processor specs confusion

Message

ctford0 · Post by **ctford0** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 6:14 am

i've been looking into upgrading to an amd 64 lately, but I'm really confused as to the differences in some of the processors. Take the 4000+ and the FX-53 for instance. They have the exact same speed, cache, Sledgehammer core, core voltage, etc. Am I just losing my mind or are these now the same processor? I know the FX chips at one time had much better specs than the A64 chips, but what about now? thanks for any comments...

chris

Evil Dark Archon · Post by **Evil Dark Archon** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 6:54 am

the a64 is clock-locked and the fx is not.

ctford0 · Post by **ctford0** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 1:11 pm

Does the FX processor also require ECC memory? Thought I read that somewhere...

chris

racoontje · Post by **racoontje** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 1:15 pm

If it's S940, yes, if S939, no.
Either way it's not ECC memory but registered memory...

S754: Single channel
S939: Dual channel
S939: Dual channel w/ registered DIMMS

You can put reg's in 754 or 939... But they're slower

ewan.paton · Post by **ewan.paton** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 5:49 pm

fact of life you can have two idntical products and a certin type of person will pay a significant premium for stupidity reasons, its all about status. fyi the best £/performace chips out at the moment are probably still the socket 754 3000+ ones

ctford0 · Post by **ctford0** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:22 am

I think I have to disagree with that. The 4000+ has a meg of cache compared to the 512k of the most of the other Athlon64 chips. That in itself can be a huge performance booster. Is it worth the extra cost? I guess that is another question...

chris

ctford0 · Post by **ctford0** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 7:06 pm

There are also the single opteron processors. What are the differences between those and the Fx? Some instruction set differences? There are just so many choices out there as far as the 64 bit chips go, it's so hard to choose!

ewan.paton · Post by **ewan.paton** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 7:48 pm

the reason there are so many variations on the amount of cache etc is part of amds incredably well thought out strategy to deal with the inherant variations in the manufacturing process. it started out all amd64s were to be 1meg cache then they saw it wasnt as important as 1st thought, the difference between similar 1/2 meg cache and 1/4 meg cache is about 4-6% in most apps, with p4s the difference is over 20%

opterons need registerd ram which if you dont know you need will be a disadvantage as it slows memory access and they are also multiplier locked, i think they also dont suport cool&quiet

the range of chips mean you can get one perfect for your type of app and amd lose practicaly nothing due to manufacturing defects

racoontje · Post by **racoontje** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 8:19 pm

The 512kB extra cache barely makes a difference.

The low-end (3[0-2-5]00+) S939 processors have a Winchester core (90nm)... Which are great OC'ers (I'm running one at 2.8GHz stable), up to speeds that kick FX-55 arse.