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Athlon 64 3400+ Reviewed

SpinnerBait writes "Unlike the Athlon 64 FX-51, this new 3400+ rated Processor, has a 64 bit memory interface, with its integrated memory controller, drops in at several hundred dollars less than an FX-51 and is also clocked at 2.2GHz. It gives a P4 3.2GHz Canterwood based machine a run for its money too, as this review with benchmarks at HotHardware reports. And where is Prescott? Fortunately for AMD, it's a bit tardy to market and this will give this new Athlon 64 speed bin time to take a firm hold."

53 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. what are speed bins? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    "this will give this new Athlon 64 speed bin time to take a firm hold"

    What's a speed bin?

    1. Re:what are speed bins? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Why is this moderated as 'funny' and not 'ignorant' :-P ?

      Processor makers 'bin' processors. That is, they try for the fastest speed, but if the chip doesn't make it, it get's 'binned' dowm the line and tried as a lower-speed chip. They can also 'bin' due to market-reasons (putting hi-grade chips in the low-speed bin because of demand, etc)

    2. Re:what are speed bins? by hab136 · · Score: 5, Informative
      "this will give this new Athlon 64 speed bin time to take a firm hold"
      What's a speed bin?

      In case you're not trolling, chip manufacturers crank out one design of chip, test it, then put them into bins based on how fast they can run reliably. They probably don't actually use plastic bins, but you get the idea.

      Thus, a "speed bin" - a lot of chips designated to run at a certain speed, despite the fact that it's the same design and metal as a chip designated to run at a slower speed.

    3. Re:what are speed bins? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Due to minor process variations (random faults in materials, equipment, background radiation etc.) every manufactured chip is different. Some chips work fine at higher speeds, some chips only work properly at lower speeds, some chips fail to work at all. Since these microprocessors are at the cutting edge of silicon process technology, the variation matters. Now, to sort out which chip works at which clock speed, the manufacturer has to test every chip and classify them accordingly. Some are sold as 2 GHz chips, some are sold as 1.8 GHz chips, and so on. These different grades are called "speed bins".

    4. Re:what are speed bins? by CubicDDD · · Score: 2, Insightful
      moderating "ignorant"?
      Maybe your ignorance could be moderated according.

      Could be it was an honest question. Not everyone in the world uses english as their primary language. (including myself)

      And even then there could be problems. (see dunno-what-speakin'-Bush: "mis-underestimating")

    5. Re:what are speed bins? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Why is this moderated as 'funny' and not 'ignorant' :-P ?

      I'd hardly call not knowing what a speed bin is "ignorant". The poster didn't know, wasn't trying to be funny about it (AFAICT) and isn't responsible for the moderation it got.

    6. Re:what are speed bins? by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 2, Insightful

      OK, you lot seem to be way over analysing this.
      it looks like a simple bloody typo:

      "this will give this new Athlon 64 speed bin time to take a firm hold" ..becomes..

      "this will give this new Athlon 64 speed in time to take a firm hold"

      i doubt it has anything to do with grading the processors or anything......

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    7. Re:what are speed bins? by Rhubarb+Crumble · · Score: 2, Informative
      I'd hardly call not knowing what a speed bin is "ignorant". The poster didn't know.

      That's what "ignorant" means. From latin, ignorare, "to be unaware [of sth], not to know". Antonym of scire ,"to know, to be aware [of sth]". (cf. "Science").

  2. Java VM is what we need by thammoud · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Itanium is too expensive and slow. Ditto Sparc. AMD 64 bit servers running 64bit Java VMs will make for a killer combination.

    1. Re:Java VM is what we need by maj_id10t · · Score: 2, Informative

      Shouldn't bee too long with Sun's announced support of AMD chips. They already have it for the Itanic. http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/install-linux-64.ht ml

    2. Re:Java VM is what we need by Juergen+Kreileder · · Score: 2, Informative

      Blackdown has released J2SE 1.4.2 for AMD64 a few weeks ago, see http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux/java2-status/j dk1.4-status.html.

