AMD's 4*4

Furen

Golden Member
Oct 21, 2004
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I would have been impressed if AMD had released this back when socket F came out. Now, it sounds to me like Kentsfield would be a better deal (though having four cores on two DDR2 channels may hold it back in these "megatasking" scenarios).

EDIT: Is it me or does the guy seem to keep pointing at the wrong stuff...
 

lopri

Elite Member
Jul 27, 2002
13,313
687
126
I have this absurd feeling that the 4x4 board, despite being an NV chipset (680a), will support both SLI and CrossFire.
 

cmrmrc

Senior member
Jun 27, 2005
334
0
0
why is the title saying DUAL QUAD system?

and why is the guy pointing at the 2 processors while saying 2 more gfx cards???
 

JAG87

Diamond Member
Jan 3, 2006
3,921
3
76
Originally posted by: cmrmrc
why is the title saying DUAL QUAD system?

and why is the guy pointing at the 2 processors while saying 2 more gfx cards???

rofl, exactly my thoughts.

and what is so impressive... wow a kentsfield will blow that system out of the water.
for one thing it can overclock much further than AMD chips, and it beats them clock for clock, so why in hell would anyone describe 4x4 as enthusiast. I thought enthusiast was the cream of of the crop, and 4x4 certainly is not.
 

tvdang7

Platinum Member
Jun 4, 2005
2,242
5
81
Originally posted by: JAG87
Originally posted by: cmrmrc
why is the title saying DUAL QUAD system?

and why is the guy pointing at the 2 processors while saying 2 more gfx cards???

rofl, exactly my thoughts.

and what is so impressive... wow a kentsfield will blow that system out of the water.
for one thing it can overclock much further than AMD chips, and it beats them clock for clock, so why in hell would anyone describe 4x4 as enthusiast. I thought enthusiast was the cream of of the crop, and 4x4 certainly is not.

are u saying my 3000+ is not enthusiast? :( .......
 

Arkaign

Lifer
Oct 27, 2006
20,736
1,379
126
Originally posted by: tvdang7
Originally posted by: JAG87
Originally posted by: cmrmrc
why is the title saying DUAL QUAD system?

and why is the guy pointing at the 2 processors while saying 2 more gfx cards???

rofl, exactly my thoughts.

and what is so impressive... wow a kentsfield will blow that system out of the water.
for one thing it can overclock much further than AMD chips, and it beats them clock for clock, so why in hell would anyone describe 4x4 as enthusiast. I thought enthusiast was the cream of of the crop, and 4x4 certainly is not.

are u saying my 3000+ is not enthusiast? :( .......

Phear my Cyrix MediaGX processor!!! It's much faster than any Quad-core setup!!!!!!

:beer:

 

tvdang7

Platinum Member
Jun 4, 2005
2,242
5
81
Originally posted by: Arkaign
Originally posted by: tvdang7
Originally posted by: JAG87
Originally posted by: cmrmrc
why is the title saying DUAL QUAD system?

and why is the guy pointing at the 2 processors while saying 2 more gfx cards???

rofl, exactly my thoughts.

and what is so impressive... wow a kentsfield will blow that system out of the water.
for one thing it can overclock much further than AMD chips, and it beats them clock for clock, so why in hell would anyone describe 4x4 as enthusiast. I thought enthusiast was the cream of of the crop, and 4x4 certainly is not.

are u saying my 3000+ is not enthusiast? :( .......

Phear my Cyrix MediaGX processor!!! It's much faster than any Quad-core setup!!!!!!

:beer:

LOL i havea cyrix in my 2nd computer. its a compaq. my friends alwayz made fun of me cuz they had pentium 3's and i had some no namer.
 

Lonyo

Lifer
Aug 10, 2002
21,938
6
81
Originally posted by: Corporate Thug
can anyone figure out what power supply that rig is using?

NASA Space Shuttle rocket engines hooked up to a 120v converter.
 

Zap

Elite Member
Oct 13, 1999
22,377
7
81
Originally posted by: Arkaign
Phear my Cyrix MediaGX processor!!! It's much faster than any Quad-core setup!!!!!!

I don't think people fully understood your comment. Sure, they got the "Cyrix" part and on a more shallow level understood that it means "not as fast." The MediaGX was a lot slower in real-world performance than other processors at the time.

Actually, come to think of it the MediaGX is quite the revolutionary chip. What are people talking about these days that is similar? Just to grab one of the top Google searches...

