Athlon FX ...a new breed of Processor...

[mr_gobbledegook]

With still two weeks left until the official launch of Athlon 64/FX web sites have already started to post sample benchmarks of the chip and intensity of chattering from enthusiasts on the various forums is growing about the phenomenal performance of the new chip.

I think it’s a pretty good prediction that Athlon FX is going is going to be one heck of a chip. If any of the initial benchmarks of Nforce3 Opteron are anything to go by this chip is seriously going to be one for the gamers…

What you are about to witness my friends is AMD stepping in to the arena with all guns blazing charging head first into Intel P4 territory…lets just hope they have enough ammo in the barrel eh ?!

<A HREF="http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1649/" target="_new">Hardware Analysis</A> – <i><font color=blue>We’ve clocked in about eight hours of benchmarking and stress testing with it already and we found that our similarly configured 3.06GHz Pentium 4 was no match for the Athlon 64. In many cases the Athlon 64 FX bested it by 40 to 50%.</i></font color=blue>

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1856" target="_new">Anandtech</A> – <i><font color=blue> Gaming is one area where our tests show Opteron at 2.0GHZ an amazing performer. When you find game benchmarks 10% to 20% higher, you are genuinely impressed. However, in some of the very latest DX9 benchmarks, Athlon64/Opteron was 40% to 50% faster. </i></font color=blue>


<font color=purple>Ladies and Gentlemen, its...Hammer Time !</font color=purple>

 

[Mephistopheles]

Indeed, it seems that A64 will be very powerful.

What still remains to be seen, however, is how it stacks up against a 3.4Ghz Prescott, of which we have absolutely no benchmarks whatsoever...

But even so, A64 FX looks interesting...

<font color=red><b>M</b></font color=red>ephistopheles

 

[SJJM]

I think that intel will wait to see what they need to bring out to keep amd just under them. Intel might have to bring out something faster like the 3.6ghz just to keep up with amd. But who knows maybe the 3.2ghz Prescott might be able to hold down that beast of a cpu fx.

<font color=blue>"You know, that my backstab attack does double the damage. I can make an off button for him." </font color=blue> 😎

 

[kinney]

Very interesting links... yet people still downplay the Athlon64... tisk tisk.
It will be interesting to see how the THG intel fanboys react on launch of this beast.

I don't understand this intel love that always goes around here.

Thx for posting this.

Athlon 1700+, Epox 8RDA (NForce2), Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 80GB 8MB cache, 2x256mb Crucial PC2100 in Dual DDR, Geforce 3, Audigy, Z560s, MX500

 

[NMDante]

It should be interesting, but how many will be available for consumers at initial launch, is what I'm more worried about.

Seems like it's gonna cost a bunch to get the A64FX CPU, mobo, and, unless they have corrected it, ECC DDR400 RAM. Now, if this is the 754 (or whatever pin config) and not the 900 series, that should be very interesting, especially with it using just single channel.

Overall...it looks good for AMD, which is what it needs. But if this is just another paper launch, with volume availablity near the end of the year, or early next year, it's not gonna be that good for AMD.

Just my opinions.



How many watts does it take to get the center of CPU core?

 

[mr_gobbledegook]

Personally I don’t think Intel with be able to release a 3.6Ghz Prescott that rapidly. Due to the fact:

- Intel are still in the process of converting and ironing out .09 micron process therefore Prescott yields will be severely limited in 2003. 3.6Ghz Prescotts in Q104 is more realistic.

- Intel will want concentrate on clustering and server solutions as it has already becoming apparent this is an area that Opteron has had successive wins i.e (University Of Utah, Dawning Servers In China, Los Alamos National Laboratory). Intel have woken up to this hence why they have released a cut down version of <A HREF="http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/08/technology/intel.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes" target="_new">Itainum today</A> specifically designed for this market.

I predict the performance gap between AMD and Intel will close in Q204 when AMD start moving to .09 micron and Intel resolve chipset issues i.e Grantsdale and ramp up production; probably achieving 4.0Ghz before close of play of Q304.

One word of warning though Athlon FX is going to be expensive, probably costing more than Intel's 3.2Ghz)

<font color=purple>Ladies and Gentlemen, its...Hammer Time !</font color=purple>

 

[kinney]

I agree.

Athlon 1700+, Epox 8RDA (NForce2), Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 80GB 8MB cache, 2x256mb Crucial PC2100 in Dual DDR, Geforce 3, Audigy, Z560s, MX500

 

[superpsa]

Let's just hope it's a good clean fight with no naughtiness from either company. If there is I think we should all go out in protest and buy VIA C3s...just complain intensely and get called fanboys.

