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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.


RE: Direct Connect new technology
By peternelson on 6/1/2006 4:31:18 PM , Rating: 2

Direct connect has been around a while. For example Cray use it with opterons in their XD1 supercomputer.

Direct connect on a DESKTOP chip is NEW.

This is an awesome announcement.

Conroe is pWn3d!

I just want to know:

WHEN is this chipset and boards on the market?

Can I buy a current 62FX processor now, use it in a 590 board for a few months then use it in my future 4x4 motherboard?


RE: Direct Connect new technology
By zsdersw on 6/1/2006 8:48:04 PM , Rating: 1
Oh, I see... Conroe not being out yet is reason enough to not jump to conclusions about how well it's going to perform..... but we know enough to jump to conclusions about how "pWn3d" it's going to be by this new stuff from AMD? Wow.. you're a special kind of stupid.


RE: Direct Connect new technology
By bonf on 6/2/2006 7:29:26 AM , Rating: 1
No, actually you are. See, AMD is bringing well established technology to the desktop. We've seen it work, it's benchmarked and everything. If the software supports it, the opterons have almost no multi-CPU penalty, i.e. four cores are really four times as fast as a single core.
Intel on the other side has been showing again and again that it is not able to do this beyond two cores and won't be able to until CSI comes out sometime in 2008.
So if the game developers really start multithreaded stuff Intel is really pwned. And think, next year brings 4-core packages, 8 cores on a motherboard. Ouch, that's gonna hurt for Intel.


RE: Direct Connect new technology
By zsdersw on 6/2/2006 8:56:08 AM , Rating: 3
Wrong. This is no reason to jump to negative conclusions about Conroe, just as what we've seen so far is no reason to jump to positive conclusions about it.


RE: Direct Connect new technology
By bob661 on 6/2/2006 2:29:35 PM , Rating: 2
Going with zsdersw on this. We have no shipping, consumer products from either company to test so we don't know anything about how either will perform. Nothing wrong with speculation but I think everyone needs to treat all these comments as just that.


Not a big deal
By photoguy99 on 6/1/06, Rating: 0
RE: Not a big deal
By hstewarth on 6/1/2006 2:23:27 PM , Rating: 1
Yep its just another version of Dual Processor setup.

Intel could easly compete with this, just come out with a desktop version of the Woodcrest Setup aim at gamers.

This would also allow the desktop to have 1333Mhz quad pump bus which at top Conroe speed would be 4Ghz on 1333Mhz quad pump bus.


RE: Not a big deal
By Patsoe on 6/1/2006 4:01:53 PM , Rating: 2
1) "2x2" doesn't sound as "heavyweight" as "4x4" :)
It could ofcourse refer to 4 cores and 4 RAM channels, which is actually quite impressive.

2) well, 10% is not bad. I suppose in applications that do better with lower latencies (games?), it might matter a bit to have unbuffered DIMMs. But you're right, the difference between the first S940 FX chip (using buffered DIMMs) and the later S939 FX chips (corrected for the higher clock speed) wasn't "huge".

3) this is for enthousiasts who are AMD-fans, and need only a slight excuse towards themselves for not buying Conroe. And it's for the "more is better" crowd, too :) And yes, it is a pity they don't have anything better to offer just now. I think Anand(tech) alluded to this release as "an interesting stop gap solution" in his AM2 review, and that is exactly what it is...

4) I don't get the part about the "special chipset" that should allow direct memory access... I thought the whole idea with HT was that it was glueless? The diagram doesn't show a chipset sitting in between either. This whole Direct Connect stuff is probably just another fancy marketing name for their Hyperthreading connections, or?



RE: Not a big deal
By Patsoe on 6/1/2006 4:04:57 PM , Rating: 2
aaaahrg, I meant Hypertransport not Hyperthreading...

The whole marketing mumbo-jumbo with all the stupid names got my brains messed up :P

And now I have to make more space in memory to remember "Direct Connect", too... :P


RE: Not a big deal
By peternelson on 6/1/2006 4:36:52 PM , Rating: 2

It's like a "4x4" vehicle, it's four wheel drive, not like 16 wheels!

Of course it's a marketing name, but still good.

For performance apps like graphics rendering for the enthusiast, but without paying an opteron budget, this will be great.

And no Intel can't offer a direct competitor, unless they suddenly change their chips to hypertransport ;-) They are locked into fsb architecture.

AMD AGGREGATE memory bandwidth will be great!


