Athlon64 Preview: nForce3 at 2.0GHz

by Wesley Fink on 9/4/2003 7:18 PM EST
Comments Locked

79 Comments

Back to Article

  • Anonymous User - Saturday, October 25, 2003 - link

    I found it difficult to compare products because of the way the descriptions of processors and components were laid out.
  • Anonymous User - Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - link

    Well for any Intel posters you can avert your eyes. I've recently been doing some shopping to piece together a new system for myself. I'd decided on AMD since their systems have always been good to me and cuz ..screw the big boys.
    Anyways I've been out of the hardware game for a while and the 64bit cpu is really interesting for me. I do a lot of 3d animation and video editing. SO my question is this 1)is there a trustworthy, compatible Mobo out there now that will work with amd64 that I could build now and upgrade up to later? 2)Is there another solution from the current 32bit amd processors that could give me all my needs (gaming, animation, editing, etc..)? or should I just wait for 64 to come out (which I really REALLY need to build a pc fast)??
    I'm open to any and all suggestions :)
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link

    Speaking of AMD vs Intel & the Sysmark 2002 cheating allegation, just wait until XP-2003 for AMD comes out and you install Sysmark 2002. Anyone with half a brain will understand what Intel & Bapco did to stack the deck when the system reboots after install. Very revealing.

    Remember this.
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link

    Hmmm, talking about stocks. Actually in the last 3 months, AMD also doubled its price. So, if you own either Intel or AMD stock, you will have gain a lot of money. The stock increase occurs because investor expect that the chip sector is improving this year, i.e. there is an increase in the demand of cpus.
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 13, 2003 - link

    I don't know if anyone is considering this but don't you think the prices for a processor are becoming a tad bit HIGH!? As it stands in order for me to get a piece of this new technology(Athlon 64 and its motherboards) I would have to cough up $1000+! $1000 for a cpu and motherboard!!! For companies that want its customers to flock to thier stuff when they release them that is TRULY not encouraging anyone to go out there and buy at all. As it stands I don't think a lot of people will be able to buy this thing right off the back no matter how bad they want it. The Opteron 940 is higher than my HOUSE NOTE right now for my 2-story home. The AthlonFX isn't any better. Right now Directron.com has the Athlon64 up for pre-order at the price $489. Ladies and gentleman that is a whole f***ing check for most people. I really do think that the Athlon64 and the Opteron are an advancement and a powerful one but could they please stop raising these prices?
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 12, 2003 - link

    Please stop repeating the same questions...

    The only thing I wanted to point out is that the drivers that are recompiled for the Athlon 64 are going to make a difference more than anything else discussed in this comment section.

    As for this Pentium 4 arguement, the P4 3.2 GHz 800MHz is $613. That is about $200 more expensive than the Opteron 242 and $150 more thank an Opteron 144. The MBs will become cheaper due to the lack of a Northbridge and ease of design. $130-140 is the price I expect the Nforce 3 boards to sell.

    Whatever you want is what CPU you should use. Just know that if you buy an Opteron or Athlon 64, that every driver update is going to get you more speed. Every update patch to games will get you more speed. And you have the ability to go to Windows XP 64 when it is finished and run even faster. Over time, you may have a 20% or more improvement in speed. If it doesn't, then you have a really fast CPU at 1.8 GHz running less than 39c while benchmarking.

    It will be a nice laptop.

    SenatorPerry
    http://www.newberrycollege.net/doom3low.jpg

  • Anonymous User - Thursday, September 11, 2003 - link

    The testing methology is flawed here.

    You have an Opteron that is OVERCLOCKED to 222MHz HT bus/RAM, versus a stock standard 3GHz P4 (why no 3.2GHz?)

