Industry Update - Q4-2004: AMD adds SSE3 Support, Intel's 925/915 not selling and more
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 3, 2004 1:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
AMD Athlon 64 Revision E adds SSE3 Support
As we discovered most recently, AMD's 90nm CPUs are of a brand new revision that featured a number of bug fixes and performance improvements. Internally AMD refers to this CPU revision as Revision D. However we noticed something very interesting when looking at the latest AMD roadmaps while in Taiwan: the 90nm chips listed as San Diego and Venice (Athlon 64 FX and Athlon 64 respectively) claimed SSE3 support as a feature, but the current 90nm chips do not have SSE3 support.
We went around to quite a few manufacturers asking what the difference was between the 90nm chips shipping today and the 90nm chips that supposedly feature SSE3 support, and unfortunately we were left with very little information - until we learned to ask for the right thing.
Internally, AMD's San Diego and Venice CPUs are referred to as nothing more than Athlon 64 Revision E chips. Revision E includes even more bug fixes and performance improvements over those we found in Revision D, including support for the 13 new instructions that were added with Prescott, more commonly known as SSE3.
The performance enhancements that go along with Revision E chips include some optimizations to the Athlon 64's memory controller. The more optimized memory controller improves bandwidth efficiency with regards to unified graphics memory accesses; given that the only type of graphics that uses system memory (and thus the on-die memory controller) is integrated graphics, it's safe to say that the Rev E chips will offer better integrated graphics performance.
The first Revision E CPUs will begin shipping in early 2005. AMD also has plans to introduce an Athlon 64 4200+ towards the middle of 2005; they are not listing whether the part will feature a 512KB or 1MB L2 cache, but it will most likely run at 2.6GHz. The Athlon 64 FX-57 is also listed on the roadmap as a 2H-05 part, it's specifications are also unclear but we'd expect it to be a 2.8GHz part with a 1MB L2 cache. Both the Athlon 64 FX-57 and Athlon 64 4200+ appear to be 90nm parts built on the San Diego and Venice cores, respectively.
AMD's 2005 roadmap did not specifically list anything faster than the 4200+, although the classic "> 4200+" was present on the roadmap to indicate potentially faster parts.
On the Intel side of things we heard the name Cedar Mill thrown around a bit more. In the past some have referred to Intel's dual core Pentium 4 as Cedar Mill, but we now know that is Smithfield. This time we heard Cedar Mill referred to as the first 1066MHz FSB Pentium 4s that aren't Extreme Edition chips. Cedar Mill is supposed to be out in the 2nd half of 2005, which supports a claim we made in our recent review of the Pentium 4 3.46EE: "the 3.46EE will be followed up by the 3.73EE as the only two chips to support the faster FSB for almost a year."
So what does having no mainstream 1066MHz FSB chips until the end of next year mean? It means that Intel is holding out for Glenwood and Lakeport and that Sunday's launch of the 1066MHz FSB was merely a gimmick. The 925XE will be buried as the chipset that offered support for two CPUs that no one bought, while Glenwood and Lakeport will be the knights in shining armor that brought 1066MHz FSB support to all.
Intel seems to have learned from their 925X and 915 chipset launches - multiple fundamental technology changes without performance gains don't go over well. Glenwood and Lakeport will be able to support faster DDR2 (DDR2-667), 1066MHz FSB and dual core support upon their release, not to mention that lower latency DDR2 should be available by then (mid next year) and PCI Express graphics should be much more prevalent as well.
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YellowWing - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
To answer the MB maker's question about what would make me get off the dime and purshase a new motherboard...One that has 5.1 digital out in either Dolby or DTS so I could set it up with other audio equipment. Without that feature they can put most anything they want on a board and I won't upgrade.
A digital out that just does stereo PCM does not cut it.
And any more than 4 USB ports is overkill. Firewire IS required.
Houdani - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
[SNIP]I hope you enjoyed this little update on the industry, if you'd like to see more of these types of articles just let us know - the flight to Taiwan isn't too bad and the information is usually top notch :)"
[/SNIP]
By all means continue. This is great insight into the real industry, and is immeasurably more entertaining than the one-sided, questionable fluff which PR departments typically pawn off on us.
This is real information, sans polish, and I truly appreciate that you provided us with this report.
Rekonn - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
Great article, really enjoyed reading this, just facts without marketing BS. Gives real insight into what the market will be like in the next couple of months. You mentioned pcie shortages, any news about the AGP version of the 6600GT ?CrystalBay - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
Pebkac, BTW how's the food in TW...? Well I'm pretty excited about P4M DTR's MB's from DFI and others. It could stop some of the hemmoraging for Intel...CrystalBay - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
KristopherKubicki - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
Don't forget to check our Insider section for more articles like this one.Kristopher
BigT383 - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
I'd like to see more of these types of articles... just letting you know.;-)
Seriously, these types of articles are great. I'd just make sure before you take the trip that there will be enough new information to cover while you're there. I like the fact that you're bypassing the PR departments this way. Generally, Anandtech readers are smarter than the average consumer, and don't deserve to be fed the same PR crap that Johnny Uninformed gets... For evidence of this see post 17 by MAME.
mlittl3 - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
#21, 2005 won't be all that boring. I agree that there won't be much excitement from Intel or AMD but some things will be cool. Here is a quick list of cool things to look forward too in 2005.AMD 90nm processors with better memory controller, bug fixes and SSE3
More AMD Semprons from socket 754
AMD 2.8 and maybe 3.0 GHz CPUs
Dual core processors from both AMD and Intel
Intel 6xx series CPUs (this is not so exciting)
Possible Win XP for 64bits might be released
R5xx and NV5x GPUs released (R5xx with SM3.0)
And will all this cool new hardware, we can play the games released in 2004 at higher frame rates (Doom3, Half-life2, etc.).
:)
piasabird - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
About 6 months ago I also saw some articles on Intel that claimed they wanted to bring the Mobile chipset to the desktop. Is this a viable option?piasabird - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
I recall an experiment Intel was doing with a new chipset similar to the MINI-ITX motherboards. Are they going to sell these to the end consumer. It was suppose to be a motherboard with a Centrino PIII type processor similar to the VIA C3 but lots faster. I saw a couple of benchmerks on it. I think it was the Shelton Chipset.