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Anand Reviews Athlon 64 FX-53
trickofperspective writes "Anandtech has a review of AMD's latest processor, the Athlon 64 FX-53. Long story short -- the FX-53 is a "very solid processor," but you'd be better off waiting a couple months for Socket 939."
Tom's review is here.
Derek Wilson did for AnandTech. Anand is a person, AnandTech is a site.
I am yet to see a very liquid (or even a gasous) processor. Wouldn't it be cool? Hey, if it would be cool, it would solve the thermal problem inherent to solid processors. Why not make them?
I had a conversation with a neophyte that was looking to "build their own computer" yesterday...He was obsessed with the idea that megahertz=performance...I tried to tell him that an FX-51, 52, or 53 would be a much better performer, all around, than any Pentium 4, "Extreme Gaming Edition" (as he put it) or not...but in the end, he was swayed by things like "Hyperthreading" and "Netburst"...AMD is having a hard time fighting against Megahurtz Madness and Buzzword Bufoonery.
Imagine...a Beowulf cluster of these! *sigh*
The AMD website says the chip has virus protection against MSBlaster, Slammer, etc. Does anyone besides me think this is a bad idea? Not that virus protection is bad per se, but that all these "protections" built into the chip are harbingers of even more "protections" to come. I'll let your imaginations fill in the rest.
You can always get a better piece of technology by waiting just a little longer--the only real reason to wait then is if the standard is going to change. If you buy this current chip, it'll be the best you can get right now. When they change to socket 939, however, you'll be stuck with what you've got--no upgrade for you!
It's always best to buy right when the standard changes, so that you have the ability to upgrade later if you want to. If you buy right before the change, you guarantee having to purchase a whole bunch of new stuff for the next upgrade.
AMD will whiten your teeth. It's a fact, people love teeth whitening above everything else.
Whooo! I can get one of these for 73 cents! :-P
Yeah yeah, I know what they mean, but that's some horrible wording.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
The protection simply prevents buffer overrun exploits. It's a good thing, and has nothing to do with possible data/content censorship or DRM.
I prefer my processors to be very very solid.
...but why aren't the graphs loading? I can see that they're Flash, but when I right-click on them, it says "Movie not loaded" and "About Flash Player"
... would anyone mind converting them to GIF or PNG?
If you do manage to see the "movies"
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
The two limiting factors in a PC these days (not taht home user should care) are the memory size, and the system bus speed.
Most people won't feel the limits in processor speed.
So if I wait long enough, better, faster stuff will come out?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Well, sentence one is given (and that counts as news.) Sentence two is the purpose of the review... which shows that in certain cases, it is faster, and in other cases, it is not. Useful information for people looking to upgrade.
i think michaels computers had this processor in his systems for months now, this is old news ...
I'll get a better beowulf cluster for the price using old pentiums (since I can buy five times as many processors for the money).
Intel is changing their naming scheme soon. You can find the article at:
http://news.com.com/2100-1006-5174895.html
Intel was forced into this due to the many variations of a chip with the same clock speed. It's also a good way for them to explain why their Pentium-m is faster than the Pentium 4-m.
Aiming for funny and getting insightful.
If not, I don't see why I would want to wait for the next chipset.
--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
One of these days, the CPU itself will be telling you that.
I can't find anybody anywhere that is saying you won't be able to stick a 939 pin Athlon in an 940 pin socket. Plus, Opteron chips will still use the 940 pin platform. You'll be able to upgrade still if you buy now. The only downside is that you'll have to use Registered ECC memory.
I definitely don't need one right now, but in a year, when it is a mainstream product, I will find some excuse to persuade myself to buy one. By that time the OS (Linux of course) will have been very well debugged.
I wonder when the move to 128-bit will come?
As covered by arstechnica, there are also reviews at [H]ardOCP, Hexus, HotHardware.com, Sudhian, and The Tech Report. AMD's official announcement is here.
Skill is successfully walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Intelligence is not trying. -- Anonymous
Google shows no hits for "Buzzword Bufoonery".