  3. anadtech is my fav site for reviews by McVeigh · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1941

    --
    "I drank what?" - Socrates
    1. Re:anadtech is my fav site for reviews by ehb · · Score: 4, Informative

      Why not go straight to the one-page printable version?

      http://anandtech.com/printarticle.html?i=1941

  4. REALLY cool chip? by GeckoFood · · Score: 4, Funny

    Found this little gem in the article:

    It kept our CPU running in the mid -40C range while gaming at default clock speeds.

    Last AMD I had ran hot enough to roast a turkey from 10 feet away. -40C would freeze it solid.

    --
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  5. Misunderstanding the metric system? by Inoshiro · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "We found the heatsink to work quite well. It kept our CPU running in the mid -40C range while gaming at default clock speeds."

    If your CPU runs at -40C, you have something very special. I, for one, would be worried about condensation from water becoming ice on contact with the CPU at that temperature!

    --
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    Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
  6. Don't forget Anandtech's review... by cK-Gunslinger · · Score: 5, Informative


    Anandtech

    Looks like a winner to me!

  7. Re:extra links by eyegor · · Score: 3, Informative

    Mod parent down. The tarrato link will redirect you to goatse.cx

    --

    Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
  8. Compiler optimtizations??? by Shisha · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well not that I'm buying one anytime soon, but it's nice to know that once I buy one, I'll get a Linux distro, that is compiled & optimized for a 64bit CPU. So for me only Mathematica will run in the 32bit (slower) mode. But Gimp, mplayer, video editing apps, hell even twm and xclock, will be compiled for 64bit CPUs.

    I was wondering how is this going to be sorted out by application vendors on PCs? Are they going to release 64bit and 32bit versions? Is every CD going to contain both? What about 3rd party plugins? I've been asking the same question actually about Apple's G5, but www.apple.com (and I didn't search too carefuly) is bit short on nasty details like this. Is it really worth getting a 64bit machine without planning to use Linux?

    1. Re:Compiler optimtizations??? by avenj · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Is it worth getting _any_ machine without planning to use Linux?

    2. Re:Compiler optimtizations??? by cK-Gunslinger · · Score: 2

      Is it really worth getting a 64bit machine without planning to use Linux?

      Well, if you want the current top of the line 32-bit performance, why not? That's a bit like asking "Should a get this Super Duty Dodge Ram with the best towing capacity available today, but also includes an extra cup holder I might never use." If it has what you need for a reasonable price, why question the extras you might never use. It's not like the 64-bit-ness is truly "wasted" just because you might not use it. Those extra registers can't be used to feed hungry children in Elbonia or anything. They'll just sit there unused.

    3. Re:Compiler optimtizations??? by discstickers · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, Apple's in a good position here. Mach allows "fat" binaries (ie, more than one binary in a single application icon). So both version can be distributed together.

      They did a similar thing around the transition to PowerPC.

      --
      I have a shitty sig!
    4. Re:Compiler optimtizations??? by Espen · · Score: 4, Informative
      Apple proposes: "Packaging your Optimizations:

      Code that has been optimized for the G5 by simple re-compilation will run without penalty on a G4. If you have done more in-depth, G5-specific tuning (levels 1, 2 and 3) then you will in all likelihood want to provide a separate binary. In extreme cases, you may decide that you need only offer one version of your software that runs on Power Mac G5 computers only. However, you'll probably want to support most or all of the Macintosh product line, which means that you need to decide how best to deliver the right code to each of your customers. There are several ways to achieve this; the first is:

      Create different versions of your software for each processor that you support. This requires that you maintain three parallel code bases, something you may not want to do.

      It is possible for your software to query the computer on which it is running to see which processor-related features are available. You can design your software to isolate processor-dependent code and call the appropriate version as needed. This leads to two additional strategies for packaging your application:

      For every function that calls processor-dependent binary code, have your code call the appropriate version. If such functions are needed frequently, using this approach may decrease execution speed and make your source code (cluttered with if...then constructs) less readable.

      Isolate processor-specific functions into frameworks or shared libraries, then have your software load the appropriate version when it starts up. This enables you to write your main code without wrapping function calls in if...then constructs."

