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AMD's Dual-core Athlon 64 X2 reviewed
ChocolateJesus writes "Weeks after formally announcing its dual-core Athlon X2 desktop processor, reviews are finally trickling out. The Tech Report's coverage tests two flavors of the Athlon 64 X2 against a whopping 17 competitors, including AMD and Intel's fastest single- and dual-core offerings. They've even thrown in a handful of dual-processor systems (and dual-core, dual-processor systems) for good measure. Testing focuses on multi-threaded applications, and the X2s deliver remarkable performance. Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that unlike Intel's dual-core Pentiums, AMD's X2s consume no more power than single-core chips." Looks like this story has come out of embargo - if you've find more reviews, post them in comments.
Here's Anandtech's review of the X2.
While the AMD 64 X2 Dualcore is impressive, I am still waiting for the AMD 69 XXX Hardcore myself.
Sorry, it just had to be said.
No actually, they're going to be launched in June. The fact that this would be lost on the submitter was so obvious, I was able to prepare this message in advance and just paste it in.
These look to be amazing CPUs. After the initial linpack-with-large-matrices benchmark, you have to go thirteen pages into the benchmarks at TechReport to find some of note where the Intel solutions are able to score off a win!
Or you can jump right to their conclusions.
Fear Is the Only God
I'm relieve to see at least one thing out of this launch, and I would hope that other companies would do as much. AMD has clearly defined their rollout process so there will be no confusions and hopefully no false expectations.
1. Announcement
2. Technical Preview (benchmarks Appear)
3. Launch (OEM Availability)
4. Ramp-up and Reseller Availability
They even give dates, if they can keep to those dates then we might actually have a product launch that doesn't antagonize the community with accusations of a 'paper launch'.
I'd like to see more companies be more upfront about this.
That a lot of applications are not multithreaded. Thus wont get the speed advantage of the Duel-Core processor.
Thats because the two cores are too busy fighting.
Specific design and use of a modified version of the most recent AMD core (Venice). Venice's consumption is much lower than it's parent (Winchester core), check the graphs, Dual Cores' power consumption is a bit higher than the 3800+ Venice processor.
On top of that, A64 platforms are known for their low power consumption compared to Netburst based processors.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Over at Anandtech, they have a similar article up.
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http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx
On that page they compare a 130nm single core Athlon to a 90nm dual core. Even under a full load, the 90nm dual core uses less power than the single core 130nm chip.
A dual CPU machine provides such a smooth operating environemnt. Never hiccups or pauses. I'm hooked on them. I hope dual core provides the same interactivity.
And a singlethreaded badly written application will be less prone to lock your computer, too, since the other apps will still be able to run from the second core.
The main issue is not the multithreading abilities of the applications, but the multithreading abilities of the OS itself. If the OS handles multithreading well, multicore (physical or virtual) will always give a slight to impressive improvement over single core.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
The market for this is everyone who uses an agressive anti-virus program. The AV will run on one prcessor, what you are doing on the other.
It's a sad case that as malware becomes more previlent, hardware vendors win. Really, you can be productive with (for example) Win2K on a 1GHz machine and 256MB, in an office. Now add the wait as every file is scanned on access for viruses (per corporate policy), and the machine somehow becomes "too slow."
OH well. I guess it's time to put all productivity applications on a Server & run them remotely. Again;-(
The best example of what you're looking at that i've found is at http://www23.tomshardware.com/index.html
It's an interactive chart of all major processors available now and plenty that aren't available, it's a good idea to compare what you might have not and what an upgrade could do for you.
For Intel, your argument definitely holds water. Their whole business plan has been based off of their vast number of production plants and relatively cheap process of putting hordes of chips on the market... hopefully making the chips pervasive enough to strike a profit level in the end (more like early mid-life with their price schemes though). It is only after a processor has been found tried and true that Intel migrates it to server land.
AMD on the other hand has always started out chips on the enthusiast / enterprise market because they simply don't have the fabrication capacity that Intel does. Thus they market first for the high end users and over time the processors find their way into the desktop market when they've been dated by yet another new, improved processor being marketed at the first group. Their whole revenue plan is based off of the 'rich' people niche (which includes many medium to large businesses). Based on their success, I'd say that they've done really well with this business model and continuing to do so would likely continue to work for them.
