Athlon 64 / FX?

[Crism]

Ok I built my 2.53ghz P4 with the IT7-MAX2 v2 (gotta love it) board 2 years ago this past Christmas. I'm starting to get back into the PC building and parts deal again so here we go:

1. I know AMD is the leader in the industry for CPU's now. What is the difference between say the Athlon 64 3000+ Socket 754 and Socket 939 CPU's?

2. What is the difference between an Athlon 64 939 CPU and an Athlon FX? (FX is like $300+ more!!! Is it really worth the money for the performance boost?)

I'm guessing that currently the best on the market is the FX-55. The mid-range is the Athlon 64 939. The budget PC being the Athlon 64 754.

Why did they make different sockets?

 

[imported_Bleh]

1. Socket 939 cpus support dual channel memory and are primarily 90nm as opposed to 754 which is 130nm and only single channel memory.

2. FX-55 is higher clock speed and 1 mb L2 cache. Most socket 939 3000+ and 32000+ will overclock to FX-55 speeds but FX55 will have a slight advantage at the same clock speed due to its 1 mb l2 cache

 

[Veramocor]

Originally posted by: Bleh
1. Socket 939 cpus support dual channel memory and are primarily 90nm as opposed to 754 which is 130nm and only single channel memory.

2. FX-55 is higher clock speed and 1 mb L2 cache. Most socket 939 3000+ and 32000+ will overclock to FX-55 speeds but FX55 will have a slight advantage at the same clock speed due to its 1 mb l2 cache

32000+ Damn I have to get me one of those!

hehe j/k

 

[Dough1397]

strained silicon on the fx 55 i beleive which allows for higher clock speeds even tho the fx is 130nm

 

[Gamingphreek]

The FX's come in 940 and 939. The best being 939. Also they have the dual channel memory controller, and are multiplier unlocked. IIRC they also have a bit more cache as they are based off of the Sledgehammer core rather than the Clawhammer. The A64 on the other hand is based off of Revisions to the Clawhammer core known as Clawhammer, NewCastle and Winchester. Winchester Being the best then Clawhammer then NewCastle. NewCastles have less cache but higher clockspeed, Clawhammers have slower clockspeed, but more cache, and winchesters have the best of both worlds along with SS SOI, and a die shrink. OCing wise the Winchesters are the best followed by NewCastle, followed by Clawhammer.

I dont believe that they have used the Strained Silicon on the FX's yet.

I know that on the Winchester based processors they have moved to 90nm die, and Strained Silicon. However not sure if they are using SOI( Silicon on Insulator) yet though. Also AMD supposedly found a new way to make SOI and SS more efficient or something and are supposed to release it with the SSE3 enabled processors.

-Kevin

 

[RadeonGuy]

The diffrences between 64/FX is the FX has more cache, and a unlocked multplier. And as of right now the FX has higher clock sppeds

There are three different sockets right now The 939 for newer AMD64. Socket 940 for workstation/servers. Also the socket 754 is pretty soon just going to be low AMD64 and Semperon

Also diffrence between 754 and 939 3400+ is 939 had dual channel and intergrated memory controller to reduce latency