AMD's first affordable dual-core processor released...

[FlyingPenguin]

If you consider $400+ affordable, but that's cheaper than the existing dual core processors:

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-5812 ... subj=zdnet

[wpublic]

are those socket 939's?

[b-man1]

Smooth and Efficient Upgrades
Additionally, the elegant design of the AMD64 architecture allowed for the planning of dual-core processors from the ground up, which means that the AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core processor is designed to fit in the same 939-pin infrastructure as single-core processors. All that is required is a BIOS update, saving our partners the costs of redesigns and obsolete inventory.

AMD64 X2 Info

[wvjohn]

300 would be the sweet spot

[Key Keeper]

Originally posted by b-man1
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/Pro ... 9485_13041^13078,00.html

Link broke, for me n e ways, as far as I have seen, all mobo that support FX procs will support dual core. Im sure there will be a catch later on down the road. When apps can acutally use the two cores, I will buy one. As for gaming, forget it. Seems to me that gaming is "all bout the vid card" n e more.

[b-man1]

link fixed

[FlyingPenguin]

Link broke, for me n e ways, as far as I have seen, all mobo that support FX procs will support dual core. Im sure there will be a catch later on down the road. When apps can acutally use the two cores, I will buy one. As for gaming, forget it. Seems to me that gaming is "all bout the vid card" n e more.

No catch. I've already seen it done at the AMD Tech tour. They swapped out both processors in a dual CPU 939 server mobo and turned it into a 4 processor system - took all of 8 minutes. Instant 50 - 70% performance improvement across 6 different benchmarks.

Any 939 mobo whose manufacturer is a Member of AMD's Tech Partners (and most are) will support dual core CPUs with nothing more than a BIOS update at most.

There is NOTHING ELSE to do. Standard Windows XP supports dual core out of the box. No drivers, no special apps, no re-boot after the initial power up for the redetection of the 2nd core, not even the need to re-activate Windows (changing the CPU alone is not enough to trigger the change of hardware trip for activation).

Dual core will be a no-brainer next year for sure once the prices settle down.

As for gaming, who couldn't use a 50 - 70% performance improvement? It's not all about the vid card. I could stick a Radeon x800 in an Athlon 2200 and an Athlon 3200 rig and I guarantee you that you'll prefer to play on the 3200.

[b-man1]

this is the type of jump in technology that makes me want to upgrade again...perhaps i'll actually build a pc again some day! hahaha

[nexus_7]

it is nice. we were playing with one at work.

Greg

[DocSilly]

Originally posted by FlyingPenguin
.... Instant 50 - 70% performance improvement across 6 different benchmarks. ...

... As for gaming, who couldn't use a 50 - 70% performance improvement? ...

I guess that the "different benchmarks" that showed the huge increase in performance weren't games? I would think they'd use benchmarks of multi-CPU capable programms like videoencoding apps or alike when they display a server mobo.

The singlecore 3800+ runs at 2.4GHz while the dualcore 3800+ runs on 2GHz (so the X2 is actually as fast as a 3200+ singlecore in raw GHz). Since most gamers usually stop encoding movies when they fire up their favourite games (and no game is really multi-CPU capable by itself) they'll get more performance while playing games from the faster singlecore CPU.

The dualcore will help when you're really multitasking while playing games. Who hasn't seen the system coming to a crawl when your scheduled AV scan kicked in while you're playing your favourite game? The X2 has an advantage in those situations.

Gaming performance > http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sh ... =2484&p=10

The singlecore certainly beats the X2 in raw gaming performance ... but the X2 more than made up for it by the improvements in multitasking and multithreaded application performance.

[FlyingPenguin]

Doc,

No they weren't gaming benchmarks. They were showing off server improvements.

They were workstation & server benchmarks like SPEC & WebBench, 3D Studio Max, CineBench, Maya, Softimage.

Lots of benchies here: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/Pro ... 00,00.html

Look for the single to dual core performance comparisons.

Once prices come down this is the realistic way of improving performance with little pain for the CPU manufactures since we're rapidly approaching some limits on die size.

After next year I'm going to bet that dual core will be the standard for all CPUs, just like how onboard cache became the standard years ago.

[DocSilly]

I agree, multicore CPUs will be standard by next year ... no wonder since they pretty much hit the speedlimit with current singlecores, increasing cache / going multicore is the only way to further increase performance right now

[FlyingPenguin]

One of the more interesting bits of info from that Tech Tour show was that the dual core CPU runs no hotter than the single core (both are spec'd as the same power usage and disipitation).

In other words no need for a bigger PSU, no need for a bigger HSF or additional cooling.

The dual core will actually run a bit cooler because it transmit heat more efficiently to the HSF (two larger hot spots instead of one smaller one means more mated surface area of the CPU is conducting heat to the HSF).

[rndmtask]

Can anyone tell me what games are actually SMP compatible? In any case I think my next computer will be dualcore. I've always wanted a dual proc computer ever since a friend of mine had his first dual p-pro 200 mhz. He could actually watch two mpeg video's at once. Those were the days.

[rogue]

My next chip will be a 4600+ X2 more than likely, unless 4800+ prices fall dramatically within the next few months. Once x2 chips fall below the $300 mark I see no point in buying a single core chip.