3 hypertransport links for interprocessor communication and I/O. It is marketed under model numbers such as 140, 246, 848, etc, with the first number indicating the maximum number of processors usuable in an SMP system (1xx chips for uniprocessor systems, 2xx for duals and 8xx for up to 8-way systems) and the second two numbers showing relative performance. Personally I am quite fond of this particular numbering scheme for the processors.
The AMD Athlon64 is another processor that supports the AMD64 instruction set. It is designed for desktops and mobile systems, so it will not work in multiprocessor configurations. Currently it runs at 2.0 or 2.2GHz with 2.4GHz chips on the horizon. They have either 1MB or 512KB of L2 cache, depending on the model, either a 64-bit or 128-bit memory controller (again, depending on the model), and are sold using two main model numbe schemes. The first is for the stock-Athlon64, which are sold as 3000+, 3200+, 3400+, etc. These numbers show a rough approximation of their performance as compared to an Intel P4 running at the 3.0GHz, 3.2GHz and 3.4GHz (AMD may not say this officially, but it's fairly obvious that this is the intention of the model numbers). I don't like this model number scheme too much, but on the other hand I don't find it any better or worse than the totally useless clock speed (MHz or GHz) rating that is traditionally used to sell chips. The second model scheme is for the Athlon64 FX line of chips, a chip targeted at the high-end "enthusiast" market (read: bratty kid gamers with too much of their parents money on their hands). These chips are sold as the Athlon64 FX 51 and the upcoming Athlon64 FX 53, with the numbers merely referencing the relative performance of the chips.
Hope that clears a thing or two up. For more information, RTFA!
Tom's Hardware articles (Score:3, Informative)
I've been looking at this a lot lately since I was just about to build a new box. Ultimately, I decided not to go with a Athlon64 (too expensive for the limited benefit), but I did find reading all these articles useful in making that decision.
REPLY to this if you are a C/C++ programmer (Score:2)
I doubt any of the calculation in a modern 3D game would need variables as accurate or as large as 64bits. Thus how could there be any speed increase?
Register size/Bus speed/hypertransport all can be added to current 32bit platforms. The introduction of 64bit instructions as far as I can tell will not offer any benefit to a gamer.
Re:REPLY to this if you are a C/C++ programmer (Score:2)
Ok guys I have one CPU question that is yet to be answered. Aside from increase memory access and integer/float width. What could the possible advantage of a 64-bit 3D game have.
General 64-bit vs. 32-bit? Not much. In fact, the float width doesn't even change (it's always been 64 or 80-bit on PCs and most other architectures), just the integer width and larger memory access. Of course, AMD64 also doubles the number of integer registers (and makes them true general purpose registers, as opposed to th
Re:Comparison to a G5? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Comparison to a G5? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention that an Athlon 64, even in 32 bit mode, runs circles around a G5. But wait, at some point in the undefined future, there'll be some miracle IBM compiler and 64 bit OS for the G5, which makes it all faster. Just y'all wait and see. Unlike the Athlon 64, which, uh, is also waiting for a 64 bit compiler and OS to make it all faster.
Sometimes the logic of Mac fans is a bit too strange for me to foll
Re:Comparison to a G5? (Score:3, Insightful)
I write DSP code, and i've got some very impressive results from a G5 when running code which previously gave less than exciting results on a G4. The G5 really is a class act.
I've not tested the code on an Athlon 64, but only on an Athlon XP 2500. DSP code tends to be FPU or memory bound, sometimes both in different parts of the algorithm so it is pretty good at giving a machine a pr
Re:Comparison to a G5? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because they run at the same frequency doesn't mean you can compare their performance.
Re:Comparison to a G5? (Score:2)
Re:Comparison to a G5? (Score:2)
Re:Comparison to a G5? (Score:2)
Re:Comparison to a G5? (Score:2)
On the other hand, the on-chip memory interface does lower memory latency, but not (directly) the raw bandwidth. It's still a 64 bit wide, 400 MHz memory bus. Stuff which mostly reads sequentially through memory will still run faster on a Pentium 4 with a 533 MHz memory bus. Fo
Re:Comparison to a G5? (Score:2)
So you probably want something like... umm...
Vector Processing?
XP2500+ does MMX, SSE & 3DNow!
G5 has Altivec
No comparison; Altivec is going to smoke the XP2500+'s vector capabilities.
Athlon64 not only doubles the number of registers, allows you to easily move 64bit values around and gives you more memory bandwidth but it also adds the SSE2 vector extensions. Considering that the Athlon has a pretty nice FPU unit already, sounds like most of the points where your G5 surpassses the AMD c
Re:Comparison to a G5? (Score:2)