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4x4 Chips, Opening AMD's Architecture
Nom du Keyboard writes "Once upon a time open slots in a PC that anyone could build a card for were a good idea. PCs with them sold better than PCs without them. Now AMD is proposing another new socket that will be open for plugging in of 3rd party co-processors directly on the processor bus." They've also announced a 4x4 chipset, meant to counter Intel's Core 2 Duo chips. From the article: "Socket 4x4 will have a more immediately impact. Set for a release in the latter half of this year, it essentially lets you combine two dual-core Athlon 64 X2 or Athlon 64 FX chips to create a quad-core desktop PC now ... AMD made the point that Socket 4x4 also provides a more flexible upgrade path for a single motherboard system by letting you start with one chip and add another later on. AMD didn't talk pricing, but you can bet neither the Socket 4x4 motherboards, nor systems that use it to include two dual-core CPUs will be cheap."
If they waste more electricity, are more noisy and increase the likelyhood for fatal accidents, count me in!
If you're combining two dual core chips, wouldn't that be 2x2? Or even 2x4 (or 4x2), but 4x4? That makes no sense. Looks like they're using the Chewbaca marketing technique.
While these come with the gun racks standard?
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
Remember what Smokey the Bear says. Only you can prevent your AMD(TM) quad-core desktop computer from starting a forest fire.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
..with jet propulsion.
As a sysadmin, this sounds neat -- but I haven't seen any computing environments that need that kind of horsepower yet. But, I can't wait to crank-up my distributed.net ranking.
At my last contract, we used IBM Bladecenters -- Linux in a dev/QA environment, and they had prolly the largest load-generator farm I've ever seen. It wasn't the CPUs that were maxed, tho -- just the network.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
I thought the current dual-socket motherboards (eg this board) could already accept dual-core Athlon (well, Opteron) chips (eg: the 270 series) to make a quad-core machine ?
Actually if this isn't the case, I'll be very grateful if someone could tell me, because I was thinking of ordering the above for a replacement webserver...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Sweet, that means I can watch 4 different pr0n movies, each having their own processor.
I can't wait to add a winch, snorkel, bullbars and spotlights to my case, then wear a suit as I use the PC at my accounting job. See, coz that'll make me some kid of rugged individual.
Also, my soccer mom wife can jump on to the 4x4 chip-powered computer, while wearing an evening dress, and e-mail the playgroup to organise a time to collect Tarquin and Jemima, before heading off to the suburban supermarket for shopping.
Hell, I think I'll just tie this baby to the skiracks on the roof of my V8 Jeep Cherokee Grande Special Enterprise Edition and be done with it.
Dual processor (not dual core) systems have been the domain of server chips like the Opteron and Xeon, ever since Intel split the Xeon off from the PIII line. The motherboards for them (not to mention the processors themselves) are very expensive... this is good news for enthusiasts.
Will AMD hurt itself by undercutting Opteron sales?
Will Intel follow suit with its consumer chips?
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
As I just noticed last night that the newer kernels support CPU hotplugging.
They're setting the way forward for SLI type configuration for processors! w00t! !!!!!!onehundredandeleven!!!
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those puppies!
No Sigs!
There is no FSB and the memory is LOCAL to the processor. How would this maintain coherency? The Athlon64 processors also don't allow cHT. Not that they don't physically have support for it, just it's been disabled.
Given where I work, and that I've never heard of this before today... I suspect it's a hoax.
The only way this would work is if the OS was aware of it and manually routed data from one node to another (e.g. like a northbridge DMA device you can pipe info to).
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Why would anyone help someone who calls people he doesn't even know an asscracker.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
Even though every uber-gamer is gonna need a 4x4 for bragging rights and IPE(Imaginary Penis Enlargement), it won't be that much of an upgrade for hardcore gaming until more games break out of the single-threaded event loop. Multiple processors only work on multiple threads.
I hear rumors that people use processing power for other things, but I think those are just myths. (Actually I just started to work for a high-performance computing group and they'll probably be excited by the new AMD offerings)
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
article
AMD won't happen to produce any of these "3rd party co-processors" will they?
I haven't been this excited since Intel started selling 386SX chips that allowed us
to buy Cyrix (or Intel) math coprocessors for twice what a non-crippled DX cost!
If I wait a little longer can I get leather seats and the Z71 package?
Which are available now...
English motherfucker! Do you speak it?
Opening up calculator, typing "4x4" computer says 4 (cores). Oops.
Now maybe there can be at last a truly powerful seti accelerator!
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
What does that mean? A motherboard with 2 processor slots? A motherboard that accepts two dual-core processors? We've had both, and for a while.
I wish online editors wouldn't publish meaningless articles like this, and I wish sites wouldn't link to them.
...this is going to end up just like every other off-the-wall motherboard/CPU/video card/etc' feature: way too expensive for anybody to care about. Remember the mobo a while back that would take either an AMD or an Intel CPU? It was basically two mainboards on the same PCB and it costed about as much.
