Anandtech AM2 review up

[Markfw]

I didn;t see it posted, so here goes !Here

 

[Regs]

And?

 

[tbike06]

What does he mean by this?

AMD does have one last trick up its sleeve before the end of the year, and you will hear about it in June. It's not K8L and it's not going to affect the majority of people, but it is an interesting stop gap solution for the high end in 2006...

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: tbike06
What does he mean by this?

AMD does have one last trick up its sleeve before the end of the year, and you will hear about it in June. It's not K8L and it's not going to affect the majority of people, but it is an interesting stop gap solution for the high end in 2006...

Probably the 65nm A64s, Brisbane, I think its called.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: tbike06
What does he mean by this?

AMD does have one last trick up its sleeve before the end of the year, and you will hear about it in June. It's not K8L and it's not going to affect the majority of people, but it is an interesting stop gap solution for the high end in 2006...

Quad-core ?

 

[Absolute0]

Maybe. Kinda odd that AMD stipulated that the reviewers couldn't bench against Conroe but i don't want to turn this into a fight. Just remember the good days when AMD challenged Intel to a server contest

I wasn't expecting much from AM2 but it's still below expectations. Needless to say i'm not getting one and not recommending it to the people i consult. Really the AM2 semprons are the most appealing part i think.

 

[Markfw]

Actually the low power X2's are the biggest thing I like. If they are available before Conroe, I may try one for my next F@H server.

 

[anthrax]

Here is my guess.

1. A new FX64 dual core at 2.8GHz or 3.0Ghz
2. A new Athlon 64 Emergency Edition running at 2.8 or 3.0Ghz. It will be Dual core A64 w/ one core disabled. but with one of the following..
a. merged L2 cache.
b. other disabled cores' L2 cache acting as L3.
Both these will help reduce the latency assocaitaed with the jump to DDR2 and will increase game performance.

 

[Absolute0]

That would be quite interesting, can you take a dual core 3 Ghz sample, disable one core and merge the cache creating a 2mb cache FX59?

low power is good also, specially for folders. And if they are anything like AXP-Mobiles, they'll clock well

Sad that they still coldbug, but i knew they would.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Actually the low power X2's are the biggest thing I like.

Same. They probably have bitching overclockability (XP-M anyone?), and would be excellent in SFF systems or just any system where you are concerned about power consumption.

I wonder if the voltage is substantially lower or how they bring about the reduced power consumption?

 

[RichUK]

Originally posted by: Absolute0
That would be quite interesting, can you take a dual core 3 Ghz sample, disable one core and merge the cache creating a 2mb cache FX59?

low power is good also, specially for folders. And if they are anything like AXP-Mobiles, they'll clock well

Sad that they still coldbug, but i knew they would.

No because it is not a unified L2 cache design, each 1MB of L2 cache is specific to its own processing core. The only thing that links the two cores in an A64 X2 is the crossbar, and the crossbar is directly after the memory controller and before the SRQ (System Request queue), after the SRQ are the two cores with their separate 1MB?s of L2 cache.

 

[RichUK]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: tbike06
What does he mean by this?

AMD does have one last trick up its sleeve before the end of the year, and you will hear about it in June. It's not K8L and it's not going to affect the majority of people, but it is an interesting stop gap solution for the high end in 2006...

Probably the 65nm A64s, Brisbane, I think its called.

Yeah that?s also what i was thinking, they most definitely aren't going to release any architectural changes this early after AM2 release.

I think we will possibly see the new '35W' 3800+ X2 AM2's on this new 65nm fab.

 

[Markfw]

We already have 35W X2 3800's on 90nm according to the article ! unless 65 nm is out now.

 

[RichUK]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
We already have 35W X2 3800's on 90nm according to the article ! unless 65 nm is out now.

I didn?t fully read the article, so maybe they will release a 35W 3800+ X2 on 90nm, in fact i thought that was the speculation before this article too.

Although going by this site (which are pretty accurate with their product specs etc)

Here

It doesn't look like AMD are offering 35W AM2's just yet, otherwise this site would have stated this fact for sure under their current 3800+ product.


In all fairness I cant see AMD bring out anything interesting until K8L, hence why I couldn?t be bothered to fully read this AM2 article.

 

[Markfw]

Rich, sometime in June per this in the review:

The Energy Efficient Small Form Factor Athlon 64 X2 3800+ at a mere 35W (less than half the TDP of the standard X2 3800+) is particularly interesting to us, but unfortunately we'll have to wait before being able to provide you all with power measurements. While all regular AM2 CPUs are available beginning today, the new Energy Efficient models won't be available in the channel until sometime in June.

 

[RichUK]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Rich, sometime in June per this in the review:

The Energy Efficient Small Form Factor Athlon 64 X2 3800+ at a mere 35W (less than half the TDP of the standard X2 3800+) is particularly interesting to us, but unfortunately we'll have to wait before being able to provide you all with power measurements. While all regular AM2 CPUs are available beginning today, the new Energy Efficient models won't be available in the channel until sometime in June.

Ahh right i did read something to do with the Energy Efficient processors, so they meant the low power X2's, interesting. So maybe 65nm will be AMD's "one last trick up its sleeve before the end of the year" then.

 

[nyker96]

I believe the best part of the new AMD lineup is a) the new socket allows unprecedented upgrade path from Sempy to FX60s. b) the low power models can be OCed like nuts, love those 35Watt babies. Get one fo those and OC like crazy and still run it at low power setup.

 

[the Chase]

Taking apart Anandtech's quote-
Won't effect that many users and is a stop gap measure - to me rules out the 35W chips and also the 65nm chips as both of these would effect a lot of users and neither of them is a "stop gap measure" by any stretch.

I'm betting quad core CPU(s) and the "stop gap" part is they are pieced together dualies like Intel pieced together their origanal dual core chips. This is not my own idea really as I read it on another forum but it makes the most sense to me so far.

Edit- my "stop gap" reasoning is my own genious though.

 

[pcoffman]

I thought it was way cool that AMD was able to keep up the performance and yet reduce TDP by so much. Any AMD people out there feel the same?

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: pcoffman
I thought it was way cool that AMD was able to keep up the performance and yet reduce TDP by so much. Any AMD people out there feel the same?

No. I would of been amazed if they could reduce TDP while improving on performance though. What school kid gamer cares about wattage of their CPU? All though tech advancement is always important none the less.