AMD Socket-AM2: Same Performance, Faster Memory, Lower Power
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 23, 2006 12:14 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Through regular advances in process technology, AMD has also been able to reduce the power consumption of the entire X2 line on Socket-AM2. Now all AM2 X2 parts feature an 89W TDP, whereas previously the higher model number X2s were all 110W parts. AMD confirmed that the lower power consumption would also affect newer fabbed Socket-939 X2s, however AMD will not be changing the TDP ratings on those chips.
On top of reducing power consumption for the Athlon 64 X2 line, Socket-AM2 will also be home to AMD's new Energy Efficient processors. Through the same sort of TDP targeting that is used to manufacture energy efficient Opteron processors, you will now be able to pay a premium and purchase cooler running Athlon 64, X2 and Sempron AM2 processors. The clock speeds and model numbers remain the same, but these new processors will either carry an Energy Efficient logo indicating a 65W TDP or an Energy Efficient Small Form Factor logo that indicates a 35W TDP.
The entire list of Energy Efficient and EE SFF CPUs is listed below:
| CPU | TDP | Price | Premium |
| AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Energy Efficient | 65W | $671 | +$26 |
| AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Energy Efficient | 65W | $601 | +$43 |
| AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Energy Efficient | 65W | $514 | +$44 |
| AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Energy Efficient | 65W | $417 | +$52 |
| AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ Energy Efficient | 65W | $353 | +$25 |
| AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Energy Efficient | 65W | $323 | +$20 |
| AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Energy Efficient Small Form Factor | 35W | $364 | +$61 |
| AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Energy Efficient Small Form Factor | 35W | $231 | +$42 |
| AMD Sempron 3400+ Energy Efficient Small Form Factor | 35W | $145 | +$48 |
| AMD Sempron 3200+ Energy Efficient Small Form Factor | 35W | $119 | +$32 |
| AMD Sempron 3000+ Energy Efficient Small Form Factor | 35W | $101 | +$24 |
For anywhere from $20 - $60 over their 89W and 62W counterparts, you can now have 65W or 35W Energy Efficient AM2 CPUs. The price premium is tacked onto the processors because these lower wattage parts don't yield at the same rate as the higher wattage CPUs, and thus require a higher price to make up for the decrease in yield. But honestly, the premium on a lot of the CPUs is small enough that we can't help but recommend them (assuming the real world reduction in power is in line with AMD's reduction in TDP rating).
The Energy Efficient Small Form Factor Athlon 64 X2 3800+ at a mere 35W (less than half the TDP of the standard X2 3800+) is particularly interesting to us, but unfortunately we'll have to wait before being able to provide you all with power measurements. While all regular AM2 CPUs are available beginning today, the new Energy Efficient models won't be available in the channel until sometime in June. AMD did not have enough samples on hand to even provide us with one in time for publication, citing extreme OEM demand as the reason for supply being so tight. Hopefully when these CPUs do hit the channel we won't see any sort of price gouging as they are extremely attractive.
There are of course a long list of of new motherboards and chipsets with support for Socket-AM2, but we'll save the deep dive on both of those topics for some of our other articles in the works. Later today you'll be able to read all about NVIDIA's new nForce 500 platform, later in the week you'll see what ATI has to offer for AM2 and then next week we'll have our first roundup of Socket-AM2 motherboards.
The Test
| CPU: | AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 (Socket-AM2) AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 (Socket-939) AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (Socket-AM2) AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ (Socket-AM2) AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (Socket-AM2) Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 965 Intel Pentium D 960 Intel Pentium D 950 |
| Motherboard: | ASUS A8N32-SLI (Socket-939) ASUS M2N32-SLI (Socket-AM2) Intel D975XBX |
| Chipset: | NVIDIA nForce4 SLI x16 NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI |
| Chipset Drivers: | nForce 9.34 Beta |
| Hard Disk: | Seagate 7200.9 300GB SATA |
| Memory: | Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 (1GB x 2) OCZ DDR-400 2-2-2 (1GB x 2) |
| Video Card: | NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA ForceWare 91.27 Beta |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1280 x 1024 - 32-bit @ 60Hz |
| OS: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
83 Comments
View All Comments
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 !