Athlon Socket AM2 Review

NerdMaster writes "Hardware Secrets has just posted an Athlon 64 X2 5000+ review, one of the first AMD CPUs to support the new socket AM2. It runs at 2.4 GHz, has two 512 KB L2 memory caches (one for each core) and supports DDR2 memories." However, many are still predicting an end to AMD's dominance in the market thanks to Intel's Conroe.

Comments

Uneven Benchmark

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the last page of the review, they gave the Socket 939 platform 2GB of ram, and the AM2 platform 1GB.

Re:[offtopic] 'Print' version is split into 10 pag

[Shadows]

Summary: Blah blah, blah, blah blah blah... and finally something interesting:

[from page 10]

We didn't see any performance improvement by the use of DDR2 memories instead of DDR. In fact, Athlon 64 FX-60 was faster in several situations, showing that at least for the software we used having a bigger L2 memory cache is better than having DDR2 memory instead of regular DDR.

But, on the other hand, we have to consider the future and what is behind AMD's strategy in going to AM2 socket and DDR2 support. In our opinion, what is important isn't the release of Athlon 64 5000+, but the possibility of increasing the memory bus clock rate in the near future. For socket 939 platform this was not possible since the top DDR official standard was DDR400/PC3200. With AM2 AMD can finally go beyond that, as DDR2 official standards include at least three speed grades above that: DDR2-533, DDR2-667 and DDR2-800. That is promising.

Re:Upgrade?

[Ihlosi]

The 939 NForce 4 Ultra/SLI line is showing age

Does that mean it has finally reached some degree of maturity ?

And sorry to disappoint you - since the chipset-cpu interface remains the same, the "old" chipsets can be used for AM2 processors, as long as the mainboard has an AM2- and DDR2-sockets.

HotHardware's Coverage Of AM2, Much More Detail

[Anonymous Coward]

The folks over at HotHardware.com also have a very detailed performance evaluation of AM2 Athlon 64, right here

Much More benchmarks are available on the web

[Anonymous Coward]

Small selection:
- HardOCP
- X-Bit Labs
- HotHardware

up to date list here

Re:Ignore these benchmarks

[Enderandrew]

The thing that really got me was the conclusion page. For many people, that is all they read. In said conclusion they said the DDR2 support wasn't necessary that great because the FX-60 beat out the 5000+ in several test.

In all the CPU specific test, the 5000+ came out on top. In tests that benchmarked total system power, the FX-60 rig with 2 gigs running in dual channel mode came out on top.

If these guys don't know how to put together proper testing rigs, let alone extrapolate results, then AMD shouldn't be wasting test equipment on them. They can send processors to me, and I'll put up some serious benchmarks, including detailed overclocking, burn-in testing, temperature readings, etc.