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Hardware AMD Announces 4x4 Enthusiast Platform
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - June 1, 2006 12:23 PM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 74 comment(s) - last by hstewarth.. on Jun 17 at 12:09 PM
AMD says it plans to release enthusiast focused processors and platforms

AMD announced today during a conference call that a new platform will be created and focused on just for the enthusiast desktop market. AMD has long been driving high-performance features on its Athlon family of processors and according to a number of surveys, most gamers are swaying towards AMD systems rather than Intel systems for gaming, or other application intense applications. Called 4x4, AMD's new platform brings along dual-socket motherboards.

The new 4x4 platform will feature two dual-core chips coupled with a dual-socket capable motherboard. AMD will also be releasing a new enthusiast focused chipset for the market, which is designed to take non-ECC unbuffered DDR memory. The new motherboards will be AM2 based, and take new AM2 FX-62 and higher -- all AM2 Athlon FX processors will have at least two cores.

AMD says that 4x4 is not simply workstation and server technology reduced down to consumer level, but is in fact, a whole new design. The company indicated that the new 4x4 chipset will be able to allow each processor core to have direct access to memory, and to have direct access to each other. The technology is called Direct Connect, and according to AMD, will be able to give huge boost to performance over traditional multi-socket platforms.

Virtualization will also make its way into the new 4x4 platform. AMD calls the technology Pacifica, which essentially is the same as Intel's VT technology, allowing virtual operating systems to directly access CPU core ops.

In related AMD news, Dell recently announced that it will begin shipping Opteron systems, but the company also now owns Alienware, which produces and ships high-performance enthusiast machines in both AMD and Intel flavors. According to AMD, the company says it would be happy for Dell to offer more AMD based systems under its own brand. It also feels that because of the growth of the enthusiast segment, it would be difficult for Dell to ignore AMD any longer.

AMD did not release details on whether new 4x4 systems would be upgradeable to quad-core K8L processors, which are expected to be released sometime in 2007. However, AMD did assure DailyTech that the 65nm Brisbane-based FX processor will be compatible with 4x4.

Interestingly however, AMD mentioned that a more updated 4x4 system called 4x4++ will be quad-core baed and support DDR3 memory sometime in 2008. The new system will also support next-generation PCI Express and new HyperTransport technologies boosting the current HyperTransport bus from 1.4GHz to 2.6GHz, or from 2.8GT/s to 5.2GT/s. According to AMD however, K8L will support both DDR2 and DDR3 memory technologies. AMD's desktop roadmap indicates that the new 4x4 family of platforms will take over the performance segment for AMD.

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hummmm...!
By Scabies on 6/1/2006 2:01:10 PM , Rating: 3
That little graphic might shed a little light on AMD's hypothetical intent with ATI (see http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2621). Who puts Crossfire before SLI these days? Theyre on debate for who's best, but the enthusiast seems to favor SLI (and quad SLI when it REALLY becomes available,) and considering this 4x4 business has been declared "for enthusiasts"

hmm hmm hmm....




RE: hummmm...!
By Josh7289 on 6/1/2006 2:05:01 PM , Rating: 3
Hahaha, I actually thought the same thing as you when I saw that in the slide!


RE: hummmm...!
By Von Matrices on 6/1/2006 2:56:55 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, but if you notice, there is one video card connected to each chipset, more like SLI X16 than crossfire.


RE: hummmm...!
By mlittl3 on 6/1/2006 3:15:44 PM , Rating: 2
ATI's R580 for AM2 supports 2 x16 slots.


RE: hummmm...!
By Von Matrices on 6/1/2006 3:36:24 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, but they both are connected to the same northbridge.


RE: hummmm...!
By mlittl3 on 6/1/2006 4:12:02 PM , Rating: 3
Hummm, again.

Well maybe that is why the chipset is grayed out as their graphical representation of the two ways in which you can have dual graphics attached to PCIe...

Okay, okay fine, I give in. Yes, this is irrefutable proof that AMD is buying ATI. :)


RE: hummmm...!
By Trisped on 6/1/2006 5:53:24 PM , Rating: 2
A partnership is more likely. Why buy Crossfire if you are going to also support SLI?


RE: hummmm...!
By Scabies on 6/1/2006 3:30:57 PM , Rating: 2
And the cards are incidentally red... "hmm" summore


Desperation?
By tjr508 on 6/1/2006 1:08:13 PM , Rating: 1
Are they going to lock single cores out of this?
I assume low sales volumes might drive prices at or below opteron 2xx configurations which may be pretty neat.




