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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.
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?
Sorry, my bad. Won't happen again.
-Trick
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.
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.
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
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)
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
i think michaels computers had this processor in his systems for months now, this is old news ...
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.
If not, I don't see why I would want to wait for the next chipset.
--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
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
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.
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.
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.
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."
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...
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.
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.
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.
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? >;)
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...
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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.
"Anyone have some insight?"
Different architectures. Intel chips have longer instruction pipes that allow them to run faster, but have the penalty of worse branch prediction. Compilers have a lot of branches, which automatically favour AMD chips (same for Office apps). Intel will do better in MP3 encoding, video encoding, etc, where the raw processer speed gives it the edge.