AMD Is An Anagram Of MAD, Intel Is An Anagram Of INLET, Cyrix...Ah Who Cares?

 

[superpsa]

Let's just hope it's a good clean fight with no naughtiness from either company. If there is I think we should all go out in protest and buy VIA C3s...just complain intensely and get called fanboys.

AMD Is An Anagram Of MAD, Intel Is An Anagram Of INLET, Cyrix...Ah Who Cares?

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Well, considering that Intel delayed, but then said they would release Dothan later, but almost on time (Pentium M .09), I don't see any reason to believe they will delay the Prescott. Intel has no reason to be worried about A64 for now though, they simply could bump up the NW to 3.4Ghz if they had to, but it would look like the 3.2Ghz Prescott will be hear sooner than later. That's not even considering how much of a perf gain will be seen from the additional cache and improvements to hyperthreading.

It more depends on how well the <b>A64</b> will scale, so that it can remain competative with the Prescott through its lifetime, till a new breed of the K8, or the development of some kind of K9 series.

I want to see an <font color=blue>Ati Radeon 99999 Ultra Pro</font color=blue>, based on the <font color=red>AtiRage core</font color=red>. And people wonder how a <font color=purple>Geforce3</font color=purple> is better than a <font color=orange>Geforce4 Mx...</font color=orange>

 

[soccerdude90]

i also agree its going to take a pretty penny outta gamers pockets, put another thing, usually when the new amazing CPU's come out, the rest disappear onto the backs of dusty shelves.. lol, making THEM cheaper, plus the composition might wanna make THEM seem like the cheap alternate.. lol, wyou never kno how things will turn in the AMD/Intel battle... and i agree with the clean fight [-peep-]..

Help me out, im a 14 year old boy in a land of... old people!

 

[spud]

Heres a better question how certain are you the Pentium 4 M's arent already 0.09. 20% less heat output to the equivellent P4 makes you wonder. Since the Willy conversion was more embarassing that they didnt have the 0.13 process polished off its quite compelling.

Oh and I know Intel says its 0.13 but really think about it the thermal characteristics are there. As well as the voltage decreases. Just something to think about since they came out with the core about the same time they announced they had a fab running on 0.09 etching lithographs.

But hey it could be me being too X-Files oriented.

-Jeremy

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=5341387" target="_new">Busting Sh@t Up!!!</A>
<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcm=1400777" target="_new">Busting More Sh@t Up!!!</A>

 

[eden]

Very interesting links... yet people still downplay the Athlon64... tisk tisk.
It will be interesting to see how the THG intel fanboys react on launch of this beast.

I don't understand this intel love that always goes around here.

Thx for posting this.

Kinney if I were charged 100$ an hour for being a shrink, I'd have to be paid 100$ for a mere second to have analysed the rather non-subtle attempt at using your mind's past day experience to blast your anger.

You said that because of our argument. You think I'm an Intel fanboy, and your subconscious has created the need to vent.

Fact is there are few Intel fanboys here. Which is a great thing, just like there are few AMD fanboys.
I can't even believe you think Pope uncovered Intel fanboys, when the majority of repliers to him are AMD users or have owned an AMD.

Gimme my 100$, it was still rounded by the hour.

--
<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/THGC/album.html" target="_new"><font color=blue><b>Are you ugly and looking into showing your mug? Then the THGC Album is the right place for you!</b></font color=blue></A>

 

[eden]

The gaming aspect is VERY compelling, however I would take Hardware Analysis' rather sad attempt at comparing a 3400+ rating CPU to a 3.06GHZ as a tad unfair, no? Put the 3200+ A64 against a 3.2GHZ P4, then the battle is right.
Of course, the real fight will be a 3400+ vs the 3.2GHZ, so chances are AMD will get the crown this time.

So again, it will be a gaming whore. But the price will also be steep. I have a hard time believing those who think and still think that AMD's best will always be rock bottom in prices. It's a wrong thing to say. Finally AMD has woken up and is charging the right amount to SURVIVE. I mean, it's great to find 100$ CPUs, but it sucks for them!

The A64 will come at a premium, and that is a good thing if its performance is justified. I don't however believe it will be THAT good in multimedia like the P4.

But gaming-wise, I'd gladly recommend the A64 for the DX9 gen if it is OVER 10% better. Less than that and a P4 is better, because it's an all-arounder.