We have a new trope.
At $733 for the processor and 200-300 dollors for the motherboard, I really don't think the cost of upgrading the motherboard should really be what you are thinking about, afterall I really wouldn't want to put my $733 processor out of commission, Id rather keep it running as a backup computer or doing some other job. Its not exactly something you throw out and replace.
That's just lame.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
I don't get it. Why bother saying "you'd be best off waiting" for the next chip ? The Athlon FX-53 is a flagship chip. It's the currently fastest chip they do. If you want the highest performance, you would obviously buy it now. If you wait a couple of months then you don't want the highest performance. This is what this chip is for, here and now - the fastest available performance. Yes there will be a faster one in a few months but that just continues ad infinitum. If you lived by the rule of waiting for something faster to come out, you'd die of old age before you actually purchased the damn thing.
Why can't AMD stick to the traditional K6, K7 and keep on adding up. All this Fx and Opteron and 8 million other names are confusing as hell.
Whatever happen to marketing making your purhase decisions easier. It's doing to exact opposite nowadays. Intel ain't doing a whole lot better.
Been wanting to go back to a true Dual system, (my last was a Dual P3-800, My Dual P2-400 is my Linux box) Keeping an eye out on prices for a new modern Dual system compared to a fast AMD FX.
You can pick up a Dual AMD-2800 for about 500 bux for a barebones cpu's+mb+case (also uses PC2100 ram). Opterons for dual systems are ridiculously priced, 248's are about 900 bux each, and motherboard for 300, so about 2500 dollars for a basic barebones system. Dual Xeon 3.2's with 1meg cache are about the same price, but xeon motherboards are less "workstation" friendly, and more expensive. ( PCI-64 slots, etc)
Also with PCI-X gfx cards about to be released, a bunch of new motherboards will come out. And It looks like Socket 940 is going to be phased out later this year for Socket 939, so a FX buy might be a locked in purchase, with no upgrades. Which the Opteron uses 940, so I'm a little confused about the Opteron's upgrade path.
Hoping if I want 6 months, the prices for Opterons will be down enough to build a basic dual system, with PCIExpress, and at least 2+ ghz CPU's. Something that will be fast as an FX in gaming, but also have the dual cpu smoothness feel with power of running virtual machines and crunch numbers well.
The Xeon line is cheaper, maybe some new motherboards might come out and bump it up to the system im thinking about.
Is there anything else I would have to replace, besides the CPU, if I wanted to upgrade from the current chipset?
Quite possibly your ram.
Todays better, faster stuff will be cheaper
No sig for you!!
you can be sure that 939 cpu's won't fit in 940 sockets. its not the number of pins that matters, it's the electrical interface. also 939 is going to use unbuffered ram whil 940 uses buffered
that said, amd has said they will continue to produce 940 socket cpus through the year.
Tech Report's review tests the FX-53 against a total of sixteen other chips. Good reading if you've got a benchmark fetish, too.
I have seen speculations that the socket 939 will offer perfoermance gains too. The evidence is kinda just speculation but i think based on what i read it will.
You are wise to point this socket change out. But I am already planing on getting one just so I can have bragging rights for a couple of months. It wouldn't bother me to pay extra later (maybe after pci express is out) to take advantage of better features. But I am not most people. I still agree with you though.
If I knew howto mod you up (informative) or was sure if I had points I would. i'll get this figured out one day
Price. The price difference between some of these chips they're benchmarking puts them in different leagues. The FX-53 is NOT cheap compared to the 3200, but the P4EE makes them both look like chump change. This review looked like the output of a report generator (written by Macromedia I imagine), not a review.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Unfortunately the pin layout will be different - the whole point of socket 939 is to make it possible to build 4-layer boards, which supposedly requires a new pin layout - it seems to be impossible with the current socket 940 chips.
When they change to socket 939, however, you'll be stuck with what you've got--no upgrade for you!
