quote: We want roadmaps, with firm dates and code names and features, and we've yet to see or hear it. So the best we can report today, is what we told you back at IDF: with the exception of some minor updates as well as the migration to DDR2, the Athlon 64 micro-architecture will remain unchanged throughout 2006.
I don't. We are all convinced that AMD has a superior product. Intel claims during IDF are just a marketing ploy.
For AMD to remain ahead and competitive I don't think it is in their best interests to reveal any information to far ahead of time. Because, with Intels huge source of money and man power, they can probably come up with a counter product before AMD can.
Intel's recent dual core processors are a perfect example. Intel didn't have dual core on their books, but once AMD was getting close, they designed a new chipset to support their "glued" processors and developed the technology to "glue" to processors together.
If AMD put a time frame on DDR3, or anything else, Intel would probably beat them to it.
I think people need to keep in mind that AMD is more about engineering and less about marketing. They cant afford to waste time on features they dont think are important.
Intel keeps changing their architecture, but look how it's changing...
dude, most people have moved on from thinking that the pentium M is just a p3 souped up
it has evolved far beyond that
you just have to understand that all silicone has to have evolved from somewhere.. no chip is designed from scratch
and jarred, has there been info about hypertransport 2? are there structural changes or just a speed bump from 2000mhz to 2400? 2800?
While it's true that everything evolves from something earlier, it's also true that Pentium M largely discards the work that went into Pentium 4. P4 is an evolutionary dead-end.
The most current HyperTransport technology I/O Link Specification is Release 2.0. To previous specifications, HyperTransport Release 2.0 adds three new speed grades: 2.0 GigaTransfers/second, 2.4 GigaTransfers/second and 2.8 GigaTransfers/second. These new speed grades yield a 16 Gigabyte/second, 19.2 Gigabyte/second and 22.4 Gigabyte/second aggregate bandwidth, an improvement of 75 percent as compared to previous 1.x specifications. In addition, HyperTransport Release 2.0 adds to the existing PCI and PCI-X mapping to include a mapping to PCI Express.
One of the important features of this new specification is that Specification 2.0 devices are fully backward compatible with prior 1.x devices. This means that existing investments in the technology will continue to be leveraged in the future.
These new capabilities make HyperTransport technology the highest performance, lowest latency chip-to-chip I/O link available today and continue the HyperTransport tradition of interoperability with popular industry technologies.
Regarding HT 2 (and 3/4), I don't know anything other than a name. For CPU to CPU communication, a faster HT link could prove useful. Most system communication isn't even coming close to maxing out 1 GHz HT links, though.
bet they got it waiting... just waiting for the "ship" button to be pushed... why release it now, when Intel doesnt have much to fight with? if they have been sooooo quiet, makes you wonder what could be waiting under the wings....
actually, I was wondering if they may be waiting for ddr2 to mature enough (eg. higher speeds) in order to bring the m2 socket out...
I mean, is there any speculation on the increases that ddr2 are going to bring to amd64?
on ddr1 cas 2@ddr400 = about cas3@ddr500 so if that trend continues for ddr2 quite a bit of bandwidth will be needed to overcome the higher latencies of ddr2.
is hypertransport 2.0 the only other feature of the m2 socket??
personally, I'm trying to figure out if its the right time to jump to pci-e yet as i'm holding onto a highend agp system; sockets are changing soon, so i'm trying to hold out.
Well socket 939 brought out the sempron in 754 for oems. Now there are some early socket 939 semprons, I am thinking sometime early to mid next year we will see M2. Only seems to follow suit.
AMD told me they expect DDR2-667 to offer about 10 to 15 percent more performance than the best official DDR. So, without other changes AMD was guessing 15% more from DDR2. That means a 2.4 GHz M2 would about match the FX-57, which is pretty good. I think that 15% might also be for dual-core multitasking scenarios, so it might be more like 8% for single core.
No, AMD stated that overall performance would go up 10 to 15%. Basically, they said DDR2-533 didn't offer enough of a difference to make it worthwhile, but DDR2-667 started to show real benefits of 10% or more. Makes sense, as at 667+ MHz the bandwidth offered is far more than even the best DDR.
If that's true, it does pose an interesting question regarding the PR of the new Socket M2 chips compared with existing S939 chips, specifically the Windsor vs the current Toledo-
Athlon 64 X2 4800+ - Toledo (2x 1MB L2) clocked at 2.4GHz (12.0 x 200MHz)
Athlon 64 X2 5000+ - Windsor (2x 1MB L2) clocked at 2.667GHz (8.0 x 333MHz)
Now if the DDR2-667 memory was only equal to DDR400, and not 10-15% faster, you would expect the 2.667GHz part to have a rating of 5300+ (or at least 5200+) rather than 5000+. If there is a real-world 10% performance improvement with DDR2-667, then the rating for it should actually be cranked up to about 5800+, instead of lowered to 5000+.
So either the M2 parts will be slightly lower performing because of DDR2-667, or AMD have decided to re-align the PR again. I suspect they are re-aligning the PR though it seems rather pointless doing so, even counter-productive for dual-core chips, as the rating corresponds to nothing that can be compared with Intel parts.