--
<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/THGC/album.html" target="_new"><font color=blue><b>Are you ugly and looking into showing your mug? Then the THGC Album is the right place for you!</b></font color=blue></A>

 

[kinney]

You said that because of our argument. You think I'm an Intel fanboy, and your subconscious has created the need to vent.

Well if you are not a Intel fanboy, then give AMD the credit they are due.
And I'm saying more than "well they are good for low end", that is complete garbage arguement. Also, the most common.
Not even a stock clocked 2500+ can be considered "low end". Let alone one that is o/c'd

And quit assuming tech from Intel which we know even less about than AMD is somehow automatically declared superior!

Athlon 1700+, Epox 8RDA (NForce2), Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 80GB 8MB cache, 2x256mb Crucial PC2100 in Dual DDR, Geforce 3, Audigy, Z560s, MX500

 

[spud]

But the P7 is superior the K8 is a hybrid add on job. The fact its borrowing bits and useing the 64bit registers when its running in 32bit mode is whats brings its execution power up considerably but the extremely low latency of the memcontroller is where its really at. The Athlon core due to its very basic design needs to have low latency because is still has a shitty prefetch module and from what I can tell its doing soo much shifting it kills it if the wait state is too long.

But hey thats my take on the core we all know what the P7 is meant to do. But due to AMD's lack of vision we have no answers on where the K8 is supposed to go and that there in is the real problem.

-Jeremy

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=5341387" target="_new">Busting Sh@t Up!!!</A>
<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcm=1400777" target="_new">Busting More Sh@t Up!!!</A>

 

[endyen]

You sure got that wrong way round. The Kate has far more changes than ole scotty. Scotty is smaller, and has more of the same, but Kate has an onboard mem controller "new" SSE2 and 2 new pipes as well as the same "more" as scotty.

 

[spud]

The Prescott is a significant redesign of the the P7 line. I can tell you that much. The K8 was minor improvements and integration attempts no real technological changes from a engineering stand point.

-Jeremy

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=5341387" target="_new">Busting Sh@t Up!!!</A>
<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcm=1400777" target="_new">Busting More Sh@t Up!!!</A>

 

[slvr_phoenix]

You sure got that wrong way round. The Kate has far more changes than ole scotty. Scotty is smaller, and has more of the same, but Kate has an onboard mem controller "new" SSE2 and 2 new pipes as well as the same "more" as scotty.

Not really. The thing is that both Scotty and Kate (strange but cute) are both significant redesigns. There's nothing all that original in Kate. There's nothing all that original in Scotty. It's the <i>way</i> that these unoriginal concepts are being merged into a redesign of an old product that makes them interesting. I don't really see any one as more of a leap in technology as the other though.

Which goes back to why I won't proclaim <i>either</i> A64 or Scotty as the next desktop performance god. The proof is in the pudding and so far all that I've been served is the salad.

<pre><A HREF="http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20030905" target="_new"><font color=black>People don't understand how hard being a dark god can be. - Hastur</font color=black></A></pre><p>

 

[mr_gobbledegook]

<A HREF="http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1651/" target="_new">Hardware Analysis</A> has posted an update on thier Athlon Fx test bed. Key features include installing of Windows 64 Beta and that Athlon 64 FX requires registered DDR memory in order to work.

<font color=purple>Ladies and Gentlemen, its...Hammer Time !</font color=purple>

 

[eden]

2 new pipes

That's 2 stages not 2 pipes. 2 pipes means it now has 11 IPC, more wasted space.

K8 has this more:

-SSE2
-Added Cache
-Integrated controller
-x86-64
-Added 2 stages for packing.

Now yes it is a great upgrade, but it still is covering a dated core that needs to change.

Scotty is oriented towards extreme multimedia support:

-Added cache
-PNI
-SSE3 (or is that PNI?)
-Better HT
-Improved Trace Cache
-Possibly added L1
-Some more core adjustments (but I could be wrong).

The K8 will roll over the P4 in gaming, but will literally die in multimedia to Prescott, and already does to the P4 3.2.

It's really now "Which serves your needs", and not which is totally the better one.

But as Spud says too, it's a dated design, the Kate, has little future-proofness in the core engineering. The P7 can last till 2005 easily, the K8 may not. The P7 core is proven and WILL survive because of the pipeline design. It's the K7 of 1999 that is now updated, that will have troubles. Clock speed will soon become everything for AMD, and that's where the problems start.

--
<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/THGC/album.html" target="_new"><font color=blue><b>Are you ugly and looking into showing your mug? Then the THGC Album is the right place for you!</b></font color=blue></A>