AMD has indicated that 939 and 940 will coexist for a while, meaning that yes, there should be both 939 and 940 versions available of the same speed grade, probably for a year or so.
Then if that's enought or not, that's up to you. But remember that the rest of the platform evolves too, so if you're going after the top-of-the-line with every upgrade, just replacing the CPU(s) wouldn't be enought anyhow, so a socket-change wouldn't matter.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Actually, there is always the Opteron 1XX processors, which is the same thing, and that line will be socket 940 for quite a while.
The moral of the story is: "Always remember to mount a scratch monkey."
Actually, I do nearly the opposite. This summer I'll be purchasing one of the 'obsolete' motherboards with one of these 'obsolete' chips (or the FX51 depending on how thrifty I'm feeling.). Then I get the following:
;-)
- Marked down prices from vendors clearing their old inventory.
- Mature technology without the usual sharp edges associated with cutting edge technology.
- Middle to high end performance.
Of course, then I'm stuck with this cpu for the next few years. That is, of course, until the newest, whizbang socket 1039's hit the market and I pick up a socket 939 mobo priced to move
BTW, Thank you for encouraging everyone else to adopt the newest techology as soon as it hits the streets. _Someone_ has to beta test the hardware after all...
Personally I would wait a year, so they are cheaper. Certainly socket 939 is a "must", but I always take the view that where computers are concerned, if you wait till the last possible moment before you really must have something, you save a lot of money.
And if you had done that for the 3GHz P4, then you'd be buying one right about now, when the prices have finally dropped to mainstream prices. But then you'd see some fancy new processor on the horizon, like the latest Athlon 64, and decide to wait for that one to become cheaper...
You forgot to add another a() on the end after the closing brace so that the defined function will actually run.
:)
Running precludes looping.
and if you're buying a bleeding edge upgrade, you probably won't be getting the mb for $100
I've read that flash uses considerably fewer bytes. Lower cost for anandtech, so they can live longer. Quitchergripin.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
That wounldn't happen to be Kanavit would it? He posted 13000 posts of pro intel crap on the futuremark forums before the mods banned him for spreading disinformation.
Moo!
sorry, just had to get that out...
Besides socket 939, there's a few other goodies that are supposedly going to be in wide use this year, namely BTX and PCI Express.
For those of us like me that like the keep our hardware for a good long time, now is not a good time to buy since obsolescence is looming on several fronts.
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
I know, I know, these silly review sites love to have these "longer bar is better" graphics, but let's look at this rationally.
Take the SysMark 2004 benchmark. The commodity priced Northwood 3GHz P4 clocks in at 176. This new Athlon gets a 199. Ooooh, longer bar! But what does it really mean? I means that the Athlon is ELEVEN PERCENT FASTER than the processor that's one notch above the absolute bottom end you can get in a Dell PC (3GHz, the bottom end is 2.8GHz). And the price is over THREE TIMES HIGHER. Is this worth it? Does it make sense?
The answer is no, *unless* you are simply looking at the 64-bit capabilities. If that's the case, then great. Otherwise I don't see why anyone would care about these benchmarks.
BTW, Thank you for encouraging everyone else to adopt the newest techology as soon as it hits the streets. _Someone_ has to beta test the hardware after all... ;). That system lasted me a good 5 years. I'll be ready to jump on the 64-bit train later this year, when the hardware is common place :).
So true. Granted, if I had the money I'd be updating every few months but I don't. My current system: Athlon 1600, 512 MB RAM, CD-R/RW (Anyone remember when they just sold stand alone CD-R drivers? lol), DVD-ROM,40 GB HD (Seems small compared today's standards), and GeForce2 video/sound. Last system before that: 266MHz PII with MMX, 128 MB RAM, CD-R/RW, DVD-ROM, 5 GB HD (!), Ati Rage Fury Pro and floopy drive
power supply, for sure!
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
This platform is not upgradable. If you can justify the insane premium of buying THE fastest processor, you can probably justify buying another one real soon (otherwise you'd be better off buying something somewhat below the top and keep it longer). And to do this, you need an upgradable platform.
