.09 Athlon 64: Value, Speed and Overclocking
by Wesley Fink on October 14, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
In the last several weeks, AMD has quietly introduced several Athlon 64 processors in the new 90nm die-shrink. The new Socket 939 3000+, 3200+, and 3500+ are based on the new Winchester core. They are also the first Athlon 64 processors to become available at speeds below 3500+ in Socket 939. This is very important, since the biggest news is the fact that the price of entry for a Socket 939 processor is now less than $200. Of course, a successful die-shrink and lower costs are interrelated, and in this case, the model seems to be working as we would expect.
Nothing has really changed on the outside, but if you can find a 3000+ or 3200+ in Socket 939, you can be confident that it is the new 90nm version. Since 3500+ is produced in both 90nm and 130nm versions, you will need to ask if it is a 90nm part. Most resellers that have the new 90nm Athlon 64 have been prominently advertising them.
The latest version 1.24 of CPU-Z can be downloaded at www.cpuid.com. Version 1.24 correctly identifies the die-shrink (.09), the core (Winchester), and the Revision (DH8-D0). Earlier versions of CPU-Z don't recognize the new processors, so make certain that you are using Version 1.24 or later.
A late 3800+ is identified, for comparison, as a NewCastle core, .13 process, and Revision DH7-CG.
There has been a lot of speculation about how important this die-shrink is to AMD. Most of this has revolved around the higher yield and lower cost of production for the smaller chip. Since Intel has already moved to .09, analysts believed AMD needed the yields and lower cost of the .09 shrink to effectively compete with Intel on a cost basis.
There are also potential advantages to the end-user from the die-shrink. These include lower power consumption, cooler processor operation, and greater headroom for higher overclocking. It is these advantages that will interest most of you. We will take a closer look in this review at whether these advantages are realized.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
89 Comments
View All Comments
Bugler - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
Newegg Model#: OCZ4001024ELDCPER2-KItem#: N82E16820146890
OCZ EL Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel Kit 184-Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200 - Retail $281
Araemo - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
nevermind...It is only for sale in 1 gig packs of 2x512 right now, different part #:
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?DEPA...
Araemo - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
Also.. is that ram available in the retail channel? I wanted to look up the price, and found the part number(I believe) OCZ400512ELPER2However, this isn't on newegg, or pricewatch.
Araemo - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
#23 - WesleyIf you already have overclock results of a p4 from another article, how difficult would it be to include in the graphs? Or were those results using a different enough configuration that it is not an applicable comparison?(In which case, as a reader that loves Anandtech for your thoroughness, I would like to see an applicable comparison.)
All in all, good review. Not as overly wordy as some have been recently(Though I won't name names. ;P).
Bugler - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
With the 3500+ showing a 20% overclock and the 3000+ hitting a 45% overclock, it would be great to know how the 3200+ would overclock in this comparison.Wesley, thank you so much. Once again, another fine job.
PrinceGaz - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
Further to my earlier comment, the default core voltage of all the Winchester-core 90nm A64 parts currently available is 1.4V, not 1.5V as indicated in the review. Its important this is corrected on the Overclocking page of the review as it is very relevant to the obtained results.I now see that you didn't actually measure the temperature under full-load conditions. Other reports suggest that the 90nm parts do run cooler when idle than the equivalent 130nm parts, but are hotter under full-load conditions due to the higher thermal density. They have been measured as using less power under full-load than the 130nm parts, but run hotter because that power is concentrated in a smaller core.
I'd be very interested to know just how hot that 3000+ got under full-load conditions (eg. running Prime95) when you were feeding it 1.6V instead of 1.4V, and had it clocked at the maximum of 2610MHz. If you were using the standard retail HSF, it may have been rather hot :)
----
As for why the 90nm parts run a little faster than the 130nm parts, I found this post on the AMD forum. I don't know if the info is accurate, but it sounds reasonable:
Whether the 90nm process for the 3000+ to 3500+ runs cooler is still up for speculation to a degree. What will eventually be shown is that the TDP for these processors is lower than the current 130nm. (currently it is 89W TDP, the TDP for these three - when the information is released - is 67W).
In addition the 90nm A64 (DH8-D0) has these improvements over the 130nm (DH7-CG):
- improved DRAM page closing policy
- improved memory addressing with graphics cards using main memory (eg. integrated cards) as frame buffer
- memory controller power reductions (DDR receivers go off in default)
- memory power consumption reductions (CKE pins disconnect)
- second write combining buffer
- SAHF and LAHF instructions are now supported in 64bit mode
Wesley Fink - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
#22 - I appreciate your suggestion, and we did overclock the Pentium 4 775 in our "Intel 925X Roundup: Creative Engineering 101" at http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2162.The highest stable overclock we could achieve with the P4 on air cooling was 3.92GHz (280x14) on the best overclocking 925X board. Others have achieved higher overclocks with water and phase-change cooling, and higher overclocks will also likely be achieved with those methods on the new 90nm Athlon 64 processors.
We will be looking at Pentium 4 overclocking again in the upcoming launch of some new and improved P4 processors.
thermalpaste - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
I am an AMD freak, and Im happy they launched the winchester. You should have, however overclocked the Pentium-4 also, just to compare the scalability of both the CPUs.I had read an article on somebody overclocking the pentium-4 to 6 Ghz. Though this was an unstable overclock, what this indirectly implies is that despite of have a 30-odd stage pipeline, intel may find it difficult to reach speeds in excess of 5Ghz using the 0.09u process...I expect a more thorough comparo soon.....cheers!
deathwalker - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
All the buzz in this article is about the O/C'ing capabilities of the new .90 die...personally im just as impressed or maybe even more so with the performance of the memory used in this testing. Having made that statement it is clear that the O/C'ing capability of the 3000+ version of this Proc. takes us back to the good old days of the Celery 300.Wesley Fink - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
#11 & #16 - The memory brand is identified in the "Performace Test Configuration" on p.4 and the timings are in Overclocking table on p.5.The OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 and other top performing memory is tested on the Athlon 64 in "Athlon 64 Memory: Rewriting the Rules" at http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=222... Some memory in that review made it to DDR618 on A64, but DDR580 at 1T was the fastest 1T performance.