CPU and GPU Merge ? Biggest Microprocessor Evolution Since x86-64

Oh really?

MediaGX (Wikipedia)
Introduced in 1997, the MediaGX CPU was an x86 processor manufactured and designed by Cyrix and later after merger manufactured by National Semiconductor. The core is based on the integration of the Cyrix Cx5x86 CPU core with hardware to process video and audio output (XpressRAM, XpressGRAPHICS, XpressAUDIO).

Of course these came out when Intel was well into the Pentiums, and the Cx5x86 core was really just a hot-rod 486. Remember the 486DLC which was really a 386, and the Cyrix 6x86 for socket 7 was really a Pentium (586) class.
 

aka1nas

Diamond Member
Aug 30, 2001
4,335
1
0
Originally posted by: Furen
I would have been impressed if AMD had released this back when socket F came out. Now, it sounds to me like Kentsfield would be a better deal (though having four cores on two DDR2 channels may hold it back in these "megatasking" scenarios).

EDIT: Is it me or does the guy seem to keep pointing at the wrong stuff...

The only thing remotely interesting about 4x4 is the 4 PCI-E slots. If I had absurdly ridiculous amounts of money I wouldn't mind Quad G80 SLI. :D. The CPU situation isn't terribly interesting until they have discrete quad-cores for it, and even then it's more of an e-penis thing.

I still want one :p
 

Arkaign

Lifer
Oct 27, 2006
20,736
1,379
126
Originally posted by: Zap
Originally posted by: Arkaign
Phear my Cyrix MediaGX processor!!! It's much faster than any Quad-core setup!!!!!!

I don't think people fully understood your comment. Sure, they got the "Cyrix" part and on a more shallow level understood that it means "not as fast." The MediaGX was a lot slower in real-world performance than other processors at the time.

Actually, come to think of it the MediaGX is quite the revolutionary chip. What are people talking about these days that is similar? Just to grab one of the top Google searches...

CPU and GPU Merge ? Biggest Microprocessor Evolution Since x86-64

Oh really?

MediaGX (Wikipedia)
Introduced in 1997, the MediaGX CPU was an x86 processor manufactured and designed by Cyrix and later after merger manufactured by National Semiconductor. The core is based on the integration of the Cyrix Cx5x86 CPU core with hardware to process video and audio output (XpressRAM, XpressGRAPHICS, XpressAUDIO).

Of course these came out when Intel was well into the Pentiums, and the Cx5x86 core was really just a hot-rod 486. Remember the 486DLC which was really a 386, and the Cyrix 6x86 for socket 7 was really a Pentium (586) class.

Hehehe :) I've got a MediaGX in an old black Compaq mini-desktop PC (circa 1995?) with a whopping 8mb of 70ns EDO Simm Memory, an astonishing 8X IDE CD-Rom Drive (probably wearnes or other such garbage), a mind-blowing 1.0GB Hard Drive (Vista Ready!) Watch out for my 10s SuperPi and my 300fps in Quake4!!! Muahhahaha :)

It was a horrible performer even for it's time, imagine a Pentium 75 with ISA video and a screechy sound system, attached to a IDE controller that is on valium, and you have some idea. It was truly a concept that was ahead of its time, but horribly executed. Speaking of execution, I should Semtex this thing to smithereens ;)
 

Viditor

Diamond Member
Oct 25, 1999
3,290
0
0
Originally posted by: JAG87
Originally posted by: cmrmrc
why is the title saying DUAL QUAD system?

and why is the guy pointing at the 2 processors while saying 2 more gfx cards???

rofl, exactly my thoughts.

and what is so impressive... wow a kentsfield will blow that system out of the water.
for one thing it can overclock much further than AMD chips, and it beats them clock for clock, so why in hell would anyone describe 4x4 as enthusiast. I thought enthusiast was the cream of of the crop, and 4x4 certainly is not.

Actually a Kentsfield will be pretty much neck and neck with 4x4...depending on the app.
For apps that aren't as intense, Kentsfield should do better (the lower the usage, the better Kentsfield will be compared to 4x4) because of individual core superiority.
For apps that max out the cores, 4x4 should be better because of the throughput of the platform.

As to overclocking, we should wait and see...remember that Kentsfield doesn't overclock the same way that Conroe does.

One big dissapointment for me is something that Furen pointed out a few weeks ago...this board only has 4 memory slots! The architecture allows for 8 slots, and I was hoping to see it here.
 