For me, it doesn't really matter. I've found that by the time I want to change CPU, I want to change the mobo, memory and all that anyway. Upgradability only matters if you need to upgrade your CPU much faster than other components.
Personally, I'm torn between a no-fan Hush PC (for the silent bliss) and an Athlon 64 Socket 939 + DDR2 + PCI Express + whatever ATI/nVidia has at the time (for the raw power). Or a Shuttle XPC to be somewhere in between. But in either case, I won't need my current box, that I'm quite sure of...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I wouldn't buy a 940 board for an FX system - 940 will be the thing to get for Opterons, if you want multi-proc, and/or registered memory to get LOTS of memory, for a DB machine or something. It's good to have a choice, as long as both choices are going to be around for awhile. Really, you'll want to target your platform (CPU & mobo choices) to what you want to do with your system.
:(
I guess it's good this socket switch is happening at the same time as the switch to PCI-E, so you can get all this stuff outta the way at once.
Personally, there's no way I'd get a 939 board withOUT PCI-E at the same time - you're just going to have to ditch that soon enough, as well.
Really, I'm more interested in the PPC 970FX & 980, anyway. C'mon - 24.5 Watts for a 2gHz 970FX?! That's pretty amazing. I don't know if the 980 will have an on-die memory controller, but here's hoping.
As for other upcoming CPUs, the Intel Dothan also sounds very promising, as does the possibility of a multi-core version of the Dothan. I just wish Intel would wake up and make the Pentium-Ms for desktop platsforms. I also think the 2Meg L2 of the Dothan is overkill, and makes the chip more expensive than it needs to be. A 1Meg L2 is plenty for Dothan, and would reduce the die size considerably, and thus the cost. Intel's being a little strange on that front, though the Celeron-M is a good move.
I'm still curious as to why Intel and AMD haven't added AltiVec to their x86 processors.
The Quantum Computers I've seen use a gas in a pressurized chamber with lasers to "read" and "write" the quantum states of the gas molecules. (Yes pedants, I realize this is far oversimplified, but I'm making a simple observation here) There is your gas processor, I suppose.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
That's still cheaper than printer ink per gallon... :-\
You would have to get new RAM. Socket 939 lets you use the unbuffered DDR RAM you probably already have.
In January, I built an Athlon64 FX51 system. I debated the merits of getting the 940 vs. waiting for the 939 and decided that I will have to upgrade the motherboard in a year anyway. Why? PCI Express should be readily available, and market tested by then.
Besides, everytime I have actually upgraded a processor, I have also had to buy new memory and motherboard to accompany it. There's no sense putting a shiny new processor in and having it use old, slow memory on an old slow, bus.
However, just last week, I had to replace the mb in my kids' computer - I got a kt600 board in anticipation of upgrading their Athlon XP 1900+ and PC2100 at some point.
How much do you want to bet that by the time I need to upgrade that processor and memory, I will still need to buy a new mobo in order to utilize the new features of whatever processor or memory architecture I use.
BTW, I LOVE MY FX51 MACHINE! I built the whole system for just $3200 ($1150 was the display). For work stuff, I run Gentoo Linux compiled for AMD64, and for games, regular 32 bit Windows XP Pro. Absolutely no complaints. Wolfenstein Enemy Territory shows 60-90fps at 1600x1200 full detail.
Michael's Computers has had these for 2 years.
Why does the performance vary so much on the individual test??
570fps vs 525fps in the Quake III test...Intel advantage...8%
2.78 minutes vs 2.48 minutes...11% in the 3D studio test faster with the Intel chip
Then in the compiling test....the AMD is ahead by about 15%!!
The only thing I can think of, is the Intel motherboards have a much faster graphics subsystem and the AMD's are much faster when it comes to disk i/o, and the Intel chips have a better memory i/o system.
Anyone have some insight?