RE: Not a big deal
By Zelvek on 6/4/2006 1:33:55 AM , Rating: 2
don't forget that 4 core cpus are not far off and the artcal speculates that 4x4 could suport these future cpu's so maybe amd is just looking ahead?


Who cares?
By Discord on 6/1/2006 5:13:39 PM , Rating: 2
Who cares abou having a second CPU? You would see little in the way of performance improvments in games.
What would really drive sales of this dual socket platform is being able to add that Coproccesor they keep talking about. Drop that Ageia POS like a bad habit.




RE: Who cares?
By cochy on 6/1/2006 5:31:57 PM , Rating: 2
Exactly. Won't be worth the money. Won't compete with Conroe on gaming benchmarks or other real world benchmarks. 2 cores is plenty.


RE: Who cares?
By Trisped on 6/1/2006 6:08:47 PM , Rating: 2
Actually you should. By then the good games will be ready for the up coming quad core processors. Plus, you will get a benefit that all the other stuff, like back ground OS and hardware requests have their own space to work on.


RE: Who cares?
By Discord on 6/1/2006 6:25:52 PM , Rating: 1
By when? They say they are going to release these things this year. Present games, even with support for dual cores, ink out nearly immeasurable increases.
By the time the K8l desktop quad cores come out you may see measurable improvements from software. But then this thing will look like a big pile when compared to a 4-core k8l.
It's like a niche product without a niche.


RE: Who cares?
By AnotherGuy on 6/1/2006 8:22:25 PM , Rating: 2
Yep I dont think this will work.... its just no a Desktop thingie... its made for server architecture... and its just way too expensive for the desktop...

Nice try thoe AMD... U ALMOST amazed me again since the time a64 came out :)


cool
By Visual on 6/1/2006 2:17:14 PM , Rating: 2
first of all, must say i'm surprised the AM2 socket can be used for multisocket configs. so those 940 pins are enough for 2 channels of ddr2, a link to the chipset and one between the cpus... really makes you wonder what the 1200pin server socket will be capable of.
if all the x2 AM2 cpus have the extra HT link for connecting the sockets i'm wondering how much that adds to the production price. not many people will be taking advantage of this, for sure, so why are they building it in desktop chips? are they still producing exactly the same cores for both desktop and server and just selecting different packaging? with all the different core codenames out there i was thinking they have separate, cheaper core designs for the desktop.




RE: cool
By mlittl3 on 6/1/2006 3:18:59 PM , Rating: 2
Socket F (1207 pins) will need to support 4 cores in one socket. This 4x4 configuration will have only 2 cores per socket. On the slide, it says that 4x4+ will support quad cores so that might need a new socket. I could be wrong. We will know for sure when Socket F is released in July.


RE: cool
By Trisped on 6/1/2006 5:56:46 PM , Rating: 2
They are connected by HT, so extra pins are not necessary. You just have to realize that you now have twice the CPUs filling you HT. Overclocking may be necessary...


RE: cool
By Zoomer on 6/3/2006 5:49:09 AM , Rating: 2
FB DIMM.

They probably opted for a similar pincount so that little retooling was needed for mobo manufacturers.


By thestain on 6/1/2006 2:28:26 PM , Rating: 2
I like the idea.. Dual Sockets for my desktop computer.. I would think this could open up a lot of possibilities and finally bring extended ATX motherboards to many of us, but.. AMD will need to either seriously drop prices or.. widen the offering for this to really take hold.. as no way am I spending $2,000 for the 4X4 set up as it stands today!

If AMD could get the X2's or the Opteron's to work with this set up.. and maybe add reverse threading.. now that would be the way to go.. imo




By GoatMonkey on 6/1/2006 3:06:48 PM , Rating: 2
If someone was going to spend $2k on a motherboard and CPUs, they might as well take the next step and spend another $2k on dual gpu sli too. 4 CPUs and 4 GPUs... $4000+.


By thilanliyan on 6/1/2006 9:11:07 PM , Rating: 2
Exactly, I hope this is not only for FX based processors. What a waste of money to get like 30-50% performance increase at 1024x768.

Most games are GPU limited anyway at higher resolutions...why bother with this set up??


By GoatMonkey on 6/2/2006 12:40:46 PM , Rating: 2
Some people use their computers for things other than games. I know it's shocking, just take a minute to try to absorb that.



DDR1 on AM2?
By Josh7289 on 6/1/2006 2:07:05 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
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.


