AMD to Adopt DDR2 Next Year 243
Hack Jandy writes "According to Anandtech, AMD has already developed a new processor lineup for Athlon 64 processors with DDR2. The article states that internal AMD roadmaps indicate the processors should debut early next year and will require a new 1207 pin socket."
1207 and Virtualization (Score:5, Informative)
This roadmap seems to suggest at least that virtualization will only come in chips with the M2 socket. I will be disappointed if that is true. I had planned to upgrade to dual core chip with virtualization, but keep my 939 board. Maybe by then I will be looking to upgrade to PCIe and won't care. I have an AGP board now.
Re:Of course they changed the socket... again... (Score:5, Informative)
So on x86 when you think about upgrading that 2 year old CPU to something new
Stop blathering. On Socket-A I went "Duron 800", "Athlon 1333" and then "AthlonXP 2400+". That's three processor upgrades on one platform and the VERY SAME MOTHERBOARD.
Just recently I bought a new Socket-A MB (they're dirt cheap) and 2GB of DDR (which is similarly dirt cheap), so the last CPU has seen a MB upgrade too.
And do you know what? I play modern games on that sucker.
(I'll go S939 soon with a nice Venice and get a real use for all that memory)
Re:Socket 1207 (Score:5, Informative)
I think they will try to keep the number of pins down: more pins is more expensive to manufacture and transport.
Re:Shocked I tell you! (Score:1, Informative)
PCIe is already on the 939 boards (ASUS A8N-SLI box sitting right next to my desk here, for example).
Re:1207 and Virtualization (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2471 [anandtech.com]
It's a full AGP x8 implementation, not a pokey AGP-thru-PCI or something like that. In fact, at present AGP is faster than PCIe on it... But read the review for yourself.
Re:Socket A (Score:4, Informative)
Ummm... we have socket 754 which is pretty much supports the older athlons as well as the Sempron and Athlon 64s. This is common on those sub $400 pcs that you find on the retail circuit.
It's sort of like the old super socket 7 of old. Nice the fact that AMD offered CPUS as fast as 450 and 550 IIRC, even a tad higher than 450mhz in the amd k6-3 mobile if you were lucky enough to find them. While not nessicarly the best upgrade choice they are not only an option for the budget minded but most importantly those last generation high end chips either hold their value or increase in value. The socket-7 run would have been limited to 233/266mhz had it not been for AMD.
But this is all accidemic as well... Socket-a has been around for a very long time... offering speeds as low as the 600mhz... as high as 3.2ghz AFAIA. More over they are still in production.
So what happened to the good old days when pin counts lasted for years and years? They are still here, and in fact improved thanks to AMD so long as you ignore Slot-A. While I would strongly reccomend going 939 if you can, 754/slot-a is still an option even for those who gotta have 64bit CPUs. Just like the end of the 21st century when you "could" go slot-1 or stay with (super) socket 7 a while longer, or hell even 72pin simms if you really wanted to.
Known troll: check the parent's history! [NT] (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Oh, so now we're getting into an oldest... (Score:2, Informative)
some k6-2+ and k6-3
let you set the muliplier to 2x and
it assumes it is 6x
very handy i once had a k6-2 at 6x83 on a p1 board maxed out
it retired 2 years ago
Re:Socket 1207 (Score:3, Informative)
In AthlonXP and Pentium 4 architecture, data from the graphics card would only have to pass through the North Bridge to get to the memory. However, in current Athlon64 architecture it has to pass through both the North Bridge and the memory controller built into the CPU. This slows it down a bit.
Adding an integrated PCIe controller to the Athlon64 would get rid of this slow-down once and for all... however, this problem has not really been much of a problem because graphics cards have so much memory nowadays that they hardly ever have to access system memory anymore.
Re:1207 and Virtualization (Score:3, Informative)
Right because we all know a $400 GPU that has 3x the transistors of the main CPU can only be used -- For Games. PCIe was designed to take care of the 'limitations' of AGP, manyly that is was a one way street, ramp up the ability to push data to the card, and ignore the ability to send data back on the return trip.
PCIe Is required for card to card intercommunication, AGP simply doesn't have ability for the cards to send enough data back down the bus for 2 cards to work in parallel on the same graphical computation.
Considering how powerful and advanced modern GPUs are a bus system that allows them to return data to the main GPU is very important, because it allows 'other' programs to use them, programs that aren't 'primarily' concerned with outputting to the 'screen' but rather to a file, such as 3d-rendering software, image manipulation programs, mpeg-4 compressors, even audio effect software can utilize the GPU, because while it's designed for calculating graphics certain audio computations can be run on them faster than on a general purpouse cpu.
PCIe is better, it makes GPUs more valuable to non-gamers, and frankly gamers while a lucrative market segment are not the 'whole' picture. Not by a long shot. Many graphic professionals pay $1,000 or more for a 3-d card that can perform the rendering work in hours that a normal CPU would take weeks to compute.. So since PCIe works for gamers too, it would be more profitable for the graphic card makers if PCIe was the prevalent and dominate technology and they didn't have to build 'high end' agp cards anymore..
AMD Tech Tour Q and A with engineer (Score:5, Informative)
The actual engineer on staff at the event answered it, and stated flat out that there was no performance gain until at least DDR2-667, and that alone "was only about 5% or so faster than DDR400 running in dual channel mode". He even went so far as to say that "DDR2-533, with it's increased latency over DDR400, has a negative impact of OVER 5%", and makes no sense to jump to. This was because of the efficiency already inherent in the HyperTransport bus, according to him.
He talked for about 5 minutes on the issue, and the gist of it was that until DDR2-667 specifically started to become more affordable, the incremental speed boost didn't make any sense for anyone, including and users and AMD Proc Support.
Incidentally, he also mentioned that DDR2 would (of course) require significant redesign in the built-in memory controller of the 939 chips, unless registered memory was used. This sorta implies in a friday morning-drove-all-night-from-NJ way that the current 939's would not support DDR2 if there were to be 939 mobo's with DDR2 support.