I would just to say I can write and spell, only when I want to. heres a review of the 939 and the newer technologies from the AMD and some other information to make this an atucal review..
Enjoy...
Socket 939, The review (3800)
I have always moved toward new technologies and balancing the cost to what worth having. With the launch of Socket 939 and a higher speed HT (hyper threading) pushing 1000 MHZ it looks as if this could be an ideal solution for the gaming system which I build.
Now of course, when purchasing a processor, a consumer will most likely want the following attributes:
1. Speed
2. Processing power
3. Cost effective
4. Supported software
5. Over clockability
AMD seeks to address each of those concerns, and more, with its new processors. A few years ago, AMD introduced the Athlon processors which proved that they had equal power to the intel rivals proving that Intel wasn't the only manufacturer that could produce an advanced cpu to meet the needs of competitive CPU’s. Consumers not only had new option to choice from, but it was one that looked ready to give Intel a serious run for its money.
AMD was able to make cheaper and faster processors, which drew a substantial following from the enthusiast market (gamers in particular). Continuing the trend, AMD released the next generation of processor, The 64 BIT taking users into a realm of affordable 64 bit processing with the socket 754 and socket 940 based chips.
Among the benefits of the 754 and 940 were an on-die memory controller and the ability to process in both 64-bit and 32-bit modes and new x86-64 extensions available in 64-bit mode. Socket 754 was and is the consumer/workstation processor, while the 940 is focused on server markets. Both system over the past few months have been used in the home with the prices dropping to make them affordable and with home users becoming more advanced in their use of there home computers since the processors had passed a suitable speed level to make home PC’s as fast as work based computer systems. You will soon see the use of Opterons and Xeons, more business class system being sold in electrical retailers as home user system. I cannot be sure of the dates but it will no be too long till we see servers being sold where there were poor over priced system before.
Software companies to date are slow to move onto the 64-bit bandwagon so AMD included the ability to run in 32-bit as well as 64 which has benefited people who were moving over and waiting for software developers to catch up. AMD offered the socket 754 at a time when Intel had no (and continues to have none) consumer based 64 bit Processor.
Intel released its Pentium 4 Prescott that showed excellent performance, but had other drawbacks. The P4 Prescott delivered undesirable effects when over-clocking, consumed a lot of power and therefore intrinsically produced a lot of heat, and still offered no 64-bit support.
AMD with the success of 754 and 940, pushed further to add support for dual-channel memory, shrink its die further, and provide other assorted refinements. Socket 939 processors come in two main flavours: the performance-rated AMD 64 3500+ and 3800+ processors, and the FX-53 processor. The main difference between these two is that the FX series has twice the cache of the 3500 or 3800, boasting 1MB of L2 cache.
First AMD have shrunk the die from 193mm˛ to 144mm˛, apart from the FX53 that utilizes the larger 193mm˛ due to cache size.
We also see a healthy jump in raw MHz, the top-rated P4 is running at a slick 3.4ghz and the top rated AMD runs an entire 1ghz lower at 2.4ghz. With this gap in actual clock speeds, those that think MHz is everything would easily conclude that the performance of the P4 3.4 would crush the AMD 64 3800+ running 2.4ghz.
AMD's comparatively small increase in clock speed (MHz) hinders its performance on the 3800+ which needs to be down clocked and FSB changes need to be made to gain more speed in raw MHz.
With its design of the Socket 939 processor, AMD has addressed two major concerns that users had with the socket 754 processors and its other rages. The first concern was the lack of support for regular DDR memory in some chipsets and processors that could only use registered, ECC DDR. The main draw back for the user was the greater costs of tight timed DDR Ram modules which AMD users had to purchase and the lack of suppliers for these modules The second was that socket 754 supported only single channel memory. Twin sticks of ram could be present but only in a single channel configuration.
This meant there was potentially some performance loss for users of the 754 processor, which is clearly counter-productive
With socket 939, AMD has added support for regular (non-ECC, non-registered) DDR RAM, as well as a dual-channel memory controller on the processor. Since both latency and dual-channel configuration play a
Crucial role in many real world performance and benchmarking tools, there is a greater option to give more MHz per buck that an entire system would cost, and better speeds over RAM.
The AMD Athlon 64 processors offer a step up in performance digital media, such as Adobe Photoshop 7.0.1, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 6.1 and Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9 and office productivity software, including Microsoft Access, Excel, FrontPage, PowerPoint and Word; Norton AntiVirus 2003 and WinZip 8.1. However in some tests the PowerPoint opening was a touch slower. The AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 processor remains a premium product for gamers, prosumers and PC enthusiasts- AMD Athlon 64 processors are for mainstream computing needs where performance, security and stability are
Crucial with only one 64 bit virus raising its head since the launch of 64 bit computing that’s a fairly clean record but I wouldn’t be so sure in future years weather this will apply.
With an increased speed of the FSB the AMD offered Hypertransport her are some of the benefits offered
The AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 processor 939-pin provides:
Performance: Socket 939-based motherboards are designed to provide performance enhancements for AMD Athlon 64 FX and AMD Athlon 64 processor-based systems.
