New system - advice...

[Pete]

When's SocketM2 coming out? (That's AMD's next socket, due to replace s939.)

I'm with everyone else, tho: a s939 A64 system will probably be cheaper and more upgradable than an Intel system. CAN$1200 sounds a bit much for just 3GHz and a 17" LCD, but I don't know the US-CAN exchange rate or any current Dell deals. I *think* you should be able to put together an A64-3000 + 2GB + Dell 20" 2005FPW for about US$1000 if you build yourself and buy the monitor for US$400 during a Dell deal, though. Obviously you can pay less by going with a 19" or 17" LCD (I'd recommend reading BeHardware's recent LCD reviews for some nice ghosting comparison pics).

I'd probably also recommend spending more than $65 on a PSU for a $1000 build. I'd just feel more comfortable doing so, tho I say that without knowing how good/bad YEM's Thermaltake is. There have been a lot of PSU roundups posted recently, though (SPCR as always, plus SLCentral, Hexus, and TrusteReviews, among others).

But, when you get down to GPU-limited situations (and the 1280x1024 an LCD will "lock" you into will likely be GPU-limited with newer titles), the spread between a non-OCed P4 and an A64 probably isn't that great. The attraction of the A64, IMO, is probably more its far simpler upgrade path as well as its lower power draw.

If you're looking into a case, the Antec P150 looks pretty nice and well thought-out, and it comes with a decent PSU (though 430W is probably not enough for SLIing two high-end cards, and it looks to get fairly loud at higher power draw levels [but then I'm a silence nut]).

 

[Sxotty]

Pete as I said M2 was supposed to come out in the spring, but I bet it is late summer at earliest now, or maybe next fall, either way I doubt it will matter too much.

Heck they might change their plans and never release it, I think part of it was to handle a higher current load, and it looks like heat and power are no-nos now.

Of course I could be completely wrong and have been before.

 

[Cartoon Corpse]

if M2 is coming out in spring. how many more AMD FX chips will come out, better than now, using the old 939 pin cofiguration? at least 1 more single core, plus 1 more dual core?

at least there would be a dual core upgrade available (out now).

cpu hamstrung me most last time.

 

[Sxotty]

I was under the impresion that there is only one more single core FX ever planned, is that true? I thought after that all will be multicore.

If the 754 socket is anything to go by the 939 might be dragged out a lot longer. i.e. many more CPUs for it, but who really knows this is all very unknown since AMD is keeping their cards close to the chest.

 

[Pete]

I was just informed of this $299 Opteron 165 over at TR: s939, dual core, 1MB L2 per core, only 1.8GHz, but 90nm SOI (so possibly very OCable). Sounds pretty good if you're considering dual core. I don't know what limits an Opteron chip places on RAM or OCing or the like, but I thought this was worth a mention, especially as it's s939.

 

[Sxotty]

Do you need registered memory for it? I think the 939s do not but I am not sure.

 

[Pete]

According to bhtooefr on TR, s939 Opterons don't need registered RAM, and they're "top-locked and bottom-unlocked." I have no idea what the latter means, but the 165's price certainly makes it worth investigating for those looking at dual-core.

But, for gaming, I suppose the better (at least short-term) choice would be to put the $100 saved by going for an OCable 3000+ toward a faster GPU.

 

[the maddman]

Socket 939 is always unregistered, Socket 940 is always registered. The traces on the motherboards are different between the two.

The only difference between the Opteron on socket 939 and the Athlon 64 dual cores is support for ECC memory. What I'm not sure on is if the Opteron in 939 requires ECC or not. ECC does add a little memory overhead. Not as much as registered RAM though.

 

[mito]

the amd 3800 x2 runs at 2 Ghz, isn't that too slow?

 

[digitalwanderer]

the amd 3800 x2 runs at 2 Ghz, isn't that too slow?

It's a dual core running at 2Ghz and 2Ghz AMD >>> 2Ghz Intel.

 

[mito]

I understand.

What specific architectural features make a 2Ghz AMD processor run games as fast as or even faster than a 3Ghz Intel 4 processor?

 

[Frank]

I understand.

What specific architectural features make a 2Ghz AMD processor run games as fast as or even faster than a 3Ghz Intel 4 processor?

In between 2 clock pulses a processor does lots of small tasks. And at the end of the cycle, they all have to be finished. So, the micro-task that takes the longest determines how high you can push the clockspeed.

There are basically 2 different approaches to making faster chips: doing more work every cycle (more and longer micro-tasks) or increasing the clockspeed (more and shorter micro-tasks).

As the total amount of micro-tasks is limited by the memory bandwidth and the amount of things you can run in parallel (not very many with the i386 instruction set), that boils down to making the tasks longer at a lower clockspeed, or making the tasks shorter and increasing the clockspeed.

Intel has put a lot of marketing into having everyone use the clockspeed to say what is the fastest chip. So, they opted for shorter tasks and a faster clockspeed. By their roadmap for the P4, we would have hit 10 Ghz some time ago.

Which is the main problem: leakage, power consumption and process imperfections have linited the maximum reachable speed to someting around 4 Ghz.

AMD opted to do more work (longer tasks) per cycle, and push 64 bit computing to increase performance. Which has worked out as expected, although the support for 64 bit is still very limited. Therefore, Intel has dumped the higher clockspeed approach, and is continuing the development with a highly modified P3 core (the P-M).

In short: a P-M or AMD is about as fast as a P4 running at twice the clockspeed.

Some other differences: the AMD's (and the next-gen Intels as well) have a built-in memory controller, which gives them high bandwidth and good cache use. But the Intels (and the next-gen AMD's as well) have better SSE support for some multi-media applications. And they can do some very specific things slightly faster.

 

[Karma Police]

I understand.

What specific architectural features make a 2Ghz AMD processor run games as fast as or even faster than a 3Ghz Intel 4 processor?

Lookup any review of a 3800 X2 and you will see.

 

[mito]

DiGuru,

Your answer was very very interesting to read.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH.