Question about the new AMD quad-core Cpu's coming soon

[TallBill]

Any idea what socket they will be. I can't seem to find it anywhere. Not sure how they are priced now, but it'd be nice to buy an AM2 dual core, and be able to upgrade it to a quad core later down the line. I doubt it, but looking for the answer. Hopefully someone will know.

 

[MarcVenice]

am2+

I recall reading about the new cpu's being backwards compatible with current mobo's, but I'm actually not 100% sure. It has to be am2+ though, and to make matters more confusing, I read about am2+- too.

 

[BitByBit]

As previously reported on DailyTech, Stars processors will use AM2+ motherboards. These processors can plug into existing AM2 motherboards today given the proper BIOS updates, but without the AM2+ sockets Stars processors will drop down to the HyperTransport 1.0 bus speeds.


Link

 

[TallBill]

Ok thanks. So basically an AM2 board wont be a realistic upgrade path (not that thats necessarily an issue). I won't be building until november or december anyways, just trying to make a mental picture now.

 

[BitByBit]

Why? According to the article I cited, it will be possible to plug a quad core K10 into an old AM2 board, which incidently is one of the reasons I chose to go AMD instead of Intel for my current build. A BIOS upgrade is all it takes, and the fact that it forces HT1.0 over HT2.0 will matter little from a performance perspective.

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: BitByBit
Why? According to the article I cited, it will be possible to plug a quad core K10 into an old AM2 board, which incidently is one of the reasons I chose to go AMD instead of Intel for my current build. A BIOS upgrade is all it takes, and the fact that it forces HT1.0 over HT2.0 will matter little from a performance perspective.

I thought that was one of the huge sells on the new chips? Perhaps I am misinformed. Do you have any idea of the AM2+ boards will support the current dual core chips? Like I said, I wont even be building probably until early 2008, so if quad core prices are high, but AM2+ boards take dual cores, then I'll be in like flint.

 

[firewolfsm]

Athlons are rarely bandwidth limited, if I run the HT at the normal 1GHz or at 700MHz I might lose 0-2% on some apps. Quad cores will need more headroom but it won't affect it that much.

The major selling point is the new architecture.

 

[BitByBit]

Hypertransport connects the processor to I/O devices and expansion cards (and other processors in multisocket boards), not RAM as per the common misconception. HT1.0, even underclocked, can provide enough bandwidth to/from these devices so as to not cause a bottleneck, so I'm a little ambivalent as to the benefit HT2.0 will bring to the desktop. HT2.0 will be used with 'Torrenza' expansion cards however, which will likely be able to use the extra bandwidth it affords.

Regarding CPU/MB compatibility, I believe current AM2 X2s will work in AM2+ motherboards, but not AM3. (Not that you'd want to plug in an old K8 when K10 could well be around 50% faster, clock for clock.)

 

[kmrivers]

Won't bandwidth requirements for quad-core chips increase, hence the possible need for HT2.0?

 

[Furen]

Originally posted by: kmrivers
Won't bandwidth requirements for quad-core chips increase, hence the possible need for HT2.0?

Current K8s have HT 2.0, what the new chips will bring is HT 3.0.

No, memory bandwidth is completely different from IO bandwidth (which is what HT deals with). Memory bandwidth is bottlenecked by the memory clock while IO bandwidth is limited by the speed of the IO components (Video cards, harddrives, optical drives, USB devices). The only exception to this is multi-socket configurations because in these cases memory traffic to/from ANOTHER socket DOES go through the Hypertransport links. What this boils down to is that we probably wont see any benefit in single-socket systems, we may se a decent benefit in dual-socket (4x4 and workstation) systems and we'll see massive improvement in 4P+ systems, this just from the upgraded hypertransport.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Hmm, according to DT we are talking about a HT bus speed of 3000mhz and up. I guess memory latency benchmarks will favor the new AMD CPUs pretty.

But with the launch dates around Q3.. they cannot afford to lose more time.

 

[jkresh]

If you aren't building till the end of 07 beginning of 08 then dont worry about it now. First we have no idea how well the k10 will perform, it might not be worth it over the q6600 (which will be $250 by the end of the summer), or peryn which should be out by the time you are ready to build. Realistically you shouldn't think much about a build until 1 month before, as stuff is always changing, 6 months is a long time in this industry.

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: jkresh
If you aren't building till the end of 07 beginning of 08 then dont worry about it now. First we have no idea how well the k10 will perform, it might not be worth it over the q6600 (which will be $250 by the end of the summer), or peryn which should be out by the time you are ready to build. Realistically you shouldn't think much about a build until 1 month before, as stuff is always changing, 6 months is a long time in this industry.

I know that, but I have to do something in my down time 😛

 

[chucky2]

Keep in mind that AMD themselves have not officially said that AM2 CPU's will work in AM2+ motherboards, nor have they come out and said that AM2+ CPU's will work in current AM2 motherboards.

The closest we have is the news releases like DailyTech and then Gary getting confirmation from AMD (both CPU and chipset groups) that the AMD 690G chipset would support AM2+ CPU's (which one wasn't detailed I don't think). Of course, none of the current 690G motherboard manufacturers are claiming AM2+ CPU support...take that for what you will.

Will it probably work either way? Probably. Will it definitely work? No one knows yet.