Hammer / Thoroughbred Question

[Quixotic]

First of all, has anybody heard anything about the Thoroughbred series from AMD? It seems to me like the hype has gone straight from the Palominos to the Hammers.

Second, will these two new cores use the same architecture (Socket A) and thus be compatible with current motherboards?

Thanks for any and all help!

 

[Wingznut]

Reportedly, the Thoroughbred will still be SocketA compatible, but I don't think it's "for sure" yet. The Hammer series definitely will not be compatible.

 

[AGodspeed]

has anybody heard anything about the Thoroughbred series from AMD?

Do you mean has anyone heard anything new lately about Thoroughbred? Yes actually.

The latest roadmap from a German web site has indicated that 1.73/1.8GHz Thoroughbreds are due out in Q1/Q2 timeframe (meaning March/April).

Thoroughbred is supposed to be fundamentally the same processor as the current Athlon XPs, except on a 130 nanometer process (compared to the Athlon XP's current 180 nanometer process). In general, the smaller the manufacturing process, the better the performance and less power (wattage) required (which is a good thing btw). Besides being 130 nanometers, some have speculated that Thoroughbred will also have more L2 cache, possibly 512 kb instead of 256 kb currently available with .18 Athlon XPs. When processes get smaller, you're able to "fit" more cache onto the die.

The same can be said for the current .18 Pentium 4 processors with 256kb of L2 cache. The .13 versions of the Pentium 4 coming next year (codenamed Northwood) are supposed to have 512 kb of L2 cache. This is basically as a result of shrinking the die to 130 nanometers.

will these two new cores use the same architecture (Socket A) and thus be compatible with current motherboards?

No one really knows, but it's nearly 100% likely that Thoroughbred will be Socket A, whereas Hammer, it's anyone's guess.

EDIT: I'm sure Wingz could give a better explanation than I could about die shrinks and such, since he's the expert.

 

[Wingznut]

What more could I add?

 

[Quixotic]

Haha... thanks guys.

Yeah, I've seen the roadmap and I'm looking forward to building a dual processor system with the .13µ process CPUs. The extra cache will be very nice, if what you say does happen. The cache is probably the only reason (well, .18µ process being the other) keeping me from going with two DuronMPs right now. Better performance, less heat, what more can I ask for? Gosh, I hope I can hold out. I dunno, those Duron's seemed to be priced pretty competitively

I'm hoping the Thoroughbreds will be Socket A compatible, because then I can get the Durons and then trade them in for the Thoroughbreds later. Not gonna wait for the Hammers, I'll consider those when I do my bi-monthly upgrade.