    It's like comparing a 2.8C @ 3.2GHz and comparing it to a 1.8GHz Opteron. I'm sure that would create an uproar of 'Intel BIAS!' type of comments. ;-)

    Don't get me wrong, Opteron/A64 is an impressive processor, but the review would've been much more credible had Anandtech reviewed a stock 2GHz Opteron vs a 3.2GHz P4, instead of an overclocked Opteron 1.8GHz @ 2GHz with faster HT bus and RAM, compared to a 3GHz P4, which isn't even the fastest available.
  • Anonymous User - Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - link

    I'm a noob and I have a question. I'm not understanding how us gamers will be able to play our games (like bf1942) when these processors come out if there isn't a 64 bit OS out for us to run. Can anyone clear this up for me?
  • Anonymous User - Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - link

    Considering this was testing its performance on a 32bit OS, I cannot wait to see how well it fairs in a true 64bit enviroment!

    I say....each to their own preference. Be glad you have the option to choose Intel or AMD and that their competion produces a less noticable strain on our pockets!

    **Ignorance is the weapon weilded by the man with closed eyes!**
  • Anonymous User - Monday, September 8, 2003 - link

    #18, some Xeon's (not XeNon) have 1 meg L3, as well as 512 K L2 like any nortwhood. The L3 is inclusive however, which basically means that data stored in L2 is also duplicated in L3 to allow faster chaches. This results in a "net" cache size of 1 Mb, not 1.5.
  • Anonymous User - Sunday, September 7, 2003 - link

    There are TPC benchmarks out with the new Opteron ship running 64-bit Linux and has gotten very good performance indeed.

    http://www.tpc.org/tpch/results/tpch_perf_results....

    IBMs xSeries 325 is sporting an Opteron.
  • Wesley Fink - Sunday, September 7, 2003 - link

    #66 -
    The Opteron and nForce3 require Registered ECC or Registered non-ECC dimms which are not the same as the unbuffered dimms we normally use for testing. It is very hard right now to find Registered dimms, let alone registered DDR400 dimms (the fastest ECC chips in current production are apparently designed for DDR333). The ONLY memory we had available that would work on the nForce3 were 512MB Registered ECC DDR400 modules. Dula-Channel makes that a megabyte. The theory goes that ECC and Registered slow down memory performance a bit compared to unbuffered, which should certainly offset any advantage.

    Our benchmark tests are cumulative, as we certainly can't keep rigs up for every board we test. With a new setup like this and cross-platform data, we sometimes have to compare what we can get to what we already have.

    Socket 754 will be single-channel and able to use regular unbuffered memory, while Socket 940 is dual-channel and requires Registered memory. The rumored Socket 939, scheduled for year-end, will allow use of standard unbuffered memory.
  • Locutus4657 - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    #27 Markets don't lie?? I remember when Rambuses stock was selling at $300/share and was rated BUY BUY BUY. If you're buying your tech prices based on stock values you are in some very seriouse trouble. And just so you know, I've built many an AMD system my self, and only the old "Super 7" systems had any real quirks. The newer Athlons have been problem free for me.
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    #58 - hey i hadn't noticed that before. wesley, what's up with 1gb on the Athlon64/Opteron adn only 512mb on the P4???
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    Some of you guys are so remarkably shortsighted it's not even funny. Posts like "haha, AMD still makes the crappier chip, they'll be out of business by this time next year" are foolish.

    If you like Intel, good for you, a strong AMD keeps intel's prices down and keeps the innovation coming. No AMD means we'll probably be paying $1200 for the 3.6 Ghz prescott this time next year, because they won't have to release as often or as cheaply.

    Kudos to AMD, and I wish them nothing but the best.
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    low voltage Itaniums may be lower in performance to their big Madison sisters, but they blow everything else out of the water on some industry standard SPEC scores!
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    Could it be that Registered DDR400 ECC Modules are as rare as the Athlon XP 2800+ that was paper launched at 2.25 GHz actual and then jumped quickly to a Barton 2800+ at 2.08 GHz? Or could it be that this is the same misleading stuff that AMD tried to do with their PriceWaterHouseCoopers benchmarks when they used the top of the line nForce platform against a mainstream Intel 845G platform and disabled Hyperthreading saying that it made the P4 slower - on top of that they used software patches that "aren't available for public download" to run their benchmarks on 3-year old benchmark software that was not optimized for the P4. If you look at what AMD has been saying for the past 5 years, they typically overpromise and underdeliver (a.k.a. Athlon FX - remarked Opteron now that Athlon64 will not be able to compete in it's original single-channel design) whereas Intel usually just stays pretty quiet, conservatively underpromises and overdelivers.
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    hey all you guys clamoring for linux benchmarks, speak up and mention some good ones for them to run...
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    I don't know why people are getting so emotional about intel vs amd. Let there be competition so we the consumers win. If Athlon xp hadn't been so powerful we wouldd not have 3.2 ghz, ht pentium 4 right now. On the other hand if we didn't have a 3.2 ghz p4 there would not be an upcoming athlon 64 fx. The chips with dual channel memory were all supposed to be in the server/workstation market. AMD has realised that the socket 754 chip will not be competitive enough with upcoming prescott and as such has created a new socket 939. I suspect that the socket 754 will go the way of the duron as a celeron competitor while socket 939 will be the flagship chip.
    Regarding the article the reviewer should have made it clear that this was an athlon 64-fx preview not athlon 64.
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    The low voltage itaniums are also low performance.
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    Not to worry, there will soon be more competition for Opteron in the form of Low Voltage (and price) Itaniums, Prescotts, and even 800 MHz FSB Nocona XEONs. It's going to be very fun in the next year or so.
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    Am I the only one concerned that each test platform seems to use different amounts of system memory?
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    1 OF 2 things will have to happen. Either MS reduces their prices to compete with Linux or Linux will start charging/more for their OS. Open source is great and cheap right now which is why it is popular, but someone will try to commercialize it.
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    Fortunately in the next few years many folks will be switching to Linux both 32 and 64-bit just to get away from Windoze and all the stability and security issues with virtually every version of Windoze, bar none. This will be good news for AMD and the Opteron/A64 which both run very well on Linux and 64-bit Linux is available to all right now.

    Once the software companies wake up and smell the coffee and pull their heads out of Microsofts's butthole, they'll start releasing apps for Linux that look and feel like those for Windoze. This will facilitate a relatively painless transition for millions of folks who would switch to Linux immediately if they could import all of their existing apps files without headaches. Thankfully with enterprise and World governments switching to Linux, there is a clear financial incentive for software makers to get their act together and fill customer needs. The World will be a much better place when consumers have the ability to purchase a quality O/S and software apps and at this stage of the game Linux is a clear winner over any Windoze O/S for stability, performance and security.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    Well when the P4 first came out it was slower than the P3, and costed around $1200-1500. You expect a new series processor to be dirt cheap? Yeah right.

    Prescott is what, a P4 with 20w more heat dissapation and 1MB cache and several (currently) useless instructions? OK, it has some other secret features. How long though can the 2x ALU stay 2x? They will run at 6.8ghz, and getting them to work at higher speeds will be 2x as hard as the rest of the processor (and it's now supposively going to be 4x?).

    Of course, I guess everyone forgot, this is just a preview, not the acutal thing, so why get so worked up over it?.

    Whether the desktop version is great or not, the more Opterons you run together only get better, with the Xeon you get less in return from going 2 to 4.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    What is the reason that overclocked Opteron 244 is used instead of the real Opteron 246 that is available in retail? What is the reason to use 2 Gig of memory and compare it to a system that uses 512 MB memory? If memory doesn't matter in those bechmarks then why 2x256 isn't used?
    Why not to compare to Pentium 3.2 which is the top Intel desktop chip instead of 3.0 GHz?
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    Why on earth are the benchmark results in FLASH?
    Thats just really annoying.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    This benchmark is pretty funny, it leaves a lot to be desired from todays reviewers. Not that I think the athlon64 isn't a very good improvement, but the results they are showing do not match any other results people have seen, reminds me of the Hardocp reviews.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    Just for your information number 49, the 2.0GHz CPU anandtech tested won't be the fastest CPU AMD releases on the 23rd, so comparing it to a 3.2GHz CPU would actually have been unfair.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    That's not anand hahahah :p
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    If you're going to compare an overclocked Opteron to the Pentium 4, shouldn't you at least use the fastest P4 available (3.2ghz vs 3.0) ?
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    LOL, you mean Onlt = only? whilee = while and 22Hz = 222Mhz=
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    You fools! Onlt the HT-bus was overclocked not the memory bus! You guys need to educate about hammer systems. I sugest you get yourself and nf3 then you can see that you can overclock the HT bus and not the memory!! The test is very valid cause the 2Ghz is the real frequency whilee the 22Ghz is plain bus HTB speed and has nothing to do with the memory controller or memory bus speed.
  • dvinnen - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    #39: You twit, I never said that the HT line had anything to do with the memory. It is used for the clock of the computer. THat was what they where ocing, not the memory.

    #44: I also dought there will be that mch difference in proformance between the dual channel and single channel. Just as the current athlon dosen't really beniffent from the extra bandwidth, I dought the Athlon64 will. And the fact that this is an ethuist website is exactly why they should be doing a preview of it.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    Can I please have benchmarks under linux compiled in 64-bit mode :). I disagree with your "we will have to wait for 64-bit windows" philosophy. :)
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    There is either a lot of AMD bias, ignorance, or both in this article. There is no way that the performance of an upcoming true Athlon64 can be compared to a current overclocked Opteron. The Athlon64 is going to be a socket 754 single channel DDR400 solution that will barely keep up with an Athlon XP 3200+ let alone a P4 3.2 GHz or upcoming Prescott 3.4 GHz. The author should have compared the overclocked Opteron in his article to an upcoming Athlon FX which is just a remarked socket 940 Opteron that runs dual channel DDR400 ECC registered memory. The only difference is in price - which seems funny that is is never mentioned in articles where AMD wins but when Intel wins it's all about COST!!! Athlon64 socket 754 is expected to be price competitive with current Athlon XP 3200+ since the Athlon64 will initially be marked either 3100+ or 3200+. However, Athlon FX is expected to sell anywhere from $700 - $900 USD or even more at launch. So once you buy the 6-layer motherboard, the ECC registered DDR400 memory, and the Athlon FX, you'll have paid almost twice as much for a system that is almost "faster than a P4 3.2 GHz in every way" as some Fudo person stated it on the inquirer.net. I'm collecting a compilation of all of these hype articles to send back to the authors after the real launch when the real truth is known. AMD has been promising that the 64-bit Hammer was going to be the next best thing to sliced bread for the last 3 years and that the Athlon64 was going to wipe Intel off the face of the earth for the past year or so and they still haven't delivered. Everyone who is waiting to get an Athlon FX better pre-order one pretty quick because there will probably only be about 10,000 available world-wide this year.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    Reply to #41

    It is nice to support Athlon 64, but dont tell people that it would recieve an 1 MB L2 cache, as AMD is already building 512 KB CPU's to ship on the launch date.

    And if gunmetal was a good DX9 benchmark, my FX 5200 would be a good R 9800 alternative, and you can see in other reviews that this is not so.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    And #39, you're stupid. They overclocked the FSB to get it to 2.0GHz while keeping the memory at DDR400. You can do that with modern boards and you can certainly do it with A64 boards or Opteron boards.

    Get a clue.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    #40, get a clue. The enthusiast edition of the Athlon 64 will have the exact same L2 cache as the Opteron (1MB). In fact, this same high-end Athlon 64 will have a higher clock speed (probably 2.2GHz) and will be identical to the Opteron. Therefore, this review is VERY useful.

    And no, you're wrong about Gunmetal, it's a very good DX9 benchmark.

    Based on these facts, this review gave the A64 exactly the credit it's due.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    A point that I think was overlooked in this review is that the Athlon 64 has a lot less L2 cache than the tested Opteron, about a P4 to Celeron difference. So you might be very dissapointed when you actually buy an Athlon 64, when you compare it to the review.

    Besides, the best score was made in an added benchmark, gun metal, that seems to use some kind of software rendering for 3d, a very unrealistic scenario. I think so because my Geforce FX 5200 scores almost the same as the tested Radeon 9800, as I have one of the tested CPU's.