If I recall, the "Brick", a tiny form factor PC from back in the day, dispensed with cooling fans by pressing a bag of Fluorinert right up against the mobo. The stuff had a consumer-level use too.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Hope this isn't a RTFAC (C=Carefully), but I don't see in this article if they specify the tests were done with a 64 bit version of the OS and 64 bit binaries for the apps, or just a 32 bit versions.
/think/ it would make a big difference benchmark-wise.. correct me if I am wrong.
Maybe I'm missing it, but in the "OS" category, they only say "Windows XP Profession SP1", no reference that I can see if it's a 64 bit version of the OS or not. Ditto for the apps.
My understanding is (with the current state of affairs, 03/18/2004) if you run to the store and buy an AMD 64 machine, you'll get a 32 bit version of Windows and apps.
But you only get the benefits of eg. >2^32 ram access IF you run a 64 bit OS and 64 bit apps.
Being able to access >2^32 of ram in an app is really useful for 3D rendering of very large projects (a business I happen to associated with), so if the tests are done with 32 bit OS/Apps, the benchmarks would seem to be not so useful for that purpose.
Considering this is a 64 bit processor being evaluated, it would seem lacking not to mention this.
Most folks in 3D evaling AMD 64's are sticking 64 bit os's on there right away (Suse, Gentoo, Fedora/Yarrow, etc), and doing tests with that.
Am I missing the part where they talk about 32 vs. 64 bit OS in these tests? I would
ps. With all those blinking flashing (*!&@# banner adds, it's often hard to RTFAC. I wonder, do schools now give reading comprehension tests in rooms with flashing lights and spinning graphics to simulate 'real world' scenarios? >;)
Same chip, OC'd to 3200. Zalman flower, a tiny bit of compound. Fan direction on the CPU so it directs the air away from the MB toward the 12cm slow-RPM exhaust fan. There is also a similar case fan in the front grill.
My CPU core peaked at 42C when running UT2K3, with distributed.net in the background.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
They don't help you in any way help remove heat from the CPU. Aluminum may be a better conductor of heat than steel, but it has a lower heat capacity. This is important because what's on both sides of the aluminum case?
Air.
Which is a poor heat conductor.
You're ultimately limited by the ability of the external air to remove the heat from the outside of the case, which is effectively zero (especially if it isn't moving).
At least the steel case can better retain excess spot heat from the case, whereas the aluminum heats up uniformly, thus rendering it useless for further heat redistribution.
The ability of the case to conduct heat away better is only useful if it is connected to a yet larger heat sink, and unless you replace the rubber/plastic feet with copper pads and use it on the concrete floor in the basement...
It has nothing to do with the chip, and everything to do with thermal management.
Dell PCs don't have this problem because Dell PCs are specifically engineered to remove heat efficiently. Don't you wish you could have a custom air hood for your CPU/northbridge/case?
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
The nForce2 was a new chipset, so OF COURSE it takes some time for Linux to build in compatibility. The reason it worked flawlessly under Windows is because there are Windows drivers. It has nothing to do with the AMD chip itself.
Where are the 64bit processor benchmarks where the tests have been compiled for them?
I mean, given that the x86 64bit decendants have more registers and all, running some stupid Sysmark or Unreal Tournament on top of them is like comparing V4 and V8 engines in such a way that the V8 only gasoline to four of it's cylinders.
What I want to know is the P4 flag ship lined up with the AMD 64bit flag shit on linux with a kernel compiled for 64bit and apps compiled for 64bits.
I have not been able to locate a single such benchmark as of yet. Anyone? Please...
1 Earth is warming, 2 It's us, 3 it's royally bad, 4 we need to take action NOW
I see little point to upgrading the CPU on a mother bord. Then again if you were plaining on buying a CPU for a grand then you may just be the kind of person who buy's a new CPU every 6 months but in that case ya may as well buy a new mobo becouse the difrence in the top end CPU on an old mobo and the 2nd cpu is normaly enof to buy a new mainbord which tends to give you better overall preformance for the price.
