AM2 only delivers 3-5% performance increase

[imported_X]

According to the Inquirer (yeah, I know), AM2 cpus running at 2.4GHZ with DDR 2 800 ram are only delivering a 3-5% performance increase:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30290

Sounds like DDR 2 is already available at faster speeds though, and DD3 support may not be far off. Still, I'm not seeing how AMD will be able to match the 20% lead that Conroe will have in 6 months.

 

[Doctorweir]

Well, as memory bandwidth is no issue for A64, it (as expected) won't profit that much from DDR2-800 (or even 1066), compared to a P4...
If Conroe really proves the preview performance, AMD better hit 3.4 GHz soon or also re-engineer their architecture...

 

[StrangerGuy]

Better than nothing I suppose.

Well, it's kind of surprising that AM2 got a boost despite the higher latencies of DDR2.

 

[jazzboy]

So it really does seem like AMD will only be able to compete on a performance/watt basis (eg. 35W X2 3800+) for the time being then.

Although with Intel coming back soon with the performance crown, hopefully this will force aMD to cut prices

 

[Maximilian]

Well it IS only a new socket, not exactly new cpu's/process/architecture.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Originally posted by: jazzboy
So it really does seem like AMD will only be able to compete on a performance/watt basis (eg. 35W X2 3800+) for the time being then.

Although with Intel coming back soon with the performance crown, hopefully this will force aMD to cut prices

Yeah, we are starting to miss the days of the $40 XP 1700+ which easily does 2.4GHz without a sweat.

 

[evenmore1]

more waiting....

 

[zephyrprime]

That level of performance is about what I was expecting.

The bad part of this is most consumer PCs will probably only have 533mhz ddr2 so they will actually experience a performance drop! I just too a look over at Dell and even their $3000 high end consumer PC only has 533mhz DDR2.

Is it just me or is DDR2 pretty lame?

Why is AMD even bothering to move to a different socket that will give most consumers WORSE bang for the buck. The only people that will benefit from moving to AM2 is business users with heavily loaded dualcore systems running DBs with a lot of ram.

 

[n7]

Yeah, this is right about what i figured.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime
That level of performance is about what I was expecting.

The bad part of this is most consumer PCs will probably only have 533mhz ddr2 so they will actually experience a performance drop! I just too a look over at Dell and even their $3000 high end consumer PC only has 533mhz DDR2.

Is it just me or is DDR2 pretty lame?

Why is AMD even bothering to move to a different socket that will give most consumers WORSE bang for the buck. The only people that will benefit from moving to AM2 is business users with heavily loaded dualcore systems running DBs with a lot of ram.

AMD's move to DDR2 is one of necessity. DDR production is going to start tapering off, especially since intel abandoned it awhile ago. Rather then get stuck with more expensive DDR based platforms, it seems a wise move to go to the newer standard.

 

[uOpt]

Anybody who ever drove DDR1 at 300 MHz or more knows what to expect from DDR2 on AMD64 - aka not much.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Originally posted by: MartinCracauer
Anybody who ever drove DDR1 at 300 MHz or more knows what to expect from DDR2 on AMD64 - aka not much.

Yep. The difference between DDR1@200 and DDR1@315 is not that great on my rig. The Sandra scores look nice, but things like mpeg2 encoding show only mild gains in speed.

If AM2 is nothing more than the current tech with a DDR2 memory controller, I will be pretty dissapointed.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I saw this on another thread here in Cpus and processors.

3.4 ghz opteron 170 OC

Anyone think that with certain adjustments AMD could produce processors that can make this speed in sufficiently high yields to market them?

If the 90nm A64 clockspeed ceiling can be extended to this or higher I think AMD can stay within arm's reach of intel. Not to mention fact that with the higher clockspeeds will come the need for more bandwidth so the DDR2 platform may not go completely unused.

 

[jazzboy]

Originally posted by: AnandThenMan

Originally posted by: MartinCracauer
Anybody who ever drove DDR1 at 300 MHz or more knows what to expect from DDR2 on AMD64 - aka not much.

Yep. The difference between DDR1@200 and DDR1@315 is not that great on my rig. The Sandra scores look nice, but things like mpeg2 encoding show only mild gains in speed.

If AM2 is nothing more than the current tech with a DDR2 memory controller, I will be pretty dissapointed.

If I remember it is supposed to also have that virtualisation thing - lets you run more than one operating system at once.

Of course thats unlikely to be of much to the average computer user.

 

[kb3edk]

Originally posted by: SlitheryDee
I saw this on another thread here in Cpus and processors.

3.4 ghz opteron 170 OC

Anyone think that with certain adjustments AMD could produce processors that can make this speed in sufficiently high yields to market them?

If the 90nm A64 clockspeed ceiling can be extended to this or higher I think AMD can stay within arm's reach of intel. Not to mention fact that with the higher clockspeeds will come the need for more bandwidth so the DDR2 platform may not go completely unused.