The common misnomer that is latched onto with many processor reviews nowadays is that both AMD and Intel are prodcing processors for the desktop platform, when in reality their business goals for their processors are on opposite spectrums. Intel starts desktop side, AMD starts server side. It is only after both have matured to some degree (and software caught up to both of them) that the processors can be meaningfully compared for the average joe user that just bought a new computer (or had one built for him).
Most people who go crazy over these new technologies are either wanting it for pure bragging rights, or simply aren't aware of how little it will actually do for them... or both in all liklihood.
There can only be one core!
Let me guess, if one gets hurt, is it only a flash wound?
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
Dual CPU systems tho are useless to the home users, it's for businesses and scientists with more computing need. Real enterprise applications are multithreated.
Not so!
I was one of the lucky people buy a cheap dual Celeron setup right after that hack was first discovered and I can tell you that multiprocessors on the desktop rock. My old system was a dual Celeron 400, and while it couldn't compete with a modern system in terms of benchmark speed, it had my current 1400 MHz Celeron system beat bloody when it comes to interactivity and responsiveness -- that elusive "feel".
The price is steep now, but don't let arguments about application benchmarks dissuade you from trying out multicore when prices go down. The Anandtech review cited about has some really telling benchmarks about how well a dual system performs when loaded down with multiple tasks.
Unlike the unnoticeable 200 or 400 MHz incremental bumps you usually see with processors, dual core really brings something of value to the desktop user. Try it and you'll see.
Kill, Tux, kill!
Sorry about our server's inability to keep up right now. We have a mirror here: http://www2.techreport.com/
s/always/recently/
Clearly, you've just not been around very long, or not paying attention, or have only short-term memory.
It's only been in recent years that AMD has bested Intel, performance-wise. For many, many years, AMD could release a new chip with good performance similar and then Intel would beat them with another new chip.
There's a long, long history of AMD selling their chips at approximately half the price. Certainly through all of the 90's (486, pentium 1/2/3), AMD chips were substantially cheaper than buying Intel.
During much of this time, AMD's chips also had a strong reputation to run very hot. Intel had a reputation for running cool and being easy to overclock. It was Intel that introduced the multiplier locks to prevent overclocking, which apparantly became quite a problem outside the USA where unscrupulous companies would sand down the tops of the chips (back then they were usually ceramic on top) and print a faster speed and resell them as such.
It wasn't even all that long ago when the infamous celeron 300A, which was multiplier locked, could overclock to 450 MHz (then, nearly the fastest chip they sold) by overclocking the front side bus by 50%. At the time, AMD's chips were far behind, and they were running hot with very little overclocking margin, just to try closing the substantial perforance gap.
Even back in the early Pentium days, even before AMD came out with a comperable chip, the 90 MHz pentium appeared in a new, smaller geometry process that made it run about as cool as the 486 66's.
Intel has indeed been in the lead, technologically, for a very long time... ever since they stopped licensing IP from Intel. For a bit of really ancient history, long ago, some large well known companies had a strong policy of never using any components that were not available from a second source. AMD's business model 20+ years ago was to license designs and be that second source.
Even a number of articles mention how the tables have turned recently, and speculate whether Intel will regain the honor of top performance.
I'm not affiliated with Intel, and in fact the PC I'm using to write this comment runs an AMD chip. When I upgrade, it'll probably be AMD again. Recently, AMD appears to have made some really smart architectual decisions that have put them in the lead, technology-wise.
But to believe such has always been the case, or even been a trend that's anything more than recent, is to ignore or be utterly ignorant of the very long history of Intel dominating the PC / x86 market with the best chips.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
My mind is boggled by questions like this. Are there really people out there who still use their computers for just one thing at a time?
The machine I'm typing this on (just a simple diskless workstation) currently has 75 different processes running. The server it's connected to has 145. With a dual core processor in either of them, the number of processes able to run simultaneously would be increased by 100%.
The idea of running just one application on your box went out more than 10 years ago. Wake up and smell the coffee.
(If nothing else, all those blasted Flash animations can run without chewing up CPU cycles I would rather use for something else.)
John