Furen

Golden Member
Oct 21, 2004
1,567
0
0
Originally posted by: Viditor
Actually a Kentsfield will be pretty much neck and neck with 4x4...depending on the app.
For apps that aren't as intense, Kentsfield should do better (the lower the usage, the better Kentsfield will be compared to 4x4) because of individual core superiority.
For apps that max out the cores, 4x4 should be better because of the throughput of the platform.

As to overclocking, we should wait and see...remember that Kentsfield doesn't overclock the same way that Conroe does.

One big dissapointment for me is something that Furen pointed out a few weeks ago...this board only has 4 memory slots! The architecture allows for 8 slots, and I was hoping to see it here.

It's pretty much a given that Kentsfield will overclock much better than the AMD 4x4 parts. I think the 3 price points may give AMD a bit of an edge as long as the motherboards aren't over $250 or so (I've heard that the lower-end part will actually cost between $600-700 but I can't say for sure). NUMA should also be nice on NUMA-aware OSes, but I'm not sure whether or not Windows XP 64 supports that.
 

harpoon84

Golden Member
Jul 16, 2006
1,084
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Originally posted by: Viditor
Actually a Kentsfield will be pretty much neck and neck with 4x4...depending on the app.
For apps that aren't as intense, Kentsfield should do better (the lower the usage, the better Kentsfield will be compared to 4x4) because of individual core superiority.
For apps that max out the cores, 4x4 should be better because of the throughput of the platform.

What kind of desktop application can peg 4 cores @ 100%? Video encoding perhaps? Folding?

 

n7

Elite Member
Jan 4, 2004
21,281
4
81
w00h00, i don't give a crap :D

Sorry AMD/Intel, i'll get more excited when many games actually start to benefit from mulithreading.

Considering how GPUs always end up being the bottleneck every time new games come out, i suspect it won't be anytime soon.

 

Viditor

Diamond Member
Oct 25, 1999
3,290
0
0
Originally posted by: Furen
Originally posted by: Viditor
Actually a Kentsfield will be pretty much neck and neck with 4x4...depending on the app.
For apps that aren't as intense, Kentsfield should do better (the lower the usage, the better Kentsfield will be compared to 4x4) because of individual core superiority.
For apps that max out the cores, 4x4 should be better because of the throughput of the platform.

As to overclocking, we should wait and see...remember that Kentsfield doesn't overclock the same way that Conroe does.

One big dissapointment for me is something that Furen pointed out a few weeks ago...this board only has 4 memory slots! The architecture allows for 8 slots, and I was hoping to see it here.

It's pretty much a given that Kentsfield will overclock much better than the AMD 4x4 parts. I think the 3 price points may give AMD a bit of an edge as long as the motherboards aren't over $250 or so (I've heard that the lower-end part will actually cost between $600-700 but I can't say for sure). NUMA should also be nice on NUMA-aware OSes, but I'm not sure whether or not Windows XP 64 supports that.

I don't know if that's true yet...mainly because we have yet to see how well the 65nm AMD parts will overclock.
Bottom line for me is, if you're looking for a gaming platform with 4 cores, then Kentsfield is the go. If you're looking for a lower cost workstation, then 4x4 seems more attractive (especially for video workstations)...however the 4 memory slots (instead of 8) seems an unnecessary limitation for that application.
 

Viditor

Diamond Member
Oct 25, 1999
3,290
0
0
Originally posted by: harpoon84
Originally posted by: Viditor
Actually a Kentsfield will be pretty much neck and neck with 4x4...depending on the app.
For apps that aren't as intense, Kentsfield should do better (the lower the usage, the better Kentsfield will be compared to 4x4) because of individual core superiority.
For apps that max out the cores, 4x4 should be better because of the throughput of the platform.

What kind of desktop application can peg 4 cores @ 100%? Video encoding perhaps? Folding?

Video encoding is a good one, or most any application that actually needs 4 cores...
I believe the general consensus (including yours as I recall) is that any quad core is overkill at this point, except for professional apps.
 

ND40oz

Golden Member
Jul 31, 2004
1,264
0
86
Originally posted by: Zenoth
1K PSU would be enough for that ?

I would think so, I have a 1k in my workstation and it's probably pretty much the same thing as this 4x4 except it can take up to 16 sticks of ram. I'm not really seeing this marketed as a workstation due to the lack of available ram slots, for games it'll probably be good once we get some good multithreaded games. Other then that, it'll be great for folding, 4 cores and 4 gpu's all plugging away :)