This also looks quite a bit like SLI/Crossfire in that it's marketed as "add on more stuff later to boost performance and save money in the long run." It looks nice on paper, but in practice, it's pretty worthless unless you have hundred dollar bills falling out of your ass; thus bargain-hunters are better of just going with a more vanilla setup.
Oh well. Just my two cents.
This sig rocks the casbah.
No one want's a 4x4 computer, that just sounds plain dumb. They should have settled for 2x4, or something even catchier, like 1x1 or 9x9.
So, what's the difference between this and any other motherboard with two processor slots? Those have been around for ages. For that matter, Apple's highest model Power Mac has had two dual-core processors for some time now, so having dual dual-core processors isn't new.
Sunwalker Dezco for Warchief in 2016
"16"
AMD lost the mobility race. Intel won. Sure AMD are great performers, if want to be deaf.
I have to say, the noise levels in a laptop have nearly nothing to do with the processor used and everything to do with the arrangement of the internal components, airflow, size and speed of fans, etc'. I can think of a few Intel-powered laptops (I own one) that just screams when it's warmed up.
Sure, AMD's mobile stuff is a little less mature than Intel's, but I can say with a fair level of confidence that you have no idea of what you're talking about.
This sig rocks the casbah.
Tyan already makes motherboards that accept four dual-core Opterons. Sure, the motherboard alone costs almost what my brand-new rig did, but they exist.
Sleep is futile.
look at his nickname, it's a joke!
nothing to do with anti-amd sentiments!
(just stating the obvious here, as it seems to be necessary)
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
Which could be anything (which uses their open bus)... how about an FPGA coprocessor?
Specialized math coprocessor? Quick reprogram.
Hardware acceleration for game physics? Quick reprogram.
Crypto processor? Quick reprogram.
I think you get the idea.
Other Processors could refer to something like this FPGA module from DRC.
An FPGA connected directly to a HyperTransport link would provide a processor that can be specified to each individual program.
I am not a business major, but I was an AMD stock holder from when it was trading at $7.55 to $40.
AMD has been jacking up their prices which we have assumed is simply a response to their higher quality and increased market share but it has done something interesting. AMD is now selling the majority of high end desktop and workstation cpus but they have low marketshare in high end servers and low end desktops.
It would be easy to claim that these are new strategies implemented by Ruiz their new CEO however they would imply a more stock holder less comsumer driven business and AMD's poor marketing (low marketing budget?) and the $100 laptop project seem to rule out this possibility.
If we look back over the history of AMD it becomes interesting to look at chips like the Athlon MP which went through severe price reductions immediately prior to the release of the Opteron.
Implementing dual cpu chipsets on the desktop is likely a strategie implemented imediately before moving their low end to dual core and their high end to a new cpu architecture.
Amd will likely try to match Intel's price and consumer points, low end desktop (with dual core if my predictions about their consumer centric and engineering company bias are correct), high end desktop (catering to the SLI crowd and consolodating on the likely long term presence of socket AM2 (or subsequent sockets, AMD's 754 for an example of a short term socket), workstation (likely with the same socket but with quad core cpus), low end server (Opteron or replacement) and some kind of new high end chip.
The prediction about a new high end chip is based on reduced gap between the current opteron line and the 4x4 system layout.
All of this is very predictive, but based on my studies of AMD's engineering, ethics, and sales history.
Today's expensive stuff is tomorrow's obsolete dinosaur. What I'm getting at is this: you can bet it will be cheap. It's just a question of when.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If a coprocessor that can do the same kind of mass calculation that a DSP or a GPU can do is incorporated into an architecture, I wonder if even more speedup can be had for all kinds of tasks in general.
for server and desktop before AMD...
I had a vision of a JATO unit strapped to DELL in a flashback to a Darwin Award Winner. I think I have been on Slashdot and the net too long. UGGGHHHH.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
>> Once upon a time open slots in a PC that anyone could build a card for were a good idea.
English motherf*cker! Do you speak it?
Thanks, I never know what to use my mod points for, so I'll just spend them all marking you as a troll.
-Enigma
1 2 3 4 5 (thanks for playing)
Your reply was quite informative, however none of what you posted was available from the link.
So I appluad your information but still find the original article pointless.
If you haven't noticed, the 4x4 truck is out right now. These squareish minivans called SUV's will be in for bit longer despite the lack of fruitful oil country conquests. These "Square Utility Van"'s are now often on a Minivan or Wagon (SUW?) platform, instead of the truck base of original SUV's.
I run Windows.
Glad to meet another Gentooerer! Heard any good CC flags lately?
I found out that -type=R could speed my system by 3.141% at a cost of only 5.9 hours more compiling!
Send a big cheer to Rufus at Aces Hardware for grabbing all of the presentation slides.
i d=120057079&forumid=1
Worth reading IMO.
http://www.aceshardware.com/forums/read_post.jsp?
http://rufus.hackish.org/~rufus/amd/big.html
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I bet these chips get great traction
I will forever be a student.
..conjecture or 'educated-guess' on my part, and yes, IAACG(I am a CPU Geek).