I don't think the model number of X2 chips is supposed to be a 'PR Rating' at all. What would the rating compare to? It's just a model number where a bigger number = higher performance. I don't think it's supposed to scale linearly either (ie a 5% increase in model number isn't supposed to mean a 5% performance increase... it may be only 2%, or it may be 15%). AMD doesn't need a 'PR Rating' anymore anyway, now that Intel has stopped clockspeed marketing. You're reading too much into the choice of model number, at least for X2 chips.
The PR numbers come from a battery of benchmarks that AMD runs. The tests have been updated a couple times over the years, but most of the applications are getting a bit old (i.e. little SMP support). So they are relative to performance on other CPUs, though I'm not sure what the baseline is. Some "rounding" does occur, of course. Basically, 4200+ scores about 10% faster than the 3800+ (X2) on the benchmark suite.
As for the M2 chips, I hadn't heard the 2.66 GHz figure or model number. Is that a guess, or did I just miss that one? If so, 2.66 GHz X2 would have to rate higher than a 5200+ (unless AMD is just realigning PR again).
Just do a google for "X2 5000+". You'll get tons of hits from all the major hardware-review sites. Oddly enough it didn't appear in AT's news at the time (around Sep 26-27). VR-Zone is a good example.
AMD has confirmed on the Socket M2 design and will be unveiling the Socket M2 processors in Q2 2006. Single-core Athlon 64/FX "Orleans" and Dual-core Athlon 64 X2 "Windsor" will be based on 90nm processor technology and will support DDR-II 667 memory bus, bi-directional 1GHz HT bus, Presidio Security as well Pacifica Virtualization. The Athlon 64 X2 5000+ is based on Socket "Windsor" core and is clocked at 2.667GHz (8.0 x 333.3MHz) and contains 2 x 1MB L2."
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21 Comments
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erinlegault - Monday, October 17, 2005 - link
I don't. We are all convinced that AMD has a superior product. Intel claims during IDF are just a marketing ploy.
For AMD to remain ahead and competitive I don't think it is in their best interests to reveal any information to far ahead of time. Because, with Intels huge source of money and man power, they can probably come up with a counter product before AMD can.
Intel's recent dual core processors are a perfect example. Intel didn't have dual core on their books, but once AMD was getting close, they designed a new chipset to support their "glued" processors and developed the technology to "glue" to processors together.
If AMD put a time frame on DDR3, or anything else, Intel would probably beat them to it.
Quanticles - Saturday, October 15, 2005 - link
I think people need to keep in mind that AMD is more about engineering and less about marketing. They cant afford to waste time on features they dont think are important.Intel keeps changing their architecture, but look how it's changing...
Pentium 3 -> Pentium 4 -> Pentium 4 HT -> Pentium 3
AMD just stuck w/ the best solution to begin with and they're not going to waste any effort on unnecessary features.
xsilver - Saturday, October 15, 2005 - link
dude, most people have moved on from thinking that the pentium M is just a p3 souped upit has evolved far beyond that
you just have to understand that all silicone has to have evolved from somewhere.. no chip is designed from scratch
and jarred, has there been info about hypertransport 2? are there structural changes or just a speed bump from 2000mhz to 2400? 2800?
Quanticles - Sunday, October 16, 2005 - link
What is so different about pentium M? A few extra features like virus protection and SSE3? That doesnt change the raw performance of normal operation.They probably took the original P4 fetch stage, if anything.
highlandsun - Saturday, October 15, 2005 - link
While it's true that everything evolves from something earlier, it's also true that Pentium M largely discards the work that went into Pentium 4. P4 is an evolutionary dead-end.mamisano - Saturday, October 15, 2005 - link
http://www.hypertransport.org">HyperTransport Consortium WebsiteThe most current HyperTransport technology I/O Link Specification is Release 2.0. To previous specifications, HyperTransport Release 2.0 adds three new speed grades: 2.0 GigaTransfers/second, 2.4 GigaTransfers/second and 2.8 GigaTransfers/second. These new speed grades yield a 16 Gigabyte/second, 19.2 Gigabyte/second and 22.4 Gigabyte/second aggregate bandwidth, an improvement of 75 percent as compared to previous 1.x specifications. In addition, HyperTransport Release 2.0 adds to the existing PCI and PCI-X mapping to include a mapping to PCI Express.
One of the important features of this new specification is that Specification 2.0 devices are fully backward compatible with prior 1.x devices. This means that existing investments in the technology will continue to be leveraged in the future.
These new capabilities make HyperTransport technology the highest performance, lowest latency chip-to-chip I/O link available today and continue the HyperTransport tradition of interoperability with popular industry technologies.
