AMD Athlon 64 & Athlon 64 FX - It's Judgment Day
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 23, 2003 1:25 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Socket-939: Athlon 64 FX DOA?
As we've already mentioned, AMD is planning on releasing a 939-pin version of the Athlon 64 FX sometime next year. We're hearing rumors that it will be very early next year, which would leave early FX adopters in a not-so-great situation.
Unlike previous situations where a chip manufacturer has switched sockets, the 940 situation won't leave users completely abandoned as the Opteron uses the same socket and thus you can always upgrade your CPU or motherboard to an Opteron down the road. AMD is planning on making 940-pin CPUs for a while so that shouldn't be a big problem, the only issue will be that the number of performance enthusiast boards available in a 940-pin version will eventually decrease over time; the boards you find for Opterons will obviously not be made with the enthusiast in mind.
The Socket-939 Athlon 64 FX will most likely have unbuffered memory support from the start (it doesn't make sense for AMD not to offer the support as they're redoing the package anyways, unless they simply chop off a pin with this part) and will be shipping at higher initial clock speeds than the current FX, so it makes sense to wait.
Combine the launch of a 939-pin version with the outstanding performance of the Athlon 64 and you will see why we are fairly negative on the FX at this point in time. If you want our advice, stay away from the FX for now.
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Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link
#43 is a bit 486 DX style with 20 stages of pipeline up his crápperhole.Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link
ROFL@#36Dude the Athlon64 is a 32bit processor?....lol
Hey everyone...the p4 is a 16bit cpu with 32bit extensions.
Your an idiot #36. And this is coming from an Intel fanboy, so you really know your in the wrong.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link
Price is more important for AMD because they've had their successes mainly on the price/performance front. If they are truly trying to match Intel on price, that advantage is essentially gone and it'll be an even harder battle to gain marketshare.Oh and some of you fanboys mustve missed the PM forum. What the industry sees is completely different from what fanboys see.
http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.html?i=1873&am...
Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link
Maybe if the intel & AMD both ran at the EXACT same clock it'd be fairer eh?I'd like to see more on the Opteron as I'm going to order 6 of them in November, thank the gods it's not my money.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link
er... nm the above, I got it mixed up.Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link
FYI, in the LAME 3.93 MP3 encoding 32-bit vs 64-bit benchmark, you claim that 64-bit is 34% quicker when actually the graph shows it as 2/3.07*100 = 65% quicker.dvinnen - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link
Haha, this thread makes me laugh.1) The only thing Intel has that can toach FX-51 is the XeonMP, errrr, P4:EE. This processor doesn't start shipping for 2 to 3 months. I can understand including it in the review, but there should be some sort of disclaimer stating that this is a sample and may or not be reflective of the final product. The EE's also will only be released to the OEMs, so expect to have to pay VooDoo or AlienWare there outragous prices if you want one.
2) The Intel fanboys ADMITT defeat. They are already rationlizing it by saying wait for Prescott to come out. All prescott is is a p4 clocked to 3.4 ghz with "improved hyperthreading." "The 11 new intruction sets" won't make any difference for a year or so (kind of like 64 bit goodness that you are bashing). But I guess the added bonus that you can heat a small house with it is something that AMD can't provide.
And I wish people would stop complaing about the price. All new processors cost this much when they are first released. They'll come down, but not to the price of XPs for a while to come. The mobo costs will also drop drastcaly (past nForce2 prices?) over the comeing months beause of no north bridge and only a 6 layer PCB.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link
64bit with 32bit compatibility would be what Itanium does. AMD64 is still native x86 with the ability to use 64-bit registers, thats why it can still run 32-bit programs as fast/faster than current CPUs.http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1815&a...
Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link
#40 is a 64-bit moron.Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - link
#36The Prescott is the next generation in the pentium family. It's not like it's a P4 with an increased multiplyer. AMD is in trouble when the Prescott comes rolling around.