Out of the game. K8L - what we know?

[StevenNevets]

I used to use these forums all the time while I was researching my computer but after I got it working it was time to move away.
But I'm looking at future PC games and they seem very demanding, not just on GPUs but on CPUs
My X2 3800+ is decent but might not be for very long.


Now I remember reading AM3 or K8L would be compatible with AM2 motherboards, is this still true?
Here's mine:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136015


Is this supposed to be faster or slower then C2D?
And how many cores?



Sorry for being a noob but when searching I found hardly anything useful.

 

[MDme]

K8L will come in native-quad, dual and solo cores.

There is no hard info available on whether it will be faster than C2D on a core-per-core, or ipc standpoint.

AM2 boards will be compatible with AM2+ CPUs (AM2 CPUs will work with AM2+ boards) I think you will lose some functionality like HT3.

AM2+ CPUs will be compatible with AM3 boards and AM3 CPUs will work with AM2+ boards but will use DDR2.

AM3 CPUs (which I believe has a DDR2/3 IMC will work with AM3 boards (duh) and AM2+ boards.

AM3 CPUs will NOT work with AM2 mobos i think.

happy new year!!!

btw, there is NO guarantee a particular AM2 mobo will work with AM2+ CPUs.

 

[StevenNevets]

Ow, my brain hurts
Differnce between AM2+ and AM2 is?

Or you could just make it easy on me.
Will there be stronger CPUs in the future that will be compatible with that motherboard I linked?



Thanks and Happy New Year to you to!

 

[BitByBit]

Originally posted by: MDme
AM3 CPUs will NOT work with AM2 mobos i think.

That appears to be the wrong way around: AM3 K8Ls will work in AM2 (requiring a BIOS upgrade, losing HT3.0), but current AM2 X2s will not work in AM3 boards.
Also, only Socket AM3 will support DDR3, it seems.

"AMD has confirmed that AM3 processors will work in AM2 motherboards; however, AM2 processors will not be compatible with AM3 motherboards. This is because AM2 chips lack the proper memory controller for DDR3 memory (since AMD chips have the memory controller directly on the processor itself, instead of on the Northbridge), and AM3 processors will have a memory controller that supports both DDR2 and DDR3 (though it lacks the capability of running both at the same time). This has the benefit that anyone who buys a Socket AM2 motherboard will be able to freely upgrade to any AM3 processor in the future, ensuring that AM2 will have a long future and not become obsolete too soon."

Source

Socket AM2+ appears to support both AM2 and AM3 Athlons, and will enable HT3.0 but still won't support DDR3.
There are no Athlons planned specifically for socket AM2+, so 'AM2+ processors' is something of a misnomer.

Socket comparison

 

[StevenNevets]

Nice but uh... HT3.0

is that a big deal... and uh what is it?

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: StevenNevets
Nice but uh... HT3.0

is that a big deal... and uh what is it?

HT 3.0 provides much higher interconnect (CPU to memory) bandwith than HT 1.0.

For quad core it could have a slight impact on performance, but HT 1.0 is more than enough for dual cores.

 

[glugglug]

Originally posted by: StevenNevets
Nice but uh... HT3.0

is that a big deal... and uh what is it?

HT 3.0 has 22x the bandwidth of HT1.0 IIRC. It's the interconnect between CPUs and for I/O.

For a single socket system it really doesn't matter, regardless of how many cores you have.

But for multi-socket (4x4) and the upcoming co-processors it will make a huge difference. With the multi-socket difference being because of the way the CPUs access each-other's memory controllers.

 

[StevenNevets]

Isn't socket the type of CPUs motherboards support, how can there be multi-sockets?

I would be getting the strongest Dual-Core K8L CPU (hopefully stronger then C2D) if that helps you.

 

[aka1nas]

Servers and Workstations often have multiple CPU sockets for multiple processors(to clarify, these are all the same "type" of socket). In this type of environment, the different CPUs wll have to exchange information somehow to keep all their data in sync. As we start adding more cores to each CPU, this quantity of data starts to become pretty big and we will need a faster data bus to accomodate it. That's what HT 3.0 is for. The only reason us lowly home users care about this is that HyperTransport links are also used to connect the memory controller on the CPU with the system RAM.

So, it's possible that there will eventually be some small performance advantage with HT 3.0 as we move to Quad-core and eventually Octo-core CPUs and can use the wider path to RAM. It's really more of a server-oriented feature at this time, though.

 

[StevenNevets]

Alrighty, thanks.