Current systems for AMD use a point-to-point HT link from each CPU to RAM/SouthBridge.
This is good as each processor gets dedicated bandwidth which leads to great performance(see Intel's ass-whooping in 4P+ systems for real-world example).
This is bad because this makes motherboards more costly as the number of traces from CPU to RAM/SB increases linearly with the number of processors.
So, what this 1x1 or 2x2 or 4x4 mechanism(and I believe 4x4 is the max it will scale to due to HT addressing limits without external control chips) will allow AMD to do is have 2 cpu's per set of traces to RAM/SB effectively halving the bandwidth that each CPU gets. This would be *really bad* if they were using standard DDR as both those CPU's would be severly starved. But, the fact that AMD has just moved to DDR2, which has a lot more bandwidth than one CPU can consume, should result in a significant net-gain in performance.
Don't fool yourself though, a 1x1 system will not be 'as good' as a Dual Socket system with indepent traces for each socket.. some articles are speculating 80% performance dependant on workload.
--iamnotayam
... drool over Boxx's APEXX 8 machine. It's 8 dual core AMDs with up to 128 gigs of ram. Got one at the office. We can't wait to try our app on it. :)
The heyday AMD has been having with Intel and their nutbust architecture is coming to an end, mid-July. Picture this, Intel is going to blow out the price floor on AMD and offer better performance, clock per clock, in addition to outclocking the K8 by a healthy margin (~20%). the T6600, an low-end chip is proving to outperform the FX-62 (AMD's bad dog) in pretty much every category worth noting, has full support for X86-64, and has a lower TDP. Comparing price is a joke, the T6600 is going to retail for ~300 USD and the FX-62 is ~900-1000 USD.
r s for performance comparisons, see: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1970194 ,00.asp, http://www.xtremesystems.com/index.php.
ThinGs actually look quite bleak for AMD right now. Intel has hemorrhaged hundreds of Engineering Samples to enthusiast circles and it has been independently confirmed. This isn't just "hype", barring some unforseen miracle, AMD will find themselves in the same position relative to Intel they were a decade ago.
Anybody with half a brain knows this is just mindless PR, most games gain nothing from dual-core processors as it is, aside from driver-level multithreading. The latency between physical cores is such that a SMP system is worthless for loads which are not embarrasingly parallel. AMD should be embarrased they're even trying to sell this crap.
I've exclusively used AMD processors since the 'thunderbird, i.e. K7., Arstechnica did an overview of the new Core architecture recently, and it is a good primer on what is different. http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/core.a
Goody now I can carry my most powerful processor with me wherever I go, without shutting down the computer!
Question marks, motherfucker. Do you use them!?
You're overstating your case. Intel currently has no answer to HT, and that's necesary for both multi-cpu and multi-core chips. AMD will continue to firmly trounce Intel midrange server segment, which is hurting them where it counts indeed, and the cause for things like Dell's recent uptake of AMD. As well as Googles.
C//
yeah... amd might have some crap co-processors to add, but imagine being able to add the altivec instructions (or similar specialized instruction sets) to x86.... it would greatly improve video editing for x86.
The latency of HT sucks compared to what? The shared crap bus Intel STILL uses for the Xeon? Or compared to uber expensive offboard transports that are still many times slower? Core is good no doubt, but the recent ramp up in feature count and speed means that the new top of the line Core 2 Duo Extreme is going to use about the same amount of power as AMD's top of the line chips, which is pretty bad considering how trim the Pentium M line was.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I'm a contractor for a company designing a part perfect for this application. It's not a FPGA, but more like a array processor. I'll push for a socket ??? implementation.
for server and desktop before AMD...
Yes, real quad cores that suck because they are all contending for the same FSB. But perhaps your crystal fan-ball has also told you when they will solve that little problem.
"...upgrade path for a single motherboard system by letting you start with one chip and add another later on."
I laughed so hard when I read this.
The PC industry has been running this BS line for ever.
The reality is by the time you can afford or even _need_ the second CPU it will be long since obsoleted & unobtainable.
Multi-core in AMD world means essentially each core is on a memory bus. Well, a very fast memory bus, but still, multiple cores on a package share memory much like two sockets on single core intel servers. So a multi-core single socket AMD processor won't display impressive memory performance relevant to the comparable intel configuration. HT really helps multi-socket scalability, and opens up interesting possibilities for coprocessors and high performance computer interconnects (HTX).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
- Insert obligatory "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these..." -
As a huge AMD fan working for an Intel-based company, I'm really happy to see this. I admitted that the Duo had a big advantage over the AM2 socket, but with this coming out, I'm excited to see what's going to happen. But it'll all boil down to the price spent per chip...
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
So how about plugging in one of those new IBM/Sony Cell chip
Unified (for each core pair) 4MB L2 cache is going to help a lot there. Also, these aren't successors to the dual cores they're another choice for thread intensive applications that may not have a high a ratio of memory I/O to compute cycles. Real solutions demand muliple options for architecture, not just a sweeping belief that embedded memory controllers make everything better.