    And another point of intrest is the video editing, that is hardly covered and does not even get its own part in the review, altrough this might be the only point where consumers actually use their full CPU power, as gaming is more a GPU thing, and anything above 60 fps does not make it more fun than just 60 fps. And it is also the only point where the Opteron seems to lack to most other CPU's.

    Based on my other points, I have to conclude that Athlon 64 got more credit here than it deserved.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    Oh little Dvinnen I petty you for your ignorance

    AMD Opteron Socket 940 at 2.0GHz (9x222) 444FSB

    The opteron has the equivalent to a MEM-controller between MEM and CPU. And it is quote running at "AMD Opteron Socket 940 at 2.0GHz (9x222) 444FSB". So be that the mem will run at 444 Mhz or 222 "Dobbel-pumped" Mhz

    So even the anandtech 'beeps' don't know the architecture of the CPU... Although FSB is a wrong id of it.

    Mvh Mjello

    The fool is not the one who is deceived. But the one who wants to be deceived...

    By the way. The hypertransport-link is for peripherals.. Not memory

    Not that I really care enough to answer you little dwuuip but I am in a rare mood
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    one more (hopefully constructive) suggestion - how about commentary on the benchmarks next to the appropriate graphs so we can see the #'s while we read the comments.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    quick suggestion for you guys - how come the graphs are labeled with motherboard names? shouldn't they be labeled with CPU names since this is a CPU comparison. Just skimming the article and looking at the graphs I had no idea what was being compared. If need be, put the chipset in parenthesis next to the CPU name & speed.

    excellent article though! athlon64 looks very imrpessive
  • Icewind - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    Wow, so far AMD looks like there on the right track, but its going to be interesting to see how Intel fires back at that with Prescott and Tejas, not to mention the change to PCI Express and what not. Next year is gonna be insane thats for sure. For now, im enjoying my 2.8.@3.2 ASUS P4C800-E, 1 Gig corsair rig and its screams. Im in looking into a 9800pro or 9800XT for my video card and im set for a good long year.
  • sprockkets - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    Yeah, fire hazard, that's why a 3.2P4 uses 82w of power just to sit there, and the 3200+ XP uses 62.

    Dell won't touch AMD due to Intel forcing them to.

    Intel has billions to spend on R&D, and look where it's gotten them, the loser Itanium.

    And with P4 clock speeds like a 140mhz would make the world of difference on the 54% it is behind.

    Why use 4x512MB? Don't we all need 2Gb of ram to function best?

    You're right, due to the P4 freq binge AMD did introduce its + ratings. Isn't amazing that a processor running slower memory and 1060 mhz less can still be faster?

    Funny, 20 out of 20 of my AMD systems don't have quirks in them, must be a stupid Windows user.
  • dvinnen - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    <<<and with 22 Mhz OC to the memory.>>>

    Wow. Did you even read the artical or know anything about The K8 line? There is no FSB to oc so you can't oc the memory that way. It gets it's external clock (aka:fsb) from the hypertransport line. So they oced the hypertransport to get the speed from there 1.8 opteron to 2.0, the shiping shipped of A64. OCing the fsb on K8 dosen't do anyithing but increase the clock becuase the HT line is about as saturated as a AGPx8 line.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    #20

    A lot of pepole play games on Linux, Q3 on Linux is actually a bit faster on my system then in w2k.

    But that's not the point. The point is to see how much there is to gain from having a 64bit OS vs. 32bit. I bet id will compile, and release, a 64bit Q3 client for linux sometimes soon. Hope there will be one for UT2003 too.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    A sad day I must say.

    Not because AMD beat Intel's best (3.2 Ghz)but because AMD only beat intels second best (3.0 Ghz)and with 22 Mhz OC to the memory.

    Anandtech is no more than a marketing machine. It's not worthy of our attention.

    It is a biased benchmark which twists reality in order to make AMD 64 look better.

