Athlon64 ARGHH

[moemac8]

Anandtech has a little side headline about the A64 coming out with a 940 pin socket, then quickly switching to a 939 pin socket. So are they intentionally trying to piss people off. The Bartons just came out but I decided to hold off building a new system because the Bartons are a upgrade dead end. Now it seems the inital Athlon 64s will be too. Intel is looking alot better to me every day.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Link?

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: moemac8
Anandtech has a little side headline about the A64 coming out with a 940 pin socket, then quickly switching to a 939 pin socket. So are they intentionally trying to piss people off. The Bartons just came out but I decided to hold off building a new system because the Bartons are a upgrade dead end. Now it seems the inital Athlon 64s will be too. Intel is looking alot better to me every day.

It's socket 754 on the Athlon 64 platform, and AFAIK it the Opteron, which you are talking about (cause it has 940 pins), is not going to 939.

/0

 

[Richdog]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
Link?

Go check www.the-inquirer.com I saw something on this today.

EDIT- Here it is http://www.the-inquirer.com/?article=10353

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: moemac8
Now it seems the inital Athlon 64s will be too. Intel is looking alot better to me every day.

Where have you been? The initial Athlon 64s have been doomed from the start. This is just one more reason to avoid them like the plague. Some of other reasons:
1) Initial extreme expense (just look at how the Opterons are plummeting in price at the other Inquirer article - the Athlon 64 will also start high and plummet in price),
2) Initial chips never are the best until kinks are worked out (ie poor overclockers),
3) Most people have no need for 64 bit at this point,
4) AMD rumors have always placed the 4000+ very shortly after the 3400+ release,
5) There are other chips just as fast that will cost a lot less at the time (3200+ Barton, 3.2 GHz P4).
6) Bad motherboard selection at the start of new chips it almost always takes a generation or two for good motherboards to appear,
7) Probable lack of 64 bit Windows if that matters to you. Even if a 64 bit Windows is ready are you going to plop down another $100+ to Microsoft for the OS?
8) The one good thing about 64 bit processors that some people need is support for 4+ GB of memory. But the initial Athlon 64 was supposed to only have support for Up to 4 GB Local Memory. Note this is old info though and may have changed,
9) The 242 and 244 Opterons were paper launched by 2 months, will the 3400+ Athlon 64 also be paper launched? Who wants to play that waiting game? Note this is just speculation, it might come out on time.
10) I could go on and on. There are just too many possible good reasons to avoid the initial Athlon 64. I think getting an Athlon 64 in about 1 year from now may be quite a wise choice. But the initial Athlon 64, isn't.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: dullard

Originally posted by: moemac8
Now it seems the inital Athlon 64s will be too. Intel is looking alot better to me every day.

Where have you been? The initial Athlon 64s have been doomed from the start. This is just one more reason to avoid them like the plague. Some of other reasons:
1) Initial extreme expense (just look at how the Opterons are plummeting in price at the other Inquirer article - the Athlon 64 will also start high and plummet in price),
2) Initial chips never are the best until kinks are worked out (ie poor overclockers),
3) Most people have no need for 64 bit at this point,
4) AMD rumors have always placed the 4000+ very shortly after the 3400+ release,
5) There are other chips just as fast that will cost a lot less at the time (3200+ Barton, 3.2 GHz P4).
6) Bad motherboard selection at the start of new chips it almost always takes a generation or two for good motherboards to appear,
7) Probable lack of 64 bit Windows if that matters to you,
8) The one good thing about 64 bit processors that some people need is support for 4+ GB of memory. But the initial Athlon 64 was supposed to only have support for Up to 4 GB Local Memory. Note this is old info though and may have changed,
9) The 242 and 244 Opterons were paper launched by 2 months, will the 3400+ Athlon 64 also be paper launched? Who wants to play that waiting game? Note this is just speculation, it might come out on time.
10) I could go on and on. There are just too many possible good reasons to avoid the initial Athlon 64. I think getting an Athlon 64 in about 1 year from now may be quite a wise choice. But the initial Athlon 64, isn't.

you are making me cry

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: shady06
you are making me cry

Well everything listed there is just the most likely case. AMD could suprise us all with a 3400+ Athlon 64 on time and at a good price without any pin changes. If that happens, then I guess there won't be any major reasons not to jump right on in and get the first one that hits the shelves. However I just doubt that everything will be spectacular right from the start. Heck even AMD itself said many times that sales of the initial Hammer chips will be quite slow (most likely for all the reasons I posted). As soon as hammer his 0.09 microns though - I'd bet it will be a wonderful chip.

Think of it like the 1.4 GHz P4. It wasn't a bad chip (as it could play all the games of its day). But there were better performing chips at better prices. It wasn't until Intel got to 0.13 microns - then the P4 became a good contender.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: dullard

Originally posted by: moemac8
Now it seems the inital Athlon 64s will be too. Intel is looking alot better to me every day.