      (from G5 Optimization)

    5. Re:Compiler optimtizations??? by FattMattP · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I was wondering how is this going to be sorted out by application vendors on PCs?
      They'll recompile and then sell it to you as an upgrade, as always.
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    6. Re:Compiler optimtizations??? by be-fan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually, no. Most the the improvements are due to architectural improvements only available in 64-bit mode. They have little to do with the fact that integer registers are now 64-bit, but you don't get them in 32-bit mode anyhow. 64-bit mode on AMD64 should be about 20% faster than 32-bt mode, Mathematica is running in "the slower mode."

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    7. Re:Compiler optimtizations??? by Coryoth · · Score: 2, Informative

      You fanboys just dont get it. 32 bit vs 64 bit has nothing to do with speed. The 32 bit mode that Mathematica runs in is not the "slower" mode. All of the performance increases in Athlon64 are due to architectural enhancements that are completely independant of the size of the registers...

      disclaimer: I am no expert on CPU stuff, I just do a lot of math computations.

      If he's actually doing any serious work in Mathematica then 64 bit does start to matter. High powered math is one of the areas where having 64 bit word sizes can make a significant difference. Of course, that's not making much difference in terms of speed, but rather precision (unless of course you're having to do lots of nasty juggling in 32bit mode to handle the required precision).

      Jedidiah

  9. Is there a desktop market? by ViolentGreen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Looks pretty good. I still don't think there is a huge demand to have these in desktops as of yet. P4s are still very powerful and still compete with AMDs 64 bit chips. Even the Athlons are enough for most people to play the newest games and all.

    I don't think that most people do the really computer intensive tasks that would benefit from 64bit chips plus the lack of truely 64 bit software that will give them this advantage is a hinderance as well.

    I think it will be 2005 or maybe even 2006 before 64 bit chips become the standard.

    --
    Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
    1. Re:Is there a desktop market? by 0123456 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "I don't think that most people do the really computer intensive tasks that would benefit from 64bit chips"

      Everyone would benefit from switching because of the extra registers in 64-bit mode and the low-latency memory controller. Some people have said they got a 10-20% speedup just from recompiling in 64-bit mode without making any changes to their code.

      Of course if all you do is run Word all day that will make little difference... but if all you do is run Word all day you'd probably be happy with a Pentium-II.

    2. Re:Is there a desktop market? by nelsonal · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The reason AMD build a 64 bit chip. You have to understand the changes going on on the server markets. In short x86 caught up with proprietary architectures. Realize that it probably takes about $2 billion to develop a processor architecture (I'm probably low here, but you get the idea). Let's assume that 15 million server processors are sold annually. Sun ships about 300k servers a quarter and has 1/3 of the market, most of them are at the lower end (ie lots more 1-4 processor systems than 72 processor systems). If a design lasts 2 years, each of the three big architecutres have about 10 million processors to spread design costs over, or about $200 in R&D costs per processor.
      Because of the PC market, Intel and AMD combine to sell 130 million processors annually (100 million for Intel and 30 for AMD. If they spend the same $2 billion on a processor design and their desings also last 2 years AMD can spread development costs over 60 million processors for about $30 per chip. If they can sell these chips into the server market, they have a $170 R&D advantage over the propretary architectures, even if consumers never use 64 bit features (buying them only because they are fast or cheap. They are quite willing to add something that allows them to compete quite effectivly in the server market even if it makes the chips cost a little more in the consumer market. This is why Xeon is selling like hotcakes, while Itanium lingers on the shelves.

      --
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    3. Re:Is there a desktop market? by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I still don't think there is a huge demand to have these in desktops as of yet.

      for the casuah home ding-dong user? you are right.

      for business and companiesthat depend on processing power? Ha! the amd 64's rock massively.

      I replaced a dual Xeon box here at work that was the CGI station running Blender, povray and yafray and producing better graphics than a maya station next to it, and faster... with a dual Opteron using a 64bit compiled Gentoo install on it...

      Then we recompiled the apps for 64 bit.

