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AMD's 'Newcastle' Budget Athlon64 Chips Analyzed

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the that-was-just-noise dept.

Edward Scissorhands writes "CNET News.com reported on Thursday that AMD had released a new "budget" Athlon64 CPU. Appearing on the AMD roadmap under the codename of "Newcastle", these chips are identical to the 754-pin Athlon64 3200+ in every way except for the size of their L2 cache (512KB vs. 1MB). CNET suggests that some of these chips may be 3200's that don't pass QA as having full 1MB caches. Newcastle chips are about half the cost of their 1MB cached counterparts, though preliminary benchmarks from Anand indicate favourable performance/price."

8 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Looks like AMD.. by cK-Gunslinger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    .. has another winner on their hands. Excellent performance at a fraction of the price. 2 GHz, 64-bit performance for about $200 is nothing to sneeze at. Bring on the 64-bit apps/drivers! (And, of course, the MS OS.)

  2. AMD changing pin # anyway by 3DKnight · · Score: 5, Interesting

    after 2004, the 754-pin sockets will make way for their new 939-pin sockets. AMD has said that they will continue upgrades for 754-pin 64-bit chips up to i think 3700+ After that you will need to buy a 939 pin motherboards. Though I wonder what the shelf life for the 754 pins are, since not that many programs can even make use of 64bit cpus yet.

  3. Re:[H]ardOCP has had this story for a few days now by cK-Gunslinger · · Score: 5, Interesting


    That's pretty standard practice in hardware manufacturing. It also explains the reasons why some hardware (Radeon 9500, etc) can be "unlocked" and turned into the real thing. They don't actually test "every" part at first, just samples of a batch. If X% fail the full spec, the entire batch is remarked as reduced-spec parts. They they are individually tested at the lower spec. It stands to reason that a certain number of these part would have passed the more rigorous full-spec tests, thus us "cheap" buyers can sometimes get lucky and get a nice piece of hardware for a small price.

  4. The origin of the name Newcastle by andy666 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In Moby Dick, Newcastle is an assistant to the navigator who does all the computations.

  5. Low-priced alternative by dorlthed · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I like this idea, and from a product-line standpoint, it's a good one. After the Athlon XP line started, I sort of missed the situation with the Thunderbird/Duron, where there was always a low-priced alternative for budget systems.

    Perhaps now they will create a sort of "64-bit Duron," a lower-priced and less-powerful version of the Athlon 64. This way, in the future, if I want to create a bargain version of a AMD64 computer for a family member or friend, or buy one, there is a cheaper processor available for such a system.

    I sort of missed having that alternative available; this creates a bit of processor nostalgia for me :p

  6. hmmm.... by theMerovingian · · Score: 4, Interesting


    These 'reject' chips might be the reason Emachines offers such a cheap 64 bit computer.

    --
    "If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
  7. Re:Is it not an extra bonus that it's 64 Bit by The+One+KEA · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yes, but conversely Linux can take advantage of it - SuSE, Mandrake, Red Hat and Gentoo all have functioning offerings available for purchase or download.

    The only game I know of off the top of my head is Epic's Unreal Tournament 2003.

    Either way, the Athlon 64 3000+, IMO, might just be what AMD is looking for to really break into the market. If the price goes below $200, then things will definitely start to get interesting for Intel.

    --
    SCREW THE ADS! http://adblock.mozdev.org/ Proud user of teh Fox of Fire - Registered Linux User #289618
  8. Its safe to innovate again by steveoc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Dont you just love the way that AMD dropped this 64bit chip on the market - WITHOUT WAITING FOR MICROSOFT TO CATCH UP - Like, trust that Linux support alone will be enough to push this thing into the low-end 64bit market.

    And its selling like hot cakes - so the market is proving them right.

    Maybe it is a sign of things to come - hardware vendors pushing forward and bringing real innovation back into PeeCees, knowing that Linux alone will be there to support the innovations, and that Linux support is enough to drive sales.

    Remember how back in the good old days, Hardware makers (Commodore, Atari, Apple, etc) were free to introduce radical new hardware every 12 months, with no regard to operating software portability - they knew that the software guys were capable of keeping up back then.

    The current situation, with Microsoft being the sole supplier of OS's means that any new hardware has to conform to some horrid, and aging 'standard' invented back in the 80's, simply because Microsoft seems to be incapable of keeping pace with innovations in hardware.

    Well done AMD - for daring to break the status Quo, and for sticking one up Microsoft at the same time.