Will Palomino/Ath4 be DDR only?

[richleader]

Title pretty much says it.

 

[bigdog1218]

sorry can't answer your question, but i have another similiar question, can palomino's be used on existing ddr boards?

 

[BurntKooshie]

Pally will use existing Socket A motherboards, assuming they support whatever voltage the chip comes out with. Therefore, whatever chipset supports Socket A will be useable, so you'll technically be able to use SDRAM, and DDR. But with Palomino having hardware prefetch, the effect of using SDRAM will be pronounced, because prefetch works by using "extra" bandwidth. The idea is to trade bandwidth for latency, and with SDRAM, there just isn't enough bandwidth.

 

[DoctorM]

Hmm, but what about KT133A's with the FSB overclocked?
How would the bandwidth performance hit compare if you're running your SDR with 150mhz+ FSB?
Mind you, you could probably o/c the Palamino's FSB's as well...

 

[BurntKooshie]

Who knows if Palomino will be overclockable via multiplier.....maybe AMD will decide to hardlock them. But yes, an increase in bandwidth by upping the frequency would help, but remember that even at 166mhz (the highest I've seen people attain stabily, and without exotic cooling, etc), there is less bandwidth than DDR @ 100mhz (though the 166mhz SDRAM would probably win due to its considerably lower latencies).