JarredWalton - Saturday, October 15, 2005 - link
Regarding HT 2 (and 3/4), I don't know anything other than a name. For CPU to CPU communication, a faster HT link could prove useful. Most system communication isn't even coming close to maxing out 1 GHz HT links, though.msiemsen - Saturday, October 15, 2005 - link
It's sadly ironic that the sponsored link "Dual Core Architecture" in the table in the article goes to the intel website.ksherman - Friday, October 14, 2005 - link
bet they got it waiting... just waiting for the "ship" button to be pushed... why release it now, when Intel doesnt have much to fight with? if they have been sooooo quiet, makes you wonder what could be waiting under the wings....xsilver - Friday, October 14, 2005 - link
actually, I was wondering if they may be waiting for ddr2 to mature enough (eg. higher speeds) in order to bring the m2 socket out...I mean, is there any speculation on the increases that ddr2 are going to bring to amd64?
on ddr1 cas 2@ddr400 = about cas3@ddr500 so if that trend continues for ddr2 quite a bit of bandwidth will be needed to overcome the higher latencies of ddr2.
is hypertransport 2.0 the only other feature of the m2 socket??
personally, I'm trying to figure out if its the right time to jump to pci-e yet as i'm holding onto a highend agp system; sockets are changing soon, so i'm trying to hold out.
Marlin1975 - Friday, October 14, 2005 - link
Well socket 939 brought out the sempron in 754 for oems. Now there are some early socket 939 semprons, I am thinking sometime early to mid next year we will see M2. Only seems to follow suit.JarredWalton - Saturday, October 15, 2005 - link
AMD told me they expect DDR2-667 to offer about 10 to 15 percent more performance than the best official DDR. So, without other changes AMD was guessing 15% more from DDR2. That means a 2.4 GHz M2 would about match the FX-57, which is pretty good. I think that 15% might also be for dual-core multitasking scenarios, so it might be more like 8% for single core.Quanticles - Saturday, October 15, 2005 - link
Wouldnt that mean memory performance, not necessarily application performance?JarredWalton - Saturday, October 15, 2005 - link
No, AMD stated that overall performance would go up 10 to 15%. Basically, they said DDR2-533 didn't offer enough of a difference to make it worthwhile, but DDR2-667 started to show real benefits of 10% or more. Makes sense, as at 667+ MHz the bandwidth offered is far more than even the best DDR.PrinceGaz - Saturday, October 15, 2005 - link
If that's true, it does pose an interesting question regarding the PR of the new Socket M2 chips compared with existing S939 chips, specifically the Windsor vs the current Toledo-Athlon 64 X2 4800+ - Toledo (2x 1MB L2) clocked at 2.4GHz (12.0 x 200MHz)
Athlon 64 X2 5000+ - Windsor (2x 1MB L2) clocked at 2.667GHz (8.0 x 333MHz)
Now if the DDR2-667 memory was only equal to DDR400, and not 10-15% faster, you would expect the 2.667GHz part to have a rating of 5300+ (or at least 5200+) rather than 5000+. If there is a real-world 10% performance improvement with DDR2-667, then the rating for it should actually be cranked up to about 5800+, instead of lowered to 5000+.
So either the M2 parts will be slightly lower performing because of DDR2-667, or AMD have decided to re-align the PR again. I suspect they are re-aligning the PR though it seems rather pointless doing so, even counter-productive for dual-core chips, as the rating corresponds to nothing that can be compared with Intel parts.
johnsonx - Saturday, October 15, 2005 - link
I don't think the model number of X2 chips is supposed to be a 'PR Rating' at all. What would the rating compare to? It's just a model number where a bigger number = higher performance. I don't think it's supposed to scale linearly either (ie a 5% increase in model number isn't supposed to mean a 5% performance increase... it may be only 2%, or it may be 15%). AMD doesn't need a 'PR Rating' anymore anyway, now that Intel has stopped clockspeed marketing. You're reading too much into the choice of model number, at least for X2 chips.JarredWalton - Saturday, October 15, 2005 - link
The PR numbers come from a battery of benchmarks that AMD runs. The tests have been updated a couple times over the years, but most of the applications are getting a bit old (i.e. little SMP support). So they are relative to performance on other CPUs, though I'm not sure what the baseline is. Some "rounding" does occur, of course. Basically, 4200+ scores about 10% faster than the 3800+ (X2) on the benchmark suite.As for the M2 chips, I hadn't heard the 2.66 GHz figure or model number. Is that a guess, or did I just miss that one? If so, 2.66 GHz X2 would have to rate higher than a 5200+ (unless AMD is just realigning PR again).
PrinceGaz - Sunday, October 16, 2005 - link
Just do a google for "X2 5000+". You'll get tons of hits from all the major hardware-review sites. Oddly enough it didn't appear in AT's news at the time (around Sep 26-27). VR-Zone is a good example.http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=2755&s=1">http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=2755&s=1
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"AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Info
AMD has confirmed on the Socket M2 design and will be unveiling the Socket M2 processors in Q2 2006. Single-core Athlon 64/FX "Orleans" and Dual-core Athlon 64 X2 "Windsor" will be based on 90nm processor technology and will support DDR-II 667 memory bus, bi-directional 1GHz HT bus, Presidio Security as well Pacifica Virtualization. The Athlon 64 X2 5000+ is based on Socket "Windsor" core and is clocked at 2.667GHz (8.0 x 333.3MHz) and contains 2 x 1MB L2."
ElFenix - Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - link
sounds like the processor i'm waiting forashegam - Friday, October 14, 2005 - link
ksherman - Friday, October 14, 2005 - link
nice... real nice...