DDR1 on AM2?




RE: DDR1 on AM2?
By PT2006 on 6/1/2006 2:11:12 PM , Rating: 2
It says DDR, not DDR1.


RE: DDR1 on AM2?
By Shankar on 6/1/2006 2:25:31 PM , Rating: 1
why have they gone bck to DDR is the question...


RE: DDR1 on AM2?
By shadowzz on 6/1/2006 2:58:29 PM , Rating: 2
If "it" works, Conroe will be beaten ..
By xeizo on 6/1/2006 3:49:37 PM , Rating: 2
What is "it"? It is AMD:s proclaimed "antihyperthreading" which makes the software believe those four cores are only one and hence the performance is greatly enhanced even in singlethreaded games. That is if "it" works? :)




RE: If "it" works, Conroe will be beaten ..
By Patsoe on 6/1/2006 4:11:08 PM , Rating: 2
If "it" works, AMD will double their sales in the high-end segment... all the loyal AMD-fans will buy two chips for their next machine.
What is "it"? It is AMD's very daring marketing move. :D


By Jkm3141 on 6/4/2006 1:42:36 AM , Rating: 2
noone knows wut "it" is but you can buy it on eBay ^_^


Love it.
By AggressorPrime on 6/1/2006 2:59:31 PM , Rating: 1
This is awesome AMD. Time to eliminate Conroe XE!




RE: Love it.
By zsdersw on 6/1/2006 8:51:30 PM , Rating: 1
Be sure to clean up after your AMD-inspired orgasm.


RE: Love it.
By hstewarth on 6/2/2006 3:31:02 PM , Rating: 1
Please note what this actually states: For AMD To beat the Conroe XE, they need 2 of there processors to do it.

Whats next, if Intel puts 2 Conroe XE's ( Woodcrest ) on a motherboard, AMD then will stated it will have 8x8.


RE: Love it.
By Jkm3141 on 6/4/2006 1:41:23 AM , Rating: 2
hmmm, reminds me of nVidia and ATI.

nVidia gets beat by ATI on single cards
nVidia uses 2 GPU (SLI) for Ultra High End
ATI Beats nVidia in dual card market (Crossfire X1900XT)
nVidia releases 4 GPU setup for Ultra High End

Instead of just adding on more, why not make the orignal better? at least in Graphics cards. 1 single X1900XT (yes i know its shocking) is good enough for HD Gaming (1600x1200 is very much HD) in every game I have seen.


w00t
By GhandiInstinct on 6/2/2006 4:04:29 PM , Rating: 1
The reason I think this is a great move by AMD is because I can speak for a lot of people, including myself, who have wanted a dual-cpu configuration for a while but either couldn't afford the server boards and xeons/opterons, or couldn't make use with the server optimizations and configurations which weren't geared towards mainstream use.

If the price is competitive I can see this skyrocket in the world of enthusiasts.




RE: w00t
By cochy on 6/2/2006 9:47:09 PM , Rating: 2
You got your wish when dual-core cpu came to market. A dual-dual (ie. 4 cpuss) is overkill and useless for a desktop computer. I'm not saying the technology is bad, it's just a waste of money for consumers, who will not benefit from it. If they would allow for non-FX chips to plug into this, meaning that one wouldn't have to buy the most expensive cpus to begin with, this platform might find some use in desktops.


RE: w00t
By Disorganise on 6/4/2006 12:04:45 AM , Rating: 2
I think the idea for multiple cores is great...for certain fields. eg, building a test environment in VMware - having 4 cores (and a large chunk of RAM) would allow several VM's to run simultaneously without too much degradation.
Limiting to the FX, though, is potentially an issue. Not only are they very expensive, but AMD's position is that there's only ever on FX available - thus when FX64 is released, the FX62 disappears. This means it's unlikely you can buy the mobo and ONE FX 'now', with the plan to add the second chip later.

Is it me, or have high-end PC's just been getting more and more expensive over the last year or two? Top end graphics cards have doubled in price (quadrupled if you go SLI), dual core CPU's have pushed CPU costs up etc etc. It's almost as if we're on a mission to build the most expensive PC possible!


Nothing wrong with this idea.
By proamerica on 6/2/2006 3:47:35 PM , Rating: 2
Why is this a bad idea in some people's eyes? This is simply an improvement over other dual processor systems. If you think its a waste of money... hmmm, wow, I MEAN WOW, there is an alternative for you!!! DON'T BUY IT!!

