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."
PCIe too (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Socket A (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Aarrrrgh.... (Score:1, Interesting)
But this was THE major attraction of Socket 939 to me - you can whack a whole new type of CPU (one with two cores) into your existing board and have it work fine, possibly just with a BIOS upgrade if needed. That's a far more important archictural change than DDR2 or SATA or some other standard.
Compare this with Intel, pushing new chipsets and sockets and bus speeds and memory types at every damn opportunity. Socket 939 was/is actually a really good investment.
Dominoe effect (Score:2, Interesting)
I forgot the best part; my old Socket A MB (KT7A-RAID) ran on SDRAM of course, so when I upgraded that MB, I moved 512MB of SDRAM to my old linux server (K6-2 based FIC-503+), which up till that point was running on 80MB of EDO.
Now that's what I call an [cheap ass] upgrade.
Re:So what is this? (Score:1, Interesting)
Also most users (even us techies) often don't upgrade our CPUs. Back in the day we'd have a dozen computers and tons of spare parts, because a CPU upgrade was expensive and left you with a useless part. Its far more common to upgrade your mainboard, ram, and cpu in one shot. Back then if we couldn't use our old parts, we found family or friends who could. These days, computers are so common its sadly just trash.
I just upgraded my system from a 1ghz Athlon to a 3200+, and have no idea how to unload my old cpu/board/video (ram went to another PC). I no longer keep a garage full of monitors, kb/mice, cases, spare parts (I miss Number9 Imagine series), and old PCs relics I loved (TRS80, Tandy1000, Apollo, and MFM drives).
Its easier to upgrade the core platform and incrementally add new hdd or peripherals as needed. There's just no more pressing bottlenecks for us to dabble with SCSI or exciting upgrades like tape or cdr backups. RAM is cheap and fast, and CPUs are fast enough for most tasks. And video was never a priority for old school techies.
What you should say is that all those individual upgrades are common for gamers, who are the last segment willing to spend the money and time for such small incremental improvements. For the rest of us, it just isn't that common.
Re:Of course they changed the socket... again... (Score:3, Interesting)
However, keep in mind that a computer is only as fast as its weakest link. If the CPU can go up to 4GHz, but the memory bus is so slow that the CPU sits around all day waiting for data, then you might as well save money on that CPU.
Hence, motherboard technology and CPU technology tend to improve hand-in-hand. Ditto for memory speed.
Even if you could double your CPU performance on the same motherboard, would you want to? The only exception would be if you started out with a well-below-cutting-edge CPU to begin with - in which case you could upgrade to what was top-of-the-line at the time and your motherboard would probably still be fine.
In any case, I still find it cheaper to upgrade my own PCs. Why?
1. Keep the optical drives, case, floppy drive, video card (if you're a non-gamer), etc. (Maybe even the power supply if you have a decent one.) That right there is a few hundred dollars saved over anything Dell will sell you.
2. Get a decent motherboard. Performance tests have shown that spending an extra $10 on a motherboard can often improve performance SUBSTANTIALLY (moreso that spending it on CPU/RAM). Big brands know that consumers don't ask about motherboards, and they don't look at benchmarks, so they save the $10. Don't make the same mistake. Likewise, a decent motherboard will often give you technology like firewire/extra USB/etc for literally $10 more. That saves quite a bit when you don't have to run out to walmart for a USB hub.
3. Be able to overclock if you want to - in general a retail motherboard/BIOS gives you far more control over the computer. Don't be a ricer, but feel free to experiment with timings that improve performance on your hardware without wearing things out.
4. Get the components you want. Thinking about dabling with linux? Well, check the compatibility lists and you don't end up with that motherboard which was popular with Dell or Compaq or whoever which has some random glitch with linux. ACPI is nototious for being broken, and if you are using features like powernow you want a system that isn't glitchy. Check out IRC for people groaning...
Honestly, I was surprised that I actually saved money building a PC myself - Dell has access to all kinds of deals that I don't have access to. On the other hand, Dell only sells "genuine" Intel, which handicaps them. Plus, Dell forces you to toss your perfectly good case, floppy, opticals, etc. Oh, you also get penalized for not buying a monitor, and I hope you like your growing collection of keyboards/mice/etc... You may not end up being far ahead on price, but often your performance ends up being better.
Just some random thoughts...
Re:Of course they changed the socket... again... (Score:3, Interesting)
The PPC [G3] is about as efficient for bignum math as the AMD Athlon-XP and the P4 ALU. See this chart [libtomcrypt.org] for instance.
I think the G4 maybe be slightly better [the instruction set remains the same w.r.t. bignum math] but still same ballpark.
The problem with that design really is that while it has a good RISC ISA and lots of registers it's simply not meant for math. You have to execute two 4-6 cycle multiplies to get one 32x32=>64 product whereas other cpus can get the full product in 6 cycles AT A HIGHER FREQUENCY.
Where the PPC is nice though... is in embedded work. It's not quite as efficient as the ARM but can be clocked higher. So it's a good tradeoff between something like an ARM which gets enough MIPS and way low power and an Athlon which gets very high MIPS but takes a lot of power [by comparison].
All in all though I think the PPC can hold it's own against the x86 offerings. It just doesn't scale as nicely.
I don't know about the G5 though [I don't have access to one]...
Tom