RE: Desperation?
By mlittl3 on 6/1/2006 1:12:35 PM , Rating: 1
"The new motherboards will be AM2 based, and take new AM2 FX-62 and higher -- all AM2 Athlon FX processors will have at leaset two cores."

That should answer your question.


RE: Desperation?
By CKDragon on 6/1/2006 2:14:45 PM , Rating: 1
But there are AM2-based processors that are not Athlon FX's, correct? I know for certain that there are AM2-based Athlon 64 X2's, but I haven't researched enough to know if there are AM2-based single-core Athlon 64's.

Next up: Someone more knowledgeable. :)

CK


RE: Desperation?
By GoatMonkey on 6/1/2006 3:03:25 PM , Rating: 1
The article doesn't mention allowing x2 or regular athlon processors, only FX.



RE: Desperation?
By CKDragon on 6/2/2006 7:13:21 AM , Rating: 1
You're right, it doesn't mention x2 or single core Athlon 64's at all. When I first read
quote:
The new motherboards will be AM2 based, and take new AM2 FX-62 and higher -- all AM2 Athlon FX processors will have at least two cores.
I interpreted that as the jury still being out on the other single & dual core processors. But now when I read it today it can also be taken as stating that it will ONLY take FX dual cores.

Maybe I have done a poor job of communicating myself in this thread, but my further interest stems from the fact that just because it's been stated that "the board will take AM2 FX-62s and higher" doesn't necessarily mean that every other processor is ruled out.


RE: Desperation?
By mlittl3 on 6/1/2006 3:12:01 PM , Rating: 1
Maybe you shouldn't say someone else is less knowledgable if you don't have enough knowledge to understand the answer.

When the article says, FX-62 and higher that means only FX family processors from the first AM2 one to future FX processors. This precludes any semprons, regular 64's and 64 X2's.

There are going to be two single core regular 64's (3500+, 3800+) for AM2. These are not FX-62 and higher so they will not be supported on this 4x4 platform.

I hope your request for someone more knowledgable (although you got me again) is satisfied.


RE: Desperation?
By Diesel Donkey on 6/2/2006 4:07:04 AM , Rating: 1
I'm pretty sure CKDragon was calling for someone more knowledgeable than himself.


RE: Desperation?
By CKDragon on 6/2/2006 7:04:20 AM , Rating: 1
Ding ding. :)

I guess it's normal to expect it in the internet culture, but in my post there was no insult intended, AT ALL. But I enjoyed the response, anyway.

Cheers!


RE: Desperation?
By Trisped on 6/1/2006 5:22:52 PM , Rating: 2
Considering the complicated nature of the set up and the extreme cost, using single core processors would be a waste of money. The system is designed to use 2 FX processors, meaning a minimum by in of $2000 for the processors. Then you have the mother board, which will be $200-500 (or more because they have to pay for SLI and Crossfire royalties). Since you will have already spent $2000 on the processors, you can expect to pay $1000+ for two top of the line video cards, plus some for RAM, keyboard, mouse, monitor, drives, case, power supply(the biggest you can find) and whatever else you need. Throw in the fee to have someone build it for you and I think this could be the first widely available gamer platform at $10,000+.

All that for a small performance increase of 50-100%. Some people have more money then brains.


RE: Desperation?
By bonf on 6/2/2006 7:21:32 AM , Rating: 2
Well even if it's $500(MB)+$2000(CPU)+$1000(GPU) that's only $3500, would need an expensive keyboard to make it $10000 total. More like $5000, which is not too far out for some gamers.
But much more importantly this might be a setup that beats conroe on many benchmark, as long as the benchmarks use multithreading.
We all tend to buy our CPUs from the company that makes the fastest chips, but we don't buy the fastest chip. It's all psychology...


RE: Desperation?
By bob661 on 6/2/2006 2:26:14 PM , Rating: 2
Doesn't anyone find it interesting that the FX62's can run in a dual processor mode?


Direct Connect new technology
By Goolic on 6/1/2006 1:50:11 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
The company indicated that the new 4x4 chipset will be able to allow each processor core to have direct access to memory, and to have direct access to each other. The technology is called Direct Connect, and according to AMD, will be able to give huge boost to performance over traditional multi-socket platforms.


Direct conect has at least 2 years ... Or am I wrong
And i think it isn only for servers !




RE: Direct Connect new technology
By mlittl3 on 6/1/2006 3:13:45 PM , Rating: 2
You might be thinking about Intel's CSI. This is Intel's answer to Hypertransport and it won't be ready until 2008/2009 timeframe according to the most recent information.