AMD Athlon 64 Dual Core Chips Released

HaloPhreak writes "InformationWeek reports today that AMD has released the Athlon 64 X2 for the high end desktop. Intel and AMD have been competing to get these out as soon as possible, but I think it will be interesting to see what AMD will do with the mobile version of this processor, due out in 2006." From the article: "Both companies have been in a tight race to deliver the processors since engineers realized that simply ratcheting up the clock speed of single-core chips was creating too much heat and not producing the same improvements seen in previous models."

Comments

Engineers Realized it, PHB didn't.

[rahvin112]

The engineers realized the diminishing returns of clock speed years ago, it took them this long to convince the PHB's.

A Thread Unto Itself

[Nom du Keyboard]

They keep saying that dual cores won't benefit users that run only a single program or game. But isn't the operating system a thread to itself? It can be handling interrupts, updating the screen, managing read/writes to the disc etc. while the main program thread runs unhindered on the second processor.

Re:A Thread Unto Itself

[TopSpin]

They keep saying...

They are correct, if they limit themselves to an idealized case; one execution thread. The real world for me, however, is Eve Online. I usually have two game clients running at the same time plus Teamspeak. I am very much looking forward to SMP for my game machine.

Your suspicion is correct; even single threaded gaming will benefit from dual core (a.k.a. SMP) hardware. If a game involves network traffic, for instance, the overhead of handling the traffic will naturally off load to the other core within the OS network stack. Audio processing can also be scheduled separately because much of that computation occurs in separate threads run on behalf of the audio "driver". There are also some built-in deficiencies in IO subsystems (especially ATA derived hardware) that can block a CPU. Two cores can help paper over the blocking and eliminate stalls. I've used SMP workstations for ordinary work and gaming. They operate smoothly where a single CPU machine will thrash trying to keep up.

Game developers will leverage SMP hardware quickly. They will go for the low hanging fruit first; separate physics, audio, bookkeeping, etc., into threads to allow the 3D engine to monopolize one of the cores. Later, as SMP becomes ubiquitous, they will push harder and enable parts of the graphics engine to run in parallel. This pattern is essentially identical to how operating systems were slowly made into highly parallel systems; pushing synchronization locks deeper and deeper until the costs outweighed the gains.

Re:Can AMD compete at these prices?

[Sparohok]

AMD has no incentive to reduce prices below the point where they sell every chip they can build.

All evidence suggests that AMD is constrained by supply, not demand. In that context, the high price is a reflection of AMD's competitiveness, not a hindrance to their competitiveness.

The real downside to those high prices is that they indicate that AMD continues to be significantly constrained by manufacturing.

Martin

Re:Can AMD compete at these prices?

[Lord Kano]

Why would AMD sell you a chip for $200 when they can sell it for $550-1000?

You're missing his point. If he has to choose a $200 chip, he's not going to scrape and scrimp to get the $537 for AMDs new chip.

If AMD had the big OEMs on board, it wouldn't matter. Dell and Gateway would buy up all of their chips, regardless of price.

Fact is, they don't. AMD is going to be churning out chips that may or may not be snapped up before they are replaced by the next batch.

AMD's bread and butter is the discount PC and the gaming PC market. Gamers with the money will opt for the faster, more expensive chips, those who do not will find another alternative. AMD could benefit by being that alternative.

LK

What about the OS?

[MarcoAtWork]

fine that these are compatible with s939 after a BIOS update, but will you have to reinstall XP from scratch or will it 'magically' autodetect the 2nd processor? Don't think I've ever read an article discussing this issue yet.