      I am getting a 70% increase in rendering speed. I'm betting that with some optimization this could work even better... the Blender guys are working on that right now BTW...

      a 64bit linux version of Maya? the company said "maybe 4Q 2004 for beta testing"

      which is a shining example of why open source is the way to go.

      businesses using the number crunching and processing power and are smart enoughto have embraced linux for the needs it can fill are all over AMD64 right now.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  10. 9 more reviews here by whovian · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://amdmb.com/#News-7458 or linkified.

    Reviewed by amdmb, HotHardware, Neoseeker, CPU Performance, Tech Report, Hardcoreware, Hardocp, Hexus, X-Bit Labs.

    --
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  11. Video encoding? by Lussarn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Have anyone tried to encode xvid with one of these in 32 and 64 bit, preferebly using Linux? Is there much difference in speed? I'm looking at the 3000+ part as it is cheap but there are zero and none benchmarks to back it up in 64 bit mode.

  12. 64-bit Linux on AMD-x64 reviews. by eddy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Please add links to any reviews that run 64-bit linux (or other 64-bit OS of choice) with 64-bit benchmarks on said processor:

    fineprint: I don't need a lecture on the nature of 64-bitness.

    --
    Belief is the currency of delusion.
  13. We have all of the reviews listed by ruiner5000 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Guys we have all the reviews listed on our main page, and I'm adding more as they come in. It currently totals at 19. Does Hothardware pay Slashdot for these links? ;)

    --
    ignorance is bliss. googlefiberatx.com
  14. Not a very good review.... by imsabbel · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, that review sucked, at least be normal anandtech standarts. Hey, its a CPU bench, so why are 2/3 of the game benches gpu-limited and all processors are within 2-3%?

    --
    HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
  15. Fair Comparisons? by Aaron+England · · Score: 3, Informative
    If they are comparing the $700 AMD 64-FX chip, they should be comparing it to Pentium's $1000 P4 3.2 EE chip, not their sub-$400 P4 3.2.

    Also does anyone have an idea how expensive the AMD 3400+ chips are? Because the AMD 3200+ chips are $400 retail. The article quoted a price for a thousand quantities but I was wondering how much it would cost for just one. Because if its pricey enough the P4 3.2 may beat out the 3400+ dollar for dollar.

    Though Intel doesn't have to really worry about that title. At $164 the Pentium P4C smokes the pants off any AMD processor in its price range. At least, after overclocking it to 3 GHz, which is very doable even with standard cooling.

    1. Re:Fair Comparisons? by EmagGeek · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "Though Intel doesn't have to really worry about that title. At $164 the Pentium P4C smokes the pants off any AMD processor in its price range. At least, after overclocking it to 3 GHz, which is very doable even with standard cooling."

      Will it really be cheaper and faster when you have to buy a new one every 6-12 months because you destroy it?

    2. Re:Fair Comparisons? by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Will it really be cheaper and faster when you have to buy a new one every 6-12 months because you destroy it?

      Indeed the word "overclock" has become my hardware review spam filter; it has a strong "cold fusion" connotation. If I drop $700 on a CPU, I will not be running it out of spec in any way. If I'm that hungry for speed, I'll build a cluster.

      I can understand people wanting to overclock, say, a P-III 933 to see how far they can push it, but I just don't get the fanboy fascination with extreme cooling, adding a few megahertz, etc. Reading this stuff in a tech article is like finding an article on adding a whaletail to a ricer in Car&Driver - it just doesn't belong in a serious text.

      --
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  16. I'd just like to point out... by 222 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Any peice of hardware that can spank the competition EVEN while its potential isn't fully being realized by the software testing it deserves my dollar.
    And yes, im talking about how well it games, I can really give a flying fsck about how quickly it runs office...

  17. Re:Obligatory Tolkien Reference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny
    I see an analogy between AMD/Intel and Middle Earth.

    When was the last time you were outside?

  18. Tilda vs. minus by crow · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I expect they meant to use a tilda ('~') instead of a minus ('-'), so as to indicate "about" instead of "negative."