IMO it's best to buy CPU, mainbord, and RAM then in a double the ram year 1 or 2.
Repeat as needed.
From the article:
Enhanced Virus Protection for the upcoming Windows(R) XP SP2
Finally, a CPU with integrated features to protect you against Windows XP!
If your trusty P166 isn't too slow.
The biggest thing I noticed besides processing speed is hard drive speed. Some people I know have some 1700 MHz systems they bought about 3 years ago. I see the disk drives appear a lot faster now, and it makes a big difference to upgrade later. I bought a computer a year later, and the disks are a lot faster. Now, I don't really need an extra 500 MHz, although I can use an extra 50000 MHz.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
Listen "jackass", it's done to save on bandwidth.
I suspect that these chips exist entirely for marketing purposes & are there really to have the 'fastest desktop cpu on the market title'. But a much more VALUABLE question to ask is 'what's the best chip for $400, $300, $200, $100?, heck even $50!!'.
every time i look at these benchmarks, i have to cut out the EE's & the FX's & just see how the P4's compare to the althon-64's & XP's. because in my mind these 'elite' chips don't exist. They're toys. there's no remotely reasonable reason to buy them.
"You get all the fun of sitting still, being quiet, writing down numbers, paying attention...science has it all."
Personally, I'd wait until I could afford an Athlon 64. :P
-Rich
That's the word I was after...
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
Hardware has improved faster than incompetents like M$ can add bloat and slow down the software, so although a leading-edge machine would be nice, it is by no means essential now for any serious use that I can imagine, and I don't see why games players get excited about getting more than 70 frames per second, your eye can't tell the difference. For larger problems, a Beowulf cluster might be the cost-effective way to go.
The P4 never has been on my agenda, I have used Athlons for some time now, there is no point in paying top money for a product that is not any better.
I do tend to upgrade my PCs throughout their life, it might not save anything overall, but it spreads the cost nicely. The 64 will have to be entirely new of course, I don't have a case and PSU that will become spare in the near future, and it is time to move to serial ATA for the disks (I always fit two, at least, for efficiency, swap on the one with the least load).
I don't bother with state of the art graphics cards either, just a well-supported model of a year to 18 months ago is fine, because serious software tends to not use 3D textures and bump mapping and all that, it mainly spends its time drawing simple 2D graphs and diagrams. Opening and closing windows (of the X sort, M$ is not on my current best PC, and will not be on the next one either) is about the heaviest graphics load that I envisage. OK, maybe I will watch the odd DVD, even that will not push one of last year's cards very hard.
But when it is cost-effective to make the jump to 64 bit, I will enjoy doing so, although I expect that my heaviest application (SPICE) will have to be recompiled to take advantage of the upgrade.
This will be a major jump in performance, there will not be much incentive for a big upgrade again until 128 bit, or something radically different, without the old x86 baggage, comes along.
I expect that my biggest purchases in the next year or two will in fact not be PCs, but LCD monitors. Having 1600*1200 on my laptop, I would like it on the main PCs, but probably about 21 inch size, that will as of now cost serious money. If I can scrape up the money for an even higher resolution I will do so. My first monitor, a NEC 17 inch, which runs at 1280*1024, original cost about 700 pounds (UK)is still going strong, but is big, heavy and ugly by todays standard.
The point is that if you buy leading edge, it loses value very fast indeed, if you wait a bit till the price has stabilised at a reasonable level, you lose less, if you don't immediately need the performance.
"But Tom's review is a little more drawn out"
Seriously, if you aren't filtering the web, I'd say you're not much brighter than those who don't filter email for spam. It's the same crap, just fed through a different medium.
www.proxomitron.info
or
www.privoxy.org
Do yourself a HUGE favour!
Visceral Psyche Films
"Extreme Gaming Edition", "Hyperthreading"
Also they're in danger of running out of superlatives. What do they call the next one? "Super-Extreme Gaming Endition", then "Super-fucking-shit-your-pants-really-fast Gaming Edition"