AMD Socket-AM2: Same Performance, Faster Memory, Lower Power
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 23, 2006 12:14 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
And there you have it, quite possibly the most unimpressive launch from AMD (from a performance perspective), but given what we had already seen prior to today there shouldn't be any surprises. The introduction of the Athlon 64 FX-62 means that there is an even faster alternative for those looking to spend as much as possible on a desktop or workstation CPU, but the new 5000+ isn't really all that appealing, especially if you're a gamer.
Socket-AM2 is unfortunately not about performance, and much about bringing a unified memory platform not only to AMD but to the industry as a whole. With all desktop AMD CPUs sharing a single socket end users and OEMs alike will have a much easier job when building AMD systems. On a much more macro scale, with both AMD and Intel using DDR2 memory prices should be driven down even further and switching between platforms will no longer require throwing away your entire memory investment.
The big story with Socket-AM2 is really the introduction of the new Energy Efficient and Energy Efficient Small Form Factor CPUs, but unfortunately those are not yet available. Instead, today's launch ends up being much more about the chipsets being used on AM2 motherboards rather than the CPUs. Later today we will be looking at NVIDIA's nForce 500 series and how the evolution of the most popular AMD chipset has taken to the Socket-AM2 platform.
It is ironic and equally unfortunate for AMD that on the eve of Intel finally getting its act together, that the Socket-AM2 launch is so devoid of any sort of performance improvements. It's clear that AMD's architecture just simply isn't starved of memory bandwidth at this point, and it will take either higher clock speeds or architectural improvements to make the move to DDR2 necessary. We are happy with the fact that AMD at least kept memory latency down while moving to DDR2, but at this point there's simply no use for the bandwidth.
In the coming months we will see the official launch of Intel's Core 2 Duo processors, based on the Conroe core. Only time will tell how availability will affect pricing of those CPUs, but Intel is quite eager to release them. AMD is also awaiting the launch of Core 2 Duo, though for different reasons; in fact one of its stipulations for sending out Socket-AM2 review kits was that the CPUs not be compared to Conroe. We understood and agreed with AMD's stance on the issue, simply because Core 2 Duo (Conroe) isn't shipping yet while AM2 is, but we do get a sense of concern whenever Conroe is brought up around AMD.
AMD does have one last trick up its sleeve before the end of the year, and you will hear about it in June. It's not K8L and it's not going to affect the majority of people, but it is an interesting stop gap solution for the high end in 2006...
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mlittl3 - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
Until K8L (which will have microarchitectural improvements), there are a few things that could allow AMD to look good against Core 2.1) Price drops so that comparable K8 and Core 2 processors are the same price giving the same performance/$ ratio (this metric is important for the budget constrained)
2) Nov. '06 release of 65 nm AM2 processors so that K8 and Core 2 processors will have the same performance/watt ratio (65 nm could give K8 a 20% drop in power and with Core 2 being 20% faster, they will have the same performance/watt ratio which is popular now). Also, everytime AMD transitions to a new die process they add some minor bug fixes and minor memory/microarchitectural enhancements which could also boost performance by a few percent.
3) Continual improvements to DDR2 latency might yield a 2-2-2 DDR2 800 memory module which will probably benefit K8 more (maybe ~5% improvement) than Core 2 but this is a wild guess here and I don't know if it is even possible. However, DDR400 latency started around 4-4-4 and dropped to 2-2-2 so it could happen.
With the same performance/price and performance/watt as Core 2, K8 could stay competitive and OEMS and users decide on which company (if not both) they would like to do business with. This is all speculation and of course everyone is more than welcome to rip my reasoning to death.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
I seriously doubt we will ever see DDR2-800 running at 2-2-2 timings. (Feel free to quote me on this in the future and make fun of me if I'm proven wrong. :-)) Just think how long we had DDR memory around, and no one ever managed to create 1-1-1 DDR-400 memory. I do think we will see 3-3-3 DDR2-800, and possibly even higher bandwidth with those timings. In fact, we almost have that already judging from my experiences so far with socket AM2. (I can post and run benchmarks, but I wouldn't call the system 100% stable.)mlittl3 - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
LOL! I will!MacGuffin - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
From Patriot's PDC22G8000+XBLK Rev. 2 review on PCSTATS.Rated for DDR2-667 @ 3-3-3-9 (Maintains those timings through DDR2-940!)
Rated for DDR2-1000 @ 4-4-4-12 (Goes Up to DDR2-1020!)
Completely stable on the Intel platform they used. It's extremely expensive (saw it for $400+ at NewEgg). But yes, it is possible to run 2GB at these timings already. Its just extremely expensive.
EdisonStarfire - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
any opinions on AMD offering a Clearspeed solution as stop-gap in the high end desktop arena ?Griswold - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
The bottom line is, we now know what we knew last fall, or rather (rightfully) assumed.Now you made me curious. Could that be the "noise in june" which Henri Richards mentioned in a Register interview earlier this month?
smn198 - Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - link
It is called quad-core.temp2 - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
The extremetech.com article has a similar teaser at the end, but it is slightly more specific:
"And given recent discussions with AMD, we can safely say that the company hasn't launched its last FX series CPU for the year quite yet."
mino - Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - link
This provided, 3.2 or even 3.4 FX's on 65nm are on the way...Scrogneugneu - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
Beware the mighty Sempron FX 32 !