AMD Next Generation Processors??

[PCMarine]

Ok, with the latest news on AMD's latest CPUs, Im confused... Ive heard CPUS by the names of hammer, clawhammer,sledgehammer, barton, operteron, athlon xp 64, etc.

Now which of these processors would pertain to me as Im going to overhaul my computer in the spring/early summer? Im a power user, hardcore gamer, etc. Looking @ AMD's roadmap (http://www.vr-zone.com/Home/news169/amd.jpg) It looks like I should look at the Barton and Clawhammer chips...Whats the difference between the two?

 

[Soulkeeper]

the clawhammer is the desktop version of the codenamed "hammer" core
it should come out named athlon 64 or something like that
the sledgehammer will be named opteron and will target servers and high demand multiproc systems with it's added cache
the hammer based chips support 64 bit computing as well as the current 32 bit software/operating systems
the barton core is an upgrade to the current line of Socket A Athlon xp's and unlike the hammer based chips it will run on the current chipsets/motherboards/socket
so basically the Athlon 64 will be out next year
it will probably be expensive at first
the barton core don't look to bad
waiting never hurts i guess...


hope that helps

 

[PCMarine]

Alright, Thanks! That helped a lot

 

[mrman3k]

If you need a computer in the next few months, wait and get a Barton Athlon, otherwise wait and get the Athlon 64!

 

[MatthewF01]

Will BARTON be able to run on an Nforce2 motherboard? I guess it could, and you could run it in sync with DDR400, yes? But then doesnt that leave you with NO overclocking? If i remember correctly, the Nforce2 only supports a bus change in BIOS of up to 200mhz, yes?


So does that mean no OCing for Barton on NF2?

 

[mrman3k]

I am not sure, I heard that the 2800+ will be the last Tbred and after that we are doing only Bartons. I don't know how compatibility will be with Barton and older chipsets, but I do hope that my Soyo KT333 Dragon can run it as I will be pissed if I have to go buy a new mobo.

 

[jasonjm]

is barton gonna come in any sort of dual cpu config?

barton MP?

is there a chipset to support this?

duallies rock

 

[mechBgon]

I read that the Bartons will be made in dual-certified 266MHz-based models compatible with the existing AMD 760MPX chipset used by Tyan, Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Iwill, EPoX, etc. With a BIOS flash, I'd expect the existing base of boards would work, although the proof's in the pudding.

As for Barton compatibility with other boards, I'm expecting that 333MHz-based Bartons would work with KT333 and KT400 boards with a BIOS update, and I'm expecting the 400MHz-based ones to run on KT400A and nForce2. To quote from Anand's article:

At the same keynote they had nForce2 motherboards running with a 400MHz FSB. We just received confirmation (although AMD won't announce it until much later) that Barton will be shipping with a 400MHz FSB and the performance boost from the new FSB is pretty healthy. On current processors the use of a 400MHz FSB will improve performance anywhere from 0 - 15% on the nForce2 platform, obviously depending on the benchmark.

That seems to imply that nForce2 is ready for Barton @ 400MHz bus, since they had a board/CPU combo running at that speed at the keynote.

 

[dmcowen674]

Wow Mech, you've really become a super diehard AMD connoisseur.

 

[mechBgon]

Hehe... I admit to some bias What will be REALLY interesting is seeing whether or not SSE2 lights a fire under Hammer in apps like Lightwave 7. A shame the Bartons won't have SSE2... guess I should just keep saving pennies for a shiny Clawhammer with 1Mb of L2 cache :Q

 

[Necrolezbeast]

rarrr, mech...you proved me wrong in the lsat thread then you beat me to it in this one....but anyway, since there is no 1/6 divider on kt266/kt333 mobo's you won't be seeing a Barton w/400mhz fsb on there anytime soon(unless ya wanna run everything way out of spec...

 

[mechBgon]

nForce2 or KT400A, maybe? They are both built for DDR400 memory, so a 400MHz bus seems reasonable, and nForce2 doesn't even have dividers, since the busses are independently clocked. Here's hoping, anyway.

 

[mrman3k]

So it sounds like I will probably will need to upgrade my mobo and memory once Barton is out if I want to take advantage of the 400MHz FSB. Sucks, but I guess AMD has to do what it has to do to stay afloat.

 

[rIpTOr]

Really? Woohoo overclock to your hearts content!