Up to 2.2GHz HyperTranport technology providing up to 8.0GB/s of system bandwidth
Dual-channel, unbuffered DDR memory providing up to 6.4GB/s of memory bandwidth
Platform innovations: Socket 939-based motherboards are expected to usher in the next-generation of platform innovations like:
Upcoming PCI-Express graphics solutions. Abit have started production of its socket 939 PCI express motherboard, which will bring a faster speed at 16X, compared to that of the 8X AGP socket. With the first test revealing that there was no support from games made today this could be something that would future proof a system that you were considering, the test have shown that the 16X PCI express has lead to improvement for users wishing to video edit and the input speed have show a greater improvement already.
Cool’n’Quiet™ technology While led by the processor this is down to the motherboard manufactures which is in some cases leaves a lot to be desired, the GT ULTIMA 1 system which was built did see massive overvolting form the “cool N quite” technology would have left the processor permanently silenced.
Up to 2.2GHz HyperTranport technology providing up to 8.0GB/s of system bandwidth
Dual-channel, unbuffered DDR memory providing up to 6.4GB/s of memory bandwidth
Stable & mature platform infrastructure: With the advent of socket 939-based motherboards, customers will be able to leverage a single-socket infrastructure for the AMD Athlon 64 family of processors. As news leads me into think that AMD while dumping the Duron for the likes of the sempron, its Athlon XP chip seams to be hedged away with its lower FSB on the older models. However the sempron is not as high performing and you may think with a host of site benching the Processors to find little or no changes even thought the architecture is newer. Still happy with the 2500M Athlon XP’s many users are turning to this chip farther than the AMD socket 754 and the 64Bit processors with simple clocking of the chips to bring there antiquated chips up to date.
HyperTranport technology is a high-speed, low latency, point-to-point link designed to increase the communication speed between integrated circuits in computers, servers, embedded systems, and networking and telecommunications equipment up to 48 times faster than some existing technologies.
HyperTranport technology helps reduce the number of buses in a system, which can reduce system bottlenecks and enable today's faster microprocessors to use system memory more efficiently in high-end multiprocessor systems.
HyperTranport technology is designed to:
Provide significantly more bandwidth than current technologies
Use low-latency responses and low pin counts
Maintain compatibility with legacy PC buses while being extensible to new SNA (Systems Network Architecture) buses.
Appear transparent to operating systems and offer little impact on peripheral drivers.
HyperTranport technology was invented at AMD with contributions from industry partners and is managed and licensed by the HyperTranport Technology Consortium, a Texas non-profit corporation. The full specification and more information about HyperTranport technology can be found at
HyperTransport.org.
HyperTranport is a licensed trademark of the HyperTranport Technology Consortium.
AMDs socket 939 Mother board use a 2000Mt board speed (1000 MHz) where as the offering of the Intel range is limited to the 1600 (800 MHz) speed that the 754 AMD processors used.
Over all the 3800 compares well to the Intel P4 3.0Ghz processors with a slight faster speed on 90% of applications the AMD 64 is definitely the current cpu of choice for high-end gaming. Given that Doom 3 has gone gold and HL2 could be a stone throw away from gold also, gamers who are considering an upgrade would do well to purchase an AMD 64 Socket 939 processor.
The 939 offers a clear software upgrade path to 64-bit when Microsoft releases its 64-bit operating system where Pentium 4 owners will be forced to remain using current 32 bit Windows XP systems without realizing the performance gains of a 64 bit OS.
With confirmation that Microsoft is releasing a 64-bit version of Windows XP, and reviews demonstrating noticeable gains under a 64 bit OS, it's confusing that Intel has dismissed the 64-bit consumer processor revolution that the consumer/desktop computing market is definitely heading towards. In either case, AMD is the clear winner here, with a stable 64/32-bit product that is crushing the competition in nearly every benchmark and in real-world performance. It is also worth noticing that Linux has already produced its 64bit OS and is available for free in most cases, how ever if you’ve not used Linux you may want to stick with Windows, how ever the free price tag may tilt your option with koppix being a CD ran based version on Linux your could be forgiven to try it some time although its is a more set up intensive OS it does have its clear benefits. Not to mention that the AMD3800 is at a lower price than that of the Intel P4 top of the range processor.
Please note the information on this page is generally directed to the AMD 3800 socket 939.
Also I would like to add that although Intel’s P4 EE is a great processor the independent review shows that the Xeon system are faster and cheaper.
The AMD Opteron while having a Dual option with the alike of the 2500M could be an equal contender with AMD offering a Massive 8 processor mother board, with 11Gigabytes of RAM could leave systems open to the limits of budgets with a
GT ULTIMA quad Processor system setting you back Ł22,500 you can start measuring in terabytes.
But as always there is a following for both the Intel and AMD systems where the consumer war may never end or potions on which is better and faster………
RSS Updates