AMD Bumps Up Socket AM2 Launch Date

Thrill-Ki1l writes "According to DailyTech AMD has moved up the launch date for their new socket AM2 processors. The manufacturers of the new AM2 chipsets and motherboards have their hardware ready to ship early so AMD decided to launch the chips 2 weeks early. The new launch date is May 23rd."

Comments

Re:Is it really worth it?

[MBCook]

There was an article somewhere recently (Anandtech? Tom's Hardware?) checking performance of DDR2 versus DDR on the Opteron. They determined that DDR speeds below 533 (IIRC) would hurt the performance. At 533, it was about even. As the processor and or memory speeds up then you will see the benefit. This isn't strictly necessary right now. I think it was actually due to the latency issue that you mentioned that this was the case.

I'd rather see FB-DIMMs, personally. But the move to DDR2 was going to happen at some point. Better now (when it's not necessary and people can still choose a great processor and DDR combo) then later (when DDR is more expensive and they were hurting for the change).

I seem to remember that was going to be something else with this socket upgrade (in the form of processor features) that was more interesting or offered better performance increases than the memory change. I don't remember if it was SSE4 (is that out yet?), a better branch predictor, AMD's Vanderpool (can't remember the name), or what.

AMD's AM2 processor seems to be DRM-free

[UseFree.org]

Hastening the launch date by a couple of weeks isn't too significant, but AMD certainly deserves to be congratulated for (apparently) leaving DRM out of their AM2 microprocessors. In contrast, Intel has succumbed to RIAA/MPAA pressure and betrayed their customers by stuffing Treacherous Computing down their throats.

I'm also happy to see that AMD has not put DRM into its AMD Live! technology, which competes with Intel's DRM-ridden Viiv. I'm sure AMD is taking a lot of heat from the entertainment cartel for not handcuffing users, and I hope they'll continue to keep their products DRM-free.

And let's not forget that AMD has been supportive of LinuxBIOS by actively ensuring that their motherboards can run it.