This is good technology that is going to improve overall system performance for everyone eventually. Only the ignorant would get down it. There is nothing about this that is inherently flawed, you take two of the fastest processors available and connect them with an ultra fast Direct Connect architecture. Where is the problem? This is just like a Dual Processor system except with a faster interconnect between the processors.

DO THE NAYSAYERS EVEN REMOTELY UNDERSTAND THAT CONCEPT??







RE: Nothing wrong with this idea.
By Alaa on 6/3/2006 12:12:03 AM , Rating: 2
i totally agree with u


dual-everything
By Xorp on 6/2/2006 3:47:24 AM , Rating: 1
I'm kinda sick of all this dual-everything trend these days. Dual graphics cards, dual-dual graphics cards, dual processors for non-server use. Why can't people wait unless the single version catches up? It's usally only 6 months away. I'm not refering to dual-core processors, because that is one piece of hardware.




RE: dual-everything
By mcmxxx on 6/2/2006 4:33:26 AM , Rating: 2
Well,

I'm just waiting for the Hypertransport Ageia PPU that just plugs into the extra socket? Is this possible? Surely if they're making a PGA for the socket this would be possible...

A dual core + ageia HT chip = kick ass!

wouldn't this get rid of all the latency issues from the

cpu -> ageia -> cpu -> GC??


Hmm...this is sorta kinda cool
By Electabots on 6/1/2006 1:38:41 PM , Rating: 2
This will basically make motherboards like the k8n master2-far and the k8t master2-far7 more mainstream I guess
I have a k8n master2-far with 2 opteron 244's oced to 2.2ghz with 2 6600's in sli and it works great but its rather expensive to upgrade




AMD's Struggle
By theteamaqua on 6/1/06, Rating: 0
RE: AMD's Struggle
By DigitalFreak on 6/1/2006 2:15:51 PM , Rating: 2
I would assume they mean DDR technology (DDR2/3).


ETA
By Quincunx on 6/1/2006 3:48:27 PM , Rating: 2
Tech report quoted a quote saying second half of 2006 for those looking for an ETA. Now the quote of a quote isn't the most reliable source, but supposedly it came from the mouth of a higher up in AMD.

So, maybe sometime in the next 6 months? We hope?




K8L
By Alaa on 6/1/2006 9:23:08 PM , Rating: 2
with K8L processors this technology would ROCK..if i had a chance, i'll get a 4x4 system 07/08 .isa.




More stuff we cant use yet
By MadAd on 6/2/2006 11:43:00 AM , Rating: 2
Well this is all well and good but when are we gong to see all this whizzy new hardware actually used, to some measure of its potental?

Though the ages, hardware tends to be the driver with a new concept gathering pace slowly as more people get access to it- this can be a year or two from the product being available. Right now the software engineers are only just getting to grips with dualcore availablilty, with little benefit (yet) to those that have purchased them.




By unparalleled intellect on 6/4/2006 4:26:50 AM , Rating: 2
I'm enthusiastic about dual CPU systems but I'm terribly confused; are there any major technical differences between this and a dual dual core Opteron system?

Also, what kind of performance gains should we expect? I don't understand the benefit of the addition of two cores to the majority of my applications.




It's about time!
By CZroe on 6/8/2006 11:47:54 AM , Rating: 2
Ever since Intel left the 440BX and removed SMP capabilities from consumer motherboards and CPUs, enthusiasts have been ignored. How could an enthusiast NOT appreciate symetrical cores cranking away at DVDShrink or WMEncoder9?

Abit was on to something way back with the Abit BP6 dual CPU PPGA s370 Celeron motherboard. Enthusiasts generally could care less about Extreme Edition CPUs when they could have dual quad-core CPUs cranking away at an optimized task like video encoding. Back then, a Celeron A with 128k cache was slaughtering a PIII 500 because it had full speed cache memory and could be clocked higher and no applications had SSE support. Two of those bad boys in a BP6 = insane.




By hstewarth on 6/17/2006 12:09:02 PM , Rating: 2
I am curious if Windows XP Pro will support this configuration or do you need Windows 2003 Server.

Is the 4 Cores treated has 4 physical cpus? Doesn't Windows XP pro only handle 2 physical cpus.




typo
By Howard on 6/1/06, Rating: 0
RE: typo
By Brandon Hill (blog) on 6/1/06, Rating: 0
"When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." -- Sony BMG attorney Jennifer Pariser











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