AMD FSB

[Sahakiel]

I was curious. Why won't AMD implement a 166mhz FSB? Is there anything different electrically or in the logic that would prevent such a move?
From what I've seen, upping the FSB would just mean lowering the multiplier and running the CPU at the same speed. aka run a 1333mhz chip at 166x8 instead of 133x10.
We have a ready supply of PC2700 DDR, so it would seem logical to me that AMD could release at least some chips that use 166mhz FSB. Instead, I'm reading comments on how AMD pulled pretty much every engineer it has to work on hammer, leaving almost no one working on developing Thoroughbred and Barton, resulting in lots of features getting pulled including increasing the FSB and SOI.

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: Sahakiel
I was curious. Why won't AMD implement a 166mhz FSB? Is there anything different electrically or in the logic that would prevent such a move?
From what I've seen, upping the FSB would just mean lowering the multiplier and running the CPU at the same speed. aka run a 1333mhz chip at 166x8 instead of 133x10.
We have a ready supply of PC2700 DDR, so it would seem logical to me that AMD could release at least some chips that use 166mhz FSB. Instead, I'm reading comments on how AMD pulled pretty much every engineer it has to work on hammer, leaving almost no one working on developing Thoroughbred and Barton, resulting in lots of features getting pulled including increasing the FSB and SOI.

They'd have to approve chipsets for 166 operation. I remember insane3d got a mobo to 195 fsb or so once, but I doubt most can do that. Do you really want to have tbird/xp a,b,c,d, etc for all the different bus speeds with different multipliers also?

 

[imgod2u]

Anand's test a while back showed that even with a 166MHz DDR FSB and memory to match, the Athlon's performance did not increase all that much. Simply put, the added bandwidth would not help alot and would add a lot of complications. AMD doesn't make their own chipsets, so all the other motherboard manufacturers would have to wait until Via validates a chipset for 166MHz FSB operation. Such a thing is too much trouble for little gain. What the Athlon needs is not a better memory subsystem or better cache system, what they need is more raw CPU operation.

 

[paralazarguer]

Another thing to consider is that once the hammer takes over for the current athlon these will be made the value processor and it can't be too competitive with hammer.

 

[BurntKooshie]

AMD doesn't make their own chipsets

Yes they do.

 

[PsychoAndy]

correct me if i'm wrong, but isnt AMD planning on eliminating the FSB entirely (IIRC, with hammer)?

 

[Evadman]

Originally posted by: PsychoAndy
correct me if i'm wrong, but isnt AMD planning on eliminating the FSB entirely (IIRC, with hammer)?

Correct. the hammer will have an on die mem controller, totaly bypassing any kind of FSB.

 

[PsychoAndy]

Originally posted by: Evadman

Originally posted by: PsychoAndy
correct me if i'm wrong, but isnt AMD planning on eliminating the FSB entirely (IIRC, with hammer)?

Correct. the hammer will have an on die mem controller, totaly bypassing any kind of FSB.

Right. So if its being phased out with the newest chipset, dosent that offset the entire point of implementing a new 166 FSB now?

 

[AkumaBao]

I have one word for it all. "Opteron"