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

summary

[The_GURU_Stud]

what should also be on the summary is that it was bumped up to coincide with Intel's paper launch.

Re:condolences

[ePhil_One]

You would hope anyone building a system would have done their research and would have known that new chips were coming.

Really, the jokes on the people who by this new socket. I hear that eventually it well be replaced with something even newer! I'm waiting until 2019, when there will be no more computer upgrades (society will collapse July 17th, 2019, ending all new product development short of the flint arrowhead)

Is it really worth it?

[Bin Naden]

Is it really worth it to be an AMD processor with a DDR2 memory controller? Sure this meant a lot for the intel architecture but from what I understood the AMD architecture will not gain a lot from this memory speed increase. Also, the latency on the memory will likely also increase which might cancel all gains made from the increased speed. Therefore, I'm waiting and seeing before I get me one of those.

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.

Re:Is it really worth it?

[PsychicX]

This article examines the question in depth. Hope that helps.

Too many sockets!!!

[Freaky Spook]

Although I find AMD to be better chips, I still stay with intel because their chips are all on one socket.
AMD at the moment offers no upgrade path because their Semprons & Athlons are different sockets, you can't turn a budget AMD box into something more powerfull without replacing the motherboard.

Intel allow people to start with a Celeron and easily upgrade to a P4 or Pentium D if more CPU power is required, I find the upgrade option far better value.

Re:Too many sockets!!!

[Z0mb1eman]

Y'know... I used to reason along the same lines. After 10 years of building/upgrading my own computer, however, I realized one thing:

Not once has it made sense to upgrade the processor. Every time it would've provided only a small gain compared to the expense and hassle. I've upgraded the RAM, hard drives, and video card several times - but by the time I felt I needed a better processor, it made more sense to replace the entire motherboard and go with a new generation (or build a new box entirely).

To each his own, of course. But in the future I'm going to worry about the upgrade paths a motherboard offers for the RAM, drives, or video - and not the CPU, because I know I'll never bother.

Then again, so far I've mostly had AMD boxes, so maybe there is some truth to what you say. :)

Re:Too many sockets!!!

[forkazoo]

Personally, I feel AMD has been a bit more reasonable with sockets. Pentium 4's have at least 423, 478, 775, and Pentium M has 478 and 480. Socket A lasted a long time, overlapping with Socket 370, IIRC. Since then, we've had 754, 939, and now AM2. (I'm ignoring 940, but also ignoring the Xeon sockets...) Since AM2 isn't actually out yet, that's two sockets that have been released in the same time frame that Intel released five.

Re:Too many sockets!!!

[Spokehedz]

Err... the P4 Comes in two socket styles. The old mPGA and the new 755-socket-whatcha-ma-callit. So right away, your argument is null and void.

The 'old' 468-pin is just that--the OLD socket. Meaning, it's a completely different chip altogether.

AMD has had some issues with sockets lately, I will grant you that. But Intel has been behind the 8-ball for a while now. AMD is now the innovator, and they are just playing catchup.

For those who don't know about it...

[Spy der Mann]

Here's good info on the AM2.

Re:condolences

[Bob_Robertson]

Actually, the release of new hardware should drop the price of dual and quad 939 motherboards to buyable levels, as well as the dual core 939 CPUs.

It's not like the 939 performance has dropped, only that the bleeding edge has cut another swath. Let them go, and enjoy the savings!

Bob-

fake?

[muszek]

The story is fake. Nothing in our industry is released early.

Re:fake?

[Bin Naden]

This is what we call a paper release as pioneered by IBM in the good old days. When the competitors threaten to release a better product then yours, you claim that you are developing an even better product than them in order to prevent consumers from switching to the competitor. The actual release date doesn't matter, all that matters is that consumers anticipate that you will have an awesome product coming along that they will want to save money for. And as IBM proved, you don't even have to release the product. You might just want to do this in order to cause your competitor financial hardships.

939...

[Hyter]

and 939 was suppose to be "future proof."

Re:939...

[Bin Naden]

and 939 was suppose to be "future proof."

And 64k was supposed to be more than anyone would ever need.

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.

Re:AMD's AM2 processor seems to be DRM-free

[heinousjay]

So tantalizingly close to on-topic. Excellent zealotry, A+.

Re:condolences

[toddestan]

Actually, I feel sorry for the people who built 754 systems back in the day. It seemed that AMD moved onto Socket 939 pretty quickly after that one.

Though I really feel for anyone who has a Socket 423 Pentium IV system. Very short lived standard (1.3-2.0Ghz), expensive rambus memory, 100Mhz bus ("quad pumped" to 400Mhz), and really odd CPU coolers that screw into the motherboard that are virtually impossible to get replacements for.

That old link?

[John Jamieson]

Fine, and I can show you an article that says the 65nm Athlons will clock 40% faster, and the conroe is actually slower if you don't fit in the 4Meg L1 cache. (anyone can add cache)

Why don't we wait 6 months and then start trash talking, when we have actual products.

One of two things has happened
1. AMD has become complacent and has no strategy of really updating a now old product this year. In this scenario they were lulled asleep.
2. Intel has stunk so bad that AMD has been holding some cards close to the chest because it did not need to play them.

No staged demo by either AMD or Intel will give us the answer, but we will know in 6-8 months.

Why, exactly?

[Weaselmancer]

You would hope anyone building a system would have done their research and would have known that new chips were coming.

Putting aside that new chips are always coming up, why would this matter?

Only reason I can think of is that you're suggesting that you might want to put a faster cpu in later on. Is that it? If so...is that a really common thing to do? Because it seems kinda....well, dumb to me. You unplug your existing cpu and stick it in a box. Then buy another one that's only a few percent faster. Then unplug that 3 months later...and stick it in a box. Seems like a waste of money to me.

Every time I've done an upgrade, it's been a whole system upgrade. And then, I only do it every 5 years or so. Is there really a need to stay on the bleeding edge all the time that I'm missing?

Re:Why, exactly?

[Znork]

"Then buy another one that's only a few percent faster."

As far as I can tell, AM2 will be a merge of the desktop sockets, which means you'll eventually have a fairly large range of performances.

If AM2 reclaims the same kind of staying power that socket A had, this also means you get the capacity to do cascade upgrades once you have a few systems. Stick a new CPU in your desktop? You dont stick the old one in a box, you move it to the server, which gets faster... and your old server CPU can be moved to the media frontend, which also gets faster... etc.

"Every time I've done an upgrade, it's been a whole system upgrade. And then, I only do it every 5 years or so. Is there really a need to stay on the bleeding edge all the time that I'm missing?"

Mmm, if that's how you do it, you probably wont benefit, no. In fact, it's far better to _never_ stay on the bleeding edge; bleeding edgers always get hosed by the price/performance ratio, and someone spending half of what you spend every 2.5 years will probably have a higher average performance over time on his systems, and twice as many systems. And again, once you reach the number of systems and component standardization needed for rolling upgrades, that's when you really start getting the payoff...

Re:condolences

[TubeSteak]

I'm waiting until 2019, when there will be no more computer upgrades (society will collapse July 17th, 2019, ending all new product development short of the flint arrowhead)

You know that very few people use the Mayan calendar anymore?

It was the flint arrowheads that gave you away.

Memory Capacity?

[Bill Dimm]

I may buy/build a workstation soon that will need the capability of holding a large amount of RAM (say 32GB - calculations requiring a lot of memory but not a huge amount of CPU) at some point down the road (I can probably put off fully populating the memory for a while). I came across this post, which seems to say that motherboards for DDR2 will allow more DIMMs (16 2GB sticks is a lot cheaper than 8 4GB sticks right now, at least for DDR). It is talking about DDR2 with Opterons. Is there a launch date for DDR2 on Opteron? Is the capacity actually greater with DDR2? Is DDR likely to become scarce down the road, causing DDR2 to be a cheaper option for future expansion? Any opinions are appreciated (I haven't had an excuse to buy hardware in a long time, so I haven't kept up on such things).

Sidenote: Yes, I am aware of the iWill DK88 (16 DIMMs DDR) - anybody have any experience with it (especially with Linux)?

Re:condolences

[buswolley]

I just built an AMD 64 3800+ X2. I researched for quite a while, and was completly aware of the new socket. This does not bother me.

1)I can't really imagine anytime soon when I will need more power than I have with this system.

2) The price was good.

3)You can overclock the shit out of them.

4)I can scan for viruses, rip a cd, and play a top end game concurrently without a glitch or slow down.

5)It is a stable mature technology(socket 939). I previously made the mistake of purchasing the first edition of a new intel socket, and regretted it for years.

Let the new sockets, chips and boards work out their chinks before you buy, I say.

Re:Way to go Apple!

[tomstdenis]

No, Intel is releasing a dual-dual-core not a quad-core. It's going to be two separate dies on one chip.

Intel still hasn't figured out the whole "let's go MP" part yet either. While they are doing things like L2 sharing to speed up proccesses in the same dual-core part (which is a mixed blessing though) they are still using the single-FSB to do MP.

Tom