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AMD's Socket 939, Athlon 64 FX-54 amd 64 3800+

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the thats-a-lotta-digits dept.

BudKnight writes "It looks like AMD is launching four new desktop processors, a new core, and a new socket infrastructure today. HotHardware has tested AMD's two new flagship processors, the Athlon 64 FX-53 and the Athlon 64 3800+. The new FX-53 no longer needs registered memory to function and the 3800+ has only 512K of cache, but it gets an upgraded 128-bit memory controller. The usual suspects also have reviews posted as well - TechReport, Hard|OCP, Beyond3D - more are sure to follow."

14 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. No 64bit scores by brejc8 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One silly thing about review sites comparing AMD64 to anything else is that they are still running them in 32bit mode. I found running in 64 bit mode gives you about 20% improvement in general code.
    When running guile working on very long integer operations we got a _6_ times improvement. Our simulations dropped from taking an 66 minutes to just over 11 minutes.

    --
    Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
    1. Re:No 64bit scores by rice_web · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Hopefully you understand that not many programs are optimized, as of yet, for 64-bit processors. When the more software makes the transition, you can bet that AMD will inch further ahead of Intel in the CPU-speed game (barring an Intel processor with 64-bit extensions anytime soon).

      --
      The Political Programmer
    2. Re:No 64bit scores by brejc8 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Incase people are intrested here are the scores of scibench2 for a load of machines in our office.

      Athlon64 3200 64: 523.70
      Athlon XP2700: 467.15
      Athlon64 3200 32: 449.07
      Athlon XP2600: 448.42
      Pentium4 3.0GHz: 387.57
      Athlon 1400: 305.26
      AMD Athlon 950: 209.51
      Sparc 500MHz: 52.21
      Sparc 440MHz: 51.89

      --
      Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
    3. Re:No 64bit scores by lachlan76 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I wouldn't bet on an Intel x86-64 processor in the near future. The Yamhill extensions have probably been scrapped along with the Tejas and the rest of the P4 R&D.
      Moving the extensions back to the P6 architecture will probably extend the time before any Pentium-64 processors are made by a few years at least.

  2. Too long. by Piranhaa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's a really good idea AMD is finally making the transition to dual-channel non buffered memory. They really should have done this a LOT sooner, before consumers started getting adjusted to the other socket, so they wouldn't have to replace their board when upgrading to the newer chip.

    1. Re:Too long. by swordboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      so they wouldn't have to replace their board when upgrading to the newer chip.

      Who still does this?

      I've never upgraded without swapping both the processor and mobo. This isn't a troll but rather just curiosity - I'd like to know if there is any significant percentage of non-gamers that upgrade *only* the processor. I'dathunk that the "processor bottleneck" was just a myth.

      I actually underclocked my Athlon 1800+ because it ran much cooler/lower power without any noticeable decrease in average usage habbits. Now, moving from a 5400rpm hard drive to a 7200rpm unit was a huge upgrade. I can't wait for cheap, desktop-oriented 10k and 15krpm units.

      --

      Life is the leading cause of death in America.
    2. Re:Too long. by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'dathunk that the "processor bottleneck" was just a myth.

      It doesn't really matter for non-gamers. My dad runs an XP2000+ and is able to browse the web/play mp3s without a problem. But for gamers it really matters: current games are almost completely CPU limited. Until some games come out that seriously stress the video hardware with shaders, all the new video cards can do for you is increase resolution and AA/AF. With a recent system you should get around the same FPS in UT2004 and FarCry until you hit high resolutions and AA/AF settings that stress fillrate. Physics, AI, and just generally pushing lots of geometry through AGP is a big frame limiter.

  3. Sockets again by tronicum · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I wonder how often they will introduce new sockets for just a bunch of CPUs.

    939 will not support dual CPUs, after all that "Slot A", Socket 7xx/9xx nonsens you cant just buy a board and hope to upgrade the CPU. They change the memory systems, introduce new bus systems (graphic : PCI->AGP->PCI-X/PCI-Express).

    Anyway I like my Athlon64 and at least the TDP (Thermal Design Power) of the new CPUs does not rise....