Wow, that's a great find! It gives me reason to think of what that processor might be called after it gets a die shrink about a year from now... I'm thinking an A64 X2 "5600+" (or thereabouts) running in Socket AM2 with HTT of 333 and a 10x multiplier, on 65nm strained silicon coming out of Fab 36 once it gets up to full speed. That will sure give those Conroes a run for the money.

I'm not saying it *will* happen, just that it could... AMD just needs to keep an eye on the thermals. Beginning signs (the upcoming AM2 low-power line) are encouraging.

 

[Furen]

I still wonder why people even care at what clock the HTT is running at... The HTT gets multiplied so the actual hypertransport clock IS 1GHz at double data rate, so 2GHz effective. Increasing this is pretty useless in single-socket systems because the memory traffic happens within the CPU (hence the integrated memory controller thing).

I'm sure AMD could make a 3GHz dual-core CPU easily enough, the problem is doing this while staying within a reasonable thermal envelope. The low-power line will probably be based on Turion, though, so these may not clock all that high.

 

[MrX8503]

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
Better than nothing I suppose.

Well, it's kind of surprising that AM2 got a boost despite the higher latencies of DDR2.

A64 doesnt care about latencies because it has an ondie memory controller.

 

[IntelUser2000]

A64 doesnt care about latencies because it has an ondie memory controller.

No, in theory it looks like it would care more about latencies because overall latency is lower and additing additional latency would be more significant.

Since when RAM sticks say 4-4-4-12 is the access time, its not gonna change by using ondie memory controller. Sure the CPU can access the memory controller faster and lower latencies.

 

[uOpt]

Originally posted by: jazzboy

Originally posted by: AnandThenMan

Originally posted by: MartinCracauer
Anybody who ever drove DDR1 at 300 MHz or more knows what to expect from DDR2 on AMD64 - aka not much.

Yep. The difference between DDR1@200 and DDR1@315 is not that great on my rig. The Sandra scores look nice, but things like mpeg2 encoding show only mild gains in speed.

If AM2 is nothing more than the current tech with a DDR2 memory controller, I will be pretty dissapointed.

If I remember it is supposed to also have that virtualisation thing - lets you run more than one operating system at once.

Of course thats unlikely to be of much to the average computer user.

Well, in high-frequencies' defense, if you add more CPUs, and if you have processes that have high throughput demands but little CPU, such as database servers, download-oriented webservers, cryptography applications and the like, then it makes a bigger difference. Even with two CPUs (or one dual-core) you can see that the 300 MHz DDR1 kicks in some more.

Video encoding benefits somewhat for very low-quality video but very few people do that these days.

Not that it will matter for the average AM2 user...

 

[OatMan]

Originally posted by: MrX8503

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
Better than nothing I suppose.

Well, it's kind of surprising that AM2 got a boost despite the higher latencies of DDR2.

A64 doesnt care about latencies because it has an ondie memory controller.

True to a certain extent. But my BH5 at 2225 and 245 kicks the crap out of my PC4000 running at 260 and 3448. But its only 2x512 MB, and I normally run my PC4000 at 270 3338 which beats out the BH5.

I'm not just talking benchmarks, this is realworld usage. It isn't a big difference I'll admit, but it can be noticeable, especially when I'm working with very large hi rez video files.

Regarding AM2 I have not seen it mentioned that another difference in the new socket is that the chips will have independant memory controllers per core. I believe that as software starts to be optimized for multi-core processors this will pay bigger divideds. Right now most programs don't utilize the potential of multicore processors, so this feature is meaningless.

This is changing and will be important. That 3-5 % will grow. Not enough to close the gap, but I'm sure that AM2 is more than just the same cores with new pins.

 

[chinkgai]

those of you guys hoping amd to release 3+ ghz chips are hoping amd follow the dead-end old path that you guys bashed intel for

what they really need and probably are developing as we speak is a change in architecture and lower power consumption...and of course...the fabled change to another die shrink

 

[secretanchitman]

maybe AMD is moving to DDR2 because im sure pretty soon that DDR3 will be right around the corner...which AM2 supports. maybe that will give it the boost to take the lead/still have the lead against intel.

 

[Marmion]

And then Intel will also have DDR3.

 

[Zebo]

Dumbest article yet..

What DDR timings? What DDR2 timings? And it should read: "overclcoked DDR2 to give 3-5% boost" since it says DDR2-800 and Stock is only 667.

For the record I have said DDR1@400 2-2-2 will beat DDR2@667 3-3-3 for over a year now so AMD will gain nothing from this move... Can't wait till these come out.

But my BH5 at 2225 and 245 kicks the crap out of my PC4000 running at 260 and 3448.

And guys like this will beat DDR2 at any speed with thier 4 years old ram.