    Now I must say that I would like this to be a total succes for AMD however I don't like being lied to. And that's what anandtech and AMD is doing in this review. It looks as if AMD is in to deep and might just go under because of their financial problems.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    Why not use 4x512MB memory for the P4 setup, since Anandtech's own setups have shown its best, and also, why a 3200+ Barton and 3.0GHz P4, that's not an equal comparison.

    Also, the layout seemed awful, there was a page just before the end with about 1/3 a page of text.

    And it did seem like there was a lot os ass kissin gin the article as well.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    24/26/27...

    So many lies out of your mouth.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    Hey Wes, I've got some minor nitpicking to do. The graphs look great, but there's no unit labels on them. I know what the labels should be, but when you're presenting data you should always be sure to include labels for everything on the plot. Otherwise, you run into the possibility of misrepresenting data. Please make sure that all the graphs on future previews/reviews have their units labeled and perhaps even "bigger is better/shorter is faster"-like comments. Just addressing a pet peeve of mine. Aside from that, great article! Thanks.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    This is not exactly related but for future motherboards/chipsets using this upcoming processor please use a RD2 PC Geiger (http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/RD2PCGeiger.htm... that you may provide us with information about the PCI bus frequency - important for overclocking.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    #25. Ive tried both intel and AMD solutions for my personal machines at home. 10 times out of 10, AMd's have little quirks with them. the ride the bleeding edge.

    The company is losing money and cant continue to dump into R&D much longer, while INTEL's stock doubled in price in the last 4 months and is still rated a five star buy buy buy. Markets dont lie. The money is betting against AMD and in the fast moving techincal processor market where R&D is the most important aspect in the business model, AMD is losing. They just dont have the cash or assets to compete. The only thing they are good for is controlling The price Intel charges.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    hey #25 amd cant even get a cpu to the 3 ghz range. They had to create a virtual 3200+. the reason is an athalon runnig at 3 ghz is a FIRE HAZARD.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link


    #24, that's funny! I didn't think that Intel fanboys still read AMD articles because in the end Intel is always better right?

    So why waste your time reading the article if you already know what is best? Do you feel threatened that you won't have the best CPU anymore?

    Go and cry to momy.

    Personally, I found this article very educational because I had my mind set on buying an Intel 2.4C CPU and overclocking to 1000 FSB with DDR 500 but now I'll wait a couple more weeks to see how the Athlon64 turns out and how overclockable it is.

    I'd also like to thank AnandTech for increasing the number of articles produced in the last week. If this continues then I'll become a regular visitor.
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    Face it. Intel makes the far superior Processor. That have the money to dump into R&D. This is a sign of the end for AMD. The farther they seperate themselves from the maintream, the more they lose.

    Who cares if they have some loyal geeks they worship them.

    The real money is made by INTEL in the (Say it with me) BUSINESS market.


    Their is a reason why dell wont touch an AMD

    Its called UNRELIABLE
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    "Apparantly" socket 940 uses Registered dimms only, the boards do have overclocking options and DO overclock quite well.
    If you wait till QTR1 2004 you will be able to find socket 939 boards that do everything the 940 boards do, but can do this with Unbuffered Dimms also.

    So if you want to upgrade but don't want to swap your standard PC3200 wait till early 2004 before you buy.
  • MS - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    Wes,

    Which settings are you using in the GunMetal Benchmarks? I cannot replicate your results there and I am wondering whether I am doing something wrong ..

    TIA
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    #20, 99% of gamers don't care about workstation benchmarks either :)
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    #19, no one runs Quake 3 in Linux. 99% of gamers use Windows, it would be a complete waste of time to do Linux Quake 3 benchmarks.
  • StuckMojo - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link


    I'd like to see some benchmarks where the opteron's advanatges could really be used:

    1) some database or rendering benchmarks on workstations with more than 4GB of ram and large worksets that use more that 4G.

    x86/pentium cpus have to use a segmented memory architecture becuase of the 4G address space, so it's kind of like swapping, and is alot slower than direct access that a 64 bit chip has.

    2) how about some 64bit benchmarks on linux?

