AMD Athlon 64 3800+ and FX-53: The First 939 CPUs
by Derek Wilson on June 1, 2004 12:30 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
So the verdict on 939 is that it isn't a revolutionary performer, and it won't bring peace to world. But socket 939 is really the finishing touch and final polish that the Athlon 64 line has been waiting for.
We have been waiting for this socket for a long time now, and if we lived in a perfect world, we would have seen a socket 939 like solution (with dual channel and all desktop Athlon 64 processors on one platform) from the beginning. Of course, now that its here, we have reason to rejoice. Socket 754 will become home to the new value line of processors as the current generation of Athlon XP processors fades into the sunset, and 940 pin platforms will still be used for Opteron servers and workstations.
We keep hearing rumors of an Opteron for 939, but we aren't exactly sure why something like that makes sense. Registered and ECC memory support are very important for server and workstation class systems. Stability is the most important factor in such platforms, and taking away such a big part of the equation really doesn't seem logical.
In the final analysis, current socket 754 and socket 940 users won't see gain any real value from "upgrading" to socket 939. The new addition of a dual channel memory controller for unbuffered DDR has no doubt given the Athlon 64 line a small performance increase, but it may not be as much as people had been expecting. The main advantages to socket 939 will be the convergence of the Athlon 64 desktop platform, the ability to use unbuffered RAM in conjunction with high end desktop processors, and the warm feeling that comes from knowing there's quite a lot of memory bandwidth under the hood with a dual channel memory controller on die.
The real reason we aren't seeing more intense performance increases from socket 939 is the same reason we don't huge performance differences between Athlon 64 processors with different sized caches (at least we don't see the variance we see among Pentium 4 based processors): the Athlon 64 is not an incredibly deeply pipelined architecture, and cache misses that result in pipeline stalls don't cause the processor to waste much of its time refilling the pipeline (as is the case with Intel's Netburst architecture in low cache situations). Really, the added bandwidth of dual channel is able to more than make up for the loss of 512kB in cache.
The socket 939 FX-53 absolutely takes the cake in terms of performance (though price will still be a barrier to entry, and an Athlon 64 processor will be a much better value). We are happy with the new line of Athlon 64 processors.
In the final analysis, we aren't talking about the be all end all of platforms and performance, but, certainly, anyone who wants an Athlon 64 system should look no further than socket 939 for its flexibility, overclockability, and performance.
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gherald - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Search for 939 on newegg.com folks, you will be pleasantly surprised! Now if we could just find a motherboard...I had been hopping this launch would bring the 754 prices down a bit to, say, $220 for a 3200 and $350 for a 3400, but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen quite yet what with 939 starting out at $500 for the 3500 and $700 for the 3800... *sigh* ... more waiting... perhaps prices will come down by the time true PCIe motherboards are availeable.
amdfanboy - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Go AMD !!nserra - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
"Everything here is graphics card limited even at 1024x768, but perhaps in the near future when we upgrade the video card we use in CPU and motherboard tests..." i have said this at xbit site and I say it here again!What about lowering games resolution and details it may help! There is a detail level in almost every game, it may help. You are testing a processor not the video card! I don't want benches in a processor review that limit the differences between processors.
fx53 35 fps vs xp3000+ 34fps, what a difference!
JGF - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
#22 while I certainly agree these new prices are too high I dont agree with the wholesale gutting of prices that you're recommending. AMD deserves some decent margins, they shouldnt have to give their product away all the time. Thats unhealthy business and has really hurt amd in the past. I want a healthy amd and for that they are going to need some fatter margins on some sku's.RyanVM - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Found a typo on page 13: "Winstones hare usually very static..." should be "Winstones are usually very static..."XRaider - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
What the heat issues with these newer AMD cpu's? I believe I read on that French site that the new AMD's are putting out alot of thermal wattage! 100+ Can anyone confirm this? I believe the P4 3.4 puts out around 102 - 104 watts! That's alot.AtaStrumf - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
I found a couple of typos if anyone would care to correct them:p.13
Workstation performance is more sensitive to memory bandwidth, and we do see a wider range in variation among the --3.2GHz-- (THAT WOULD BE 2,2GHz) processors in SPECviewperf.
The pattern was the generally the same fastest to slowest of 939-949-754 (THAT WOULD BE 939-940-754)
p.14
Since we have found the performance of the Dual-Channel Socket 940 and the Single-Channel 754 to be close when hey (THEY)ran...
Anyway these new S939s suck a$$. Well actually their prices do. Here's what I suggest: retire Athlon XP socket A, introduce it as Socket 754 but only higher models, price 20% up, bring S754 down 33% and S939 down 50%, retire FXs. These prices now are insane.
AMD are you listening? Of course not.
Viditor - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
"i'll be getting a Dual Channel for sure when the arrive. Pair that with a nice new X800 XT from ATI and i'll be sitting pretty with the flexibility of upgrading for awhile"Horses for courses I guess...I'll be getting one too, but I think I'm going nvidia because they appear to have a better handle on 64bit drivers...
JMHO
vedin - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Sure would be nice if they released something more along the lines of a 3000-3300+ for 939 this year. Maybe then my brother can finally be nice and justified with an upgrade without having to spend a lot.Icewind - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Hmmm, well i'll be getting a Dual Channel for sure when the arrive. Pair that with a nice new X800 XT from ATI and i'll be sitting pretty with the flexibility of upgrading for awhile.Thanks again AMD, im anxious to get out of this P4 setup I have now.