GA-K8NSNXP-939 and Athlon 64 question on n.m.

[Jakey]

I've been looking at the GA-K8NSNXP-939 board ( http://tw.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_GA-K8NSNXP-939.htm ), and on the CPU support list provided on the website that I linked above, all of the listed processors have "130 nm" in parenthesis. While searching pricewatch, i've noticed some say "90 nm".

My question is does this regard to the pin size on the processor, and do I need to worry about it when searching pricewatch or anywhere that sells this? If my assumption is wrong, please educate me. Thank you for your time.

 

[Crashman]

It refers to the "die process size" of the CPU, which I believe is actually the transistor size. Every so often manufacturing technology improves, allowing companies to shrink their processor cores. Normally, this allows lower voltage, lower heat output, lower power consumption.

The 90nm cores are better cores than the 130nm cores, but because they have a slight performance gain, AMD decided to make them 200MHz slower than their 130nm counterparts. 90nm giveth, AMD taketh away. So they produce less heat and overclock nicely, but come with a lower standard clock speed.

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[Jakey]

Cool, thank you for the info Crashman.