    Quake3 runs natively on linux, why have I seen none? Laziness, or lack of technical knowledge?
  • sprockkets - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    Intel will have a 100w toaster oven to compete with AMD, that and probably SSE3 just to make everyone recompile and distance AMD again. That and of course a 1mb cache.

    Isn't that Xenon have a 1MB but L3? That means it has 1.5MB, and still lags.
  • PointlesS - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    Impressive cpu but it would've been nice to see how much of an improvement the extra 200mhz made...unless I'm missing something here...does anyone have a link that has a 1.8ghz opteron and a 9800 pro?
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    Minor correction on page 2. nForce was the first AMD based board to use HyperTransport IIRC, not the nForce2
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    Hrm, as I am sure Intel has samples of the Opteron CPUs, its kinda surprising to see them not have anything significant ready to counter.. I highly doubt the Prescott will perform more than 10-20% better than the fastest Northwood P4.. If can't, then it'll definitely be slower than these new Opterons.. Let's see if Intel can counter, or else its gonna be a bloodshed for them..
  • Evan Lieb - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    #13,

    Because CPU supply right now is EXTREMELY tight. Wait until the end of the month for more info on dual Opteron/A64 performance numbers. :)

    Take care,

    Evan
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    This is all very exciting stuff for AMD fans...but as a dually enthusiast, I wonder why there are no benchmarking stats for a top-end Athlon MP workstation/gaming solution? Why include the Xeon dually and not an Athlon dually? Certainly in the Content Creation areas we'd see a landslide for the good old dual MP mobos...imagine a 150 MHz FSB PC3200 2.6 GHz overclocked Barton 2500+ dually w/ the Radeon 9800...best price/performance ever IMHO...
  • Wesley Fink - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    As Anand and many others have been saying for months, Athlon64 is supposed to be single-channel Socket 754 and able to use unbuffered memory. Since the rumored FX Enthusiast version is said to be Socket 940 it will fit Opteron boards like the Asus SK8N, so will be dual-channel. Thus far the only ones I have seen from these aleady RELEASED motherboards have required registered memory - ECC or non-ECC - but that could of course change with later releases.
  • tazdevl - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link

    Also, I was under the impression that the socket 939/940 boards will support unbuffered memory.
  • tazdevl - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link

    I'd like to see a temp comparison between all the CPUs.
  • Anonymous User - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link

    I thought that the Athlon64 did not have the integrated memory controller. That's the big difference between the Opteron and the Atlon64, in single processor quantities.
  • Wesley Fink - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link

    The latest runors at the Inquirer and Xbit Labs have the Athlon64 FX launching at 2.2GHz, which seems to be the rumor consensus :-) I have an Asus SK8N board I am testing now with an Opteron, and it supports both ECC and non-ECC memory - but it appears it MUST be fed Registered memory. This means regular unbuffered memory will not likely work on the Opteron based CPU's.
  • Anonymous User - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link

    Interesting. And isnt the Athlon64 FX supposed to be running at 2.3 ghz? Add in support for Non ECC memory (which is slower) and color me interested.

    And here I was all set on buying a new 3.0ghz P4 system in a couple of weeks... <sigh>
  • WheelsCSM - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link

    Looks pretty good, how much are these things supposed to cost?
  • sandorski - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link

    Sounds good! Hopefully the Athlon 64 *will* perform in a similar manner.
  • Anonymous User - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link

    Oh, nevermind. Disregard #3. I understand what you're saying now.
  • Anonymous User - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link

    "Our reference board includes full support for Dual-Channel DDR ECC memory, and the Athlon64 version will also support non-ECC memory"

    When it says "Athlon64" here is it referring to Athlon64 FX (Socket 940)? I thought that Athlon64 FX is basically an Opteron. And Opteron requires registered DIMMs with ECC.
  • Anonymous User - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link

    Awesome preview Wes, i can't wait to get one of these bad boys to play with after the 23rd, hopefully in the prommie!!

    keep up the good work.

    Tony

    (bigtoe)
  • AgaBooga - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link

    I wonder when Intel will respond to these articles on Athlon 64 with some Prescott previews

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now