    The best a heatsink can ever hope for is to cool to the ambient air temperature, and we won't see anything aproach that until we have superconducting heatsinks. (Imagine a large superconducting mass in the ground with a superconducting cable connecting it to the CPU to draw off heat: power outlets with a pin for cooling, superconducting traces on circuit boards for cooling, and no need for fans.)

    1. Re:Tilda vs. minus by tiger99 · · Score: 4, Informative
      It is not uncommon to use a Peltier Effect cooler. This is basically a huge stack of thermocouples run in reverse. You put in a lot of current at low voltage, and it produces a temperature differential. If you heatsink the "hot" side to ambient air, the "cold" side may be well below zero. But, it is not very efficient (like all cooling systems), so you need to put in several times as many watts as it extracts from its "cold" side, and not surprisingly the total of both appears at the "hot" side, so you may need a very big heatsink with powerful fans.

      I don't have the numbers in front of me right now, but at a guess you would need 300 watts to cool a 100 watt CPU, so would need to dissiapte 400 watts to air.

      It is inadvisable to make any attempt to get the chip below zero, obviously ice formation will happen, and when you switch off, it will melt. Should you switch on again, disaster is quite probable, unless the PCB had a good conformal coating and the socket has an interfacial seal. The conformal coating can be dealt with quite easily, but I have never seen a sealed CPU socket. BTW I usually work as an avionics designer, where we have to make things that will run from well below zero to well above, so I do know the problems.

      Another issue is thermal fatigue. The temperature coefficient of expansion of silicon does not exactly match that of the (probably epoxy) package, every temperature cycle causes a stress cycle, which causes a strain cycle, until something breaks. Same for the motherboard itself of course, if you should cool the whole thing. That is also a good reason to never overclock anything, apart from the possibility of getting subtle data errors and increasingly buggy OS as a result of inadequate timing margins, you will definitely wear the thing out a lot quicker. Every 10 deg C roughly halves the life, or the number of on/off cycles it will survive, and if you do the calculations, the numbers are quite depressing for a modern PC.

      If you really want a thumping great 64 bit processor (I certainly do, when the price comes down!), it would be best to calculate the cooling system, and maybe do some tests with thermocouples etc, to try to get the CPU chip to settle down at a relatively safe temperature, say 40 deg C, without getting ice formation on the coldest parts. The clever bit would be to get it to power on and off without any excursions below room temperature (often 20 deg C) or above 40 deg C. Heat soak when you switch off the CPU would be minimal, the mass of the chip itself is very small, but cold soak from a huge peltier block could be a problem, the CPU could be dragged down to -40 deg when you switch off, which is exactly what you don't need, for a long and reliable life.

      The other thing to watch out for is that at low temperature the CPU internals will be out of spec. It is actually possible to get excessive current flow in some transistors, and local hot spots, because it is too cold. There may also be timing problems, data corruption, ...... It is not possible to test properly that these things are not happening. It takes a smallish time to fully exercise an 8-bit processor to verify all possible data and instruction operations, but somewhere near the lifetime of the universe to do the same for 16 bits. Throw in onboard cache, 64 bits, etc, and it is just impossible. These things work statistically, AMD know how timing variations, for example, might vary across the chip, and allow sufficient margin, within the published clock frequency and temperature range, but deviate from these ratings and this is no longer true. If running at 1GHz, a 1 in 10e12 error rate would corrupt your data or OS code within 1000 seconds, just over 1/4 hour. The error rate required to run an OS for weeks at a time at several GHz defies all attempts at testing. Again, a very good deterrent to overclocking (BTW my non-overclocked ancient K6-350 had a meltdown due to fan failure, and as it died the corrupt Win XP blew away all the passwords so when I got a new CPU and fan, any of th

  19. Re:Just as good (?) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because a good majority of IT professionals don't have time to deal with instability, testing, high-performance cooling, or nonsense like that. In the Real World, I need a machine that can render reliably on a daily basis. Overclocking is fun, at home, as a hobby. In the office from 9 to 5, machines need to come out of the box and "just work".

