Venice Core differences

[imported_Sambo]

I am interested in buying a Venice core and notice two options, one with e3 stepping (SKU ending in BP) and one with e6 stepping(SKU ending in BW). What is the difference in the two Venice cores and would one be a better choice for a new system then the other?

 

[Calin]

I suppose the later stepping would be a better buy.
As for the first question, I don't know the answer, but it is an interesting question anyway

 

[Varun]

As CPUs mature, the company finds little things that they can improve on. Most of these little things show up during the manufacturing process. AMD/Intel want to improve their yield - that is they want more of the CPUs they make per silicon wafer to actually work, so they revise their core slightly as well as manufacturing practices as the CPUs get older.

I doubt very much you would ever be able to find out exactly the differences between two revisions, however newer revisions may run cooler and overclock better.

 

[brikis98]

the primary difference i've heard is E6 overclocks better. namely, the E3 stepping Venice 3000+ needs more voltage to reach the same OC as the E6 stepping. i don't remember the numbers exactly, but the E3 needed something like 1.55 volts to do 2.7Ghz while the E6 could do it at stock voltage.

 

[Calin]

Also, newer revisions might have some of the microcode changed, and this could either increase the performance at a certain clock speed (by a little bit), either improve compatibility, or improve the max frequency at which the processor could work. This means better overclock, but it might mean processors just a bit slower at a clock speed.

 

[CTho9305]

There's a document called "Revision Guide for AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Opteron Processors" (google it) that will give you at least a little bit of info (though probably nothing useful to you).