Where have you been? The initial Athlon 64s have been doomed from the start. This is just one more reason to avoid them like the plague. Some of other reasons:
1) Initial extreme expense (just look at how the Opterons are plummeting in price at the other Inquirer article - the Athlon 64 will also start high and plummet in price),
2) Initial chips never are the best until kinks are worked out (ie poor overclockers),
3) Most people have no need for 64 bit at this point,
4) AMD rumors have always placed the 4000+ very shortly after the 3400+ release,
5) There are other chips just as fast that will cost a lot less at the time (3200+ Barton, 3.2 GHz P4).
6) Bad motherboard selection at the start of new chips it almost always takes a generation or two for good motherboards to appear,
7) Probable lack of 64 bit Windows if that matters to you,
8) The one good thing about 64 bit processors that some people need is support for 4+ GB of memory. But the initial Athlon 64 was supposed to only have support for Up to 4 GB Local Memory. Note this is old info though and may have changed,
9) The 242 and 244 Opterons were paper launched by 2 months, will the 3400+ Athlon 64 also be paper launched? Who wants to play that waiting game? Note this is just speculation, it might come out on time.
10) I could go on and on. There are just too many possible good reasons to avoid the initial Athlon 64. I think getting an Athlon 64 in about 1 year from now may be quite a wise choice. But the initial Athlon 64, isn't.

1 - Price will not follow that of Opteron
2 - Overclocking will not be the main market at launch
3 - Future 64bit availability with current 32bit performance? Don't want it? Buy a 32bit CPU then.
4 - They are hardly going to launch just 1 CPU now are they

5 - The 3200+ will have it's ass handed to it. We will have to wait for the P4 benchies.
6 - Nforce 3 going to be a bad choice is it? Hypertransport lame? No.
7 - 64bit Windows exists for A64 and will come to market. See response to point 3
8 - Really???

9 - Bollocks. Utter bollocks. Link me.
10 - Please do go on, I need a laugh

/0

 

[Lyfer]

Whenever AMD has something that can outperform a P4 2.6C@3.3GHZ for under $230, I'll buy an AMD cpu. P4's are really the "shiznit" now a days, a good board is $99 (abit IS7), and the cpus easily outperform AMD's offerings (overclocked that is).


On a side note, the Barton XP2500 for $90 and XP1700 for $45 are the only two AMD cpu's I will recommend to my family and friends (cuz there cheap and can hella overclock ).

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: dullard

Originally posted by: shady06
you are making me cry

Think of it like the 1.4 GHz P4. It wasn't a bad chip (as it could play all the games of its day). But there were better performing chips at better prices. It wasn't until Intel got to 0.13 microns - then the P4 became a good contender.

The process size had little to do with it. That helped with clock speed scaling. The Northwood core revision with the extra 256k of cache made the hay, not the .13 micron transition.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero

1 - Price will not follow that of Opteron
2 - Overclocking will not be the main market at launch
3 - Future 64bit availability with current 32bit performance? Don't want it? Buy a 32bit CPU then.
4 - They are hardly going to launch just 1 CPU now are they

5 - The 3200+ will have it's ass handed to it. We will have to wait for the P4 benchies.
6 - Nforce 3 going to be a bad choice is it? Hypertransport lame? No.
7 - 64bit Windows exists for A64 and will come to market. See response to point 3
8 - Really???

9 - Bollocks. Utter bollocks. Link me.
10 - Please do go on, I need a laugh

1) No it won't be $800 chips like the top Opterons. But AMD once said the 3400+ will be at a price premium over the Athlon XP (which currently is $449 on pricewatch). To me that means $500 minimum for the 3400+. Thus for most people that is just too expensive when chips of almost the same speed go for $165. Of course there will be the slower Athlon 64s at its launch. But I also think they will be priced at a premium over the equivalent speed Bartons.
2) Of course it won't be. But that is one less reason for enthusiasts to get the first Athlon 64. Instead they will likely wait a generation until overclocking is great and jump in.
3) Your comment doesn't say anything about the INITIAL Athlon 64 being the wisest chip choice.
4) No they aren't. There will be at least one chip slower than 3400+. It would be silly to wait forever in the current market for the next chip since on average they are only about 6% faster. But if the 4000+ rumors are true that isn't just a measly 6% boost. Especially when you consider all the other possible reasons to wait a little bit then buy an Athlon 64.
5) If AMD got its 3400+ name from the same tests as the 3200+ (remember the 3400+ name was announced 1.5 years ago using these tests) then it will on average be 6% faster. That isn't getting its ass handed to it. If AMD completely revamps its PR naming scheme then you may be correct.
6) Nforce 3 might be good, but there may be much better ones just a couple months later. It is silly to think everything is perfectly optimized from the very first day.
7) Yes it will be released. But the Septemeber date is iffy (depending on who you talk to). Plus do you want to pay for it? It is just one more expense along with the expensive chip and expensive motherboard.
8) I didn't have time to read that in full before posting. I just posted a link to old info and said it may have changed. If you show me exactly what page in that link you provided that would be nice.
9) I discuss it here and in more detail here on post #13.

None of these is reason in itself to avoid the initial Athlon 64. But put them all together and I see a red flag waving. I'll sit back with millions of others and wait until the time is right to buy mine.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
The process size had little to do with it. That helped with clock speed scaling. The Northwood core revision with the extra 256k of cache made the hay, not the .13 micron transition.

But without the core shrink it would have been uneconomical for Intel to provide the extra 256 kB of cache. I'm just saying that when there is an process size shrink occuring quite shortly it is often best to buy the chip after the shrink.