  4. Tinfoil anyone? by Gothmolly · · Score: 4, Interesting

    IANACD (I am not a CPU Designer), but I'd imagine that they're redesigning these things for a reason, NOT just to screw users and force an upgrade cycle. Intel did the same thing with their CPUs, and IBM/everyone did the same when they went from 30 pin to 72 pin SIMMS, then to DIMMS, then to DDR DIMMS. Was this all a vast Taiwanese component manufacturer conspiracy? I somehow doubt it. When it first came out, the PCI bus was limited to 3 slots due to physical 'ring' characteristics on the signal lines. Some propeller-heads at HP figured out a way to get 4 slots, and everyone ooh'd and aaah'd over it. Nowadays we have more slots due to bridge chips, are we going to complain that those pesky motherboard manufacturers keep updating their chipsets?
    Are you also angry at the music industry cabal that forced everyone to upgrade from vinyl to 8-track to cassette to CD to DVD ?

    Schernau's 2nd law: bolding part of your post actually detracts from your argument

    --
    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
  5. Good review at XbitLabs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The source:
    Meeting First Socket 939 Processors: AMD Athlon 64 3800+ and Athlon 64 3500+

    http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/ath lo n64-3800.html

    I liked the conclusion. From the article:

    "First, Socket 939 becomes a "stable platform" with a lifecycle stretching to 2006. Thus, AMD makes a step towards end-users who want to have low-cost upgrade opportunities.

    Second, the new processor socket offers dual-channel memory access to the owners of the Socket 939 platform. I can't say that the two channels give the Athlon 64 a great advantage in speed (the performance gain from enabling the second memory channel is 3-5% in average). Well, no one promised any performance breakthroughs from the transition to Socket 939, but the improvements in the memory controller allow users to flexibly configure the memory subsystem and use four two-sided DIMM modules in their systems, while Socket 754 processors only supported two two-sided memory modules.

    Third, AMD achieves a 25% reduction of the manufacturing cost of Socket 939 processors by cutting their L2 cache in two. This move will bring in profits and will also allow manufacturing cheap Athlon 64 models to ensure their popularity in the market." ...

  6. List of Links to reviews / news by d3bruts1d · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We've posted a list of links to reviews and news regarding the AMD64 939-pin processors. It's available here for anyone that wants to look at more information on the new CPUs. Currently 18 reviews, and the list is updated as they come in.

  7. Compile performance! by IceFox · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Something I personally look for and most of the time isn't included in any reviews I was presently surprised to find in anandtech's review a Quake compile test!

    http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=2065&p =12

    It doesn't specify what compiler or platform was used, but at the bare minimum it gives a little glimpse of what you might be able to achieve. Now all you have to do is apply that to a price/performance graph to determine what and how many you want to buy.

    -Benjamin Meyer

    --
    Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
  8. Question: High temp issues? by geohump · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I heard that Intel CPU's used to automagically reduce their clock rate when their temperature got too high.

    This feature caused some businesses I know to forgo choosing any AMD cpu, since it couldn't protect itself in the event of an unattended fan failure.

    First question - does the clocking down feature really exist on Intel CPU's? and second question, Does AMD have this feature yet?

    1. Re:Question: High temp issues? by geohump · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm using the AMD CPU on my personal system right now. If I were trying to generate FUD I would have just blasted away instead of asking for information.

      According to my limited stab, googling for info, it looks like AMD still doesn't have the down-clock protection on its CPU's. Thats too bad.

      I was hopinfg that someone would point me at info saying otherwise.

      I would really like to be able to use them in my client installations but I can't really recommend them for anyplace that doesn't have 7x24 staff within hearing distance of any audible thermal alarms.

      I did learn that there are some MB's which will try to save the AMD CPU from cooking itself and that is encouraging. Still - I won't be recommending AMD for Aunt Tillie or my small customers until the AMD CPU's or virtually every AMD capable MB out there has some way of protecting the AMD CPU's from self destruction.

      That way I will get fewer "middle of the night" emergency calls.

      Interesting that you posted anonymously.