  20. Re:Just as good (?) by phorm · · Score: 2, Informative

    You are missing a little bit. There's a reason why AMD started going with giving their processors numbers instead of clock ratings, mainly because clock ratings are starting to mean less and less.

    Clock ratio is only one of the things that is indicative of a CPU's power... you might want to consider comparing the 64 and 32 bit varieties of this chip somewhat akin to comparing a 1Ghz P4 Vs an AMD, or a 266Mhz P1 vs a P2-266.

  21. What's the point without 64-bit OS and apps? by Masarand · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The main point of the Athlon 64 and Opteron is that they are 64-bit CPUs that can run 64-bit applications.

    The fact that they can run 32-bit apps under a 32-bit OS at pretty much the same speed as a 32-bit CPU is surely a huge yawn (but great for backward compatability.)

    Has anyone seen any comparative benchmarks under a 64-bit Linux system?

  22. TechReport review by JohnnyBigodes · · Score: 2, Informative

    You may also want to take a look at this review at our good old Tech Report.

  23. Why do speedometers go above 100MPH? by dpilot · · Score: 2, Insightful

    On most of the roads in the nation, the speed limit is either 55MPH or 65MPH. Some places out West on the Interstates, it's 75MPH. Even a 100MPH speedometer is WAY overdesigned, well past short-term bursts for passing, accident avoidance, and the like.

    So why do we have speedometers that go up so high, and why can many cars actually go that fast? After all, it's illegal, and we don't NEED that speed, or speedometer.

    Perhaps we really do - about as much as a 64-bit processor.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  24. AMD's chance by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I wouldn't be too surprised if AMD chose to withhold faster versions of the Athlon64 FX-series until any Prescott is just about to be released. A day before or so. Leap-frogging at its finest.

  25. Pentium Vs. P4 by wowbagger · · Score: 4, Insightful


    Well, in all my testing of running 16 bit apps, a Pentium I outran a similarly clocked P4 by a healthy margin - so obviously the Pentium is a better chip, right?
    </sarcasm>

    Seriously - For a period of time the A64 will be running mostly 32 bit apps (at least in the Windows world), and so it is fair to benchmark its performance against 32 bit apps. But I cannot help but wonder how much P4 tweaking all those apps had, and how much A64 tweaking they did not have.

    Also, the memory performance tests are, to my mind, somewhat questionable as well, as different CPUs even within the Pentium line have different memory access behavior - code that will be bus limited on a P4 might not be bus limited on a P3.

    I am not saying the comparisons are not useful, but I am saying that they don't tell the whole story. Let us see some benchmarks wherein the A64 is running code that is written for the A64 - using the extra registers and so on.

  26. Re:Mobo selection by ackthpt · · Score: 2, Funny
    Start video editing and see how you feel about it.

    <zombie>More memory, must have more memory... </zombie>

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  27. Gad, another standard review. by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The reviews are all the same--run various permutations of the PC through benchmarks, and display the results using bar charts. And not just any bar charts. Use a gradient to color the bar, so that the color legend is rendered useless.

    The reviewers should read Tufte, and figure out a more effective way of illustrating their analyses than endless pages of bar charts. Oh wait, that's how they get their ad revenue. Never mind.

  28. Re:Java VM is exactly what we don't need by Juergen+Kreileder · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Also note that 64-bit is not faster than 32-bit in and of itself
    It is on AMD64!

    I've ported the HotSpot VM to AMD64 for Blackdown. It's noticable faster the 32-bit version in allmost all benchmarks. The main reason for the performance gain is that you have more registers in 64-bit mode.

  29. need? no. demand? yes. by mapmaker · · Score: 2, Informative
    I still don't think there is a huge demand to have these in desktops as of yet.

    There is a HUGE demand for these desktop chips. AMD has pretty much sold out of them.

    Your point about people not really needing these processors is valid, but the demand is there.

  30. Re:Java VM is exactly what we don't need by Master+Bait · · Score: 2, Insightful
    A two-lane road is just as fast as a four-lane freeway as long as there are only a few cars on the road. But the reality is the roads are quite crowded these days

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