The Quickest Guide to AMD Processors...Ever. [Archive]

MediaMan

5 Nov 2004, 03:27am

"What Athlon do I buy?" To begin to answer that question here is a compiled list of all the current platforms and brief outlines for each including my personal recommendations for what's hot and what's not.

Read it here (http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=272)

Cygnus_x_1

5 Nov 2004, 03:50am

EXCELLENT write up.... :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

quick, and to the point...

MediaMan

5 Nov 2004, 03:51am

It's all Thrax's work this time. :)

Unregistered

5 Nov 2004, 05:02am

The subject interrest me. Is it possible to add the Athlon XP M in the review ?. (I hope desktop PC will support this kind of CPU in a near future, in order to reduce power used).

Thrax

5 Nov 2004, 05:48am

The Athlon XP-M is already desktop-compatible. It can be used on any Socket A motherboard.

deicist

5 Nov 2004, 09:53am

do socket 940 chipsets still need registered RAM? If so that could do with mentioning as it bumps up the cost of a system and has performance implications...

Other than that a good write up, concise and informative :)

Thrax

5 Nov 2004, 10:00am

Yes, it requires registered memory. Good thought!

10. Unique to the Opteron platform is the necessity for registered memory. Such memory comes at a price-premium and has a minor performance impact. However, the stability of the Opteron-based system due to data parity and a more rigorous QC process on most registered DIMMs offsets the price gains and slight performance loss.

Omega65

5 Nov 2004, 12:41pm

Nice Guide. :thumbsup: You might want to add the Abit KV8 Pro and the AV8 to the Socket 754 & 939 mobo choices as an alternative to the DFI.

Xbit Labs Sempron 3100+ Overclocking (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/sempron-3100-oc.html)
pg14 (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/sempron-3100-oc_14.html) As for the gain you receive by overclocking the Sempron 3100+, we enjoyed a performance growth of about 25% by clocking our sample at 2.52GHz (40% frequency boost). Thanks to that, the overclocked Sempron 3100+ could outperform the Pentium 4 3.4GHz as well as the Athlon 64 3400+ by about 5% in average.

Unregistered

5 Nov 2004, 01:01pm

You forgot to mention the mobile athlon XPs, mobile Athlon 64 and the Athlon 64 DTR.

deicist

5 Nov 2004, 01:46pm

The DTR is mentioned under the socket 754 Athlon 64s, the mobile athlon XPs (as far as I know) are just pre-selected Bartons with the clock stepping enabled. Could do with mentioning that under the Athlon XP section I guess...

dunno about the mobile A64s though...

floppybootstomp

5 Nov 2004, 02:16pm

Excellent guide Thrax, gets to the meat of the matter without being overblown.

Only thing that made me think a little was choice of motherboard for Socket A. I think I'd take the DFI NFII Ultra B over the Abit NF7-S 2.0, but that's just me :)

CyrixInstead

5 Nov 2004, 02:41pm

Unregistered

5 Nov 2004, 04:35pm

Great article! I'm interested to know where the DDR2 comment comes from? Has any chipset vendor said they're interested in moving from DDR? Or is it simply inevitable?

Deicist (Guest)

5 Nov 2004, 05:25pm

It's pretty much inevitable, DDR2 (in theory at least) offers much higher speeds than DDR and both intel & AMD (well, VIA & nvidia) have committed to moving to the new standard in future chipsets. Currently though DDR2 isn't really offering much above and beyond DDR, it's more what it's expected to offer in future that has people excited.

Thrax

5 Nov 2004, 08:26pm

Yep, brilliant guide Thrax.

I was soon to be building a system with the Duron and it's a long time since I've seen any info abot it, but looks like I'll wait a bit now...

BTW ever thought about becoming a journalist & writing guides for a living??

~Cyrix

I have, but I've never seen something even remotely close to an opportunity regarding it. That would actually be my dream job.

Unregistered

6 Nov 2004, 05:58pm

Couple of comments:

- Since you mention SMP, you should include the Athlon MP - the only Socket A SMP supported

- What about the Socket 940 Athlon64 FX? It should be noted that the only difference between Opteron 1xx and FX-5x (e.g. Opteron-150 / FX-53) is the unlocked CPU multiplier.

- The 64-bit CPUs (Athlon 64, FX, Opteron) all support 16-bit protected mode execution state, if Micro$oft doesn't want to support it w/ the LoseDoze XP 64-bit Edition.

Unregistered

7 Nov 2004, 05:22am

One quick note all semprons have 256k l2 cache http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_11599_11604,00.html for reference as does the fact i've used the 2200 and 2400 in systems and they both definetely have 256k l2

Unregistered

7 Nov 2004, 03:09pm

There are a couple of mistakes in the socket A Sempron section.

1. All Sempron socket A processors have 256Kb L2 cache except:-
2. The 3000+ which has 512Kb L2 and is not mentioned.
3. The 3000+ is a Barton core (2000MHz/512Kb/33Mhz).

http://139.95.253.213/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE/,/?St=36,E=0000000000181574915,K=7205,Sxi=3,Case=obj(5080)

Aussie

Unregistered

7 Nov 2004, 10:57pm

Your commentary is excellent - maybe you could modify the article and do the comparison of various processors using a table? That's a quick and easy way to summarize the parameters under scrutiny.

Thrax

8 Nov 2004, 06:51am

Here's to hoping the higher ups make the necessary corrections! :D

Micks 109 (Guest)

9 Nov 2004, 12:08pm

That was great article Thrax
i have already built two systems. your article will be helpful when i next build a system

Spinner

19 Nov 2004, 10:56am

Great job Thrax!

Unregistered

28 Nov 2004, 05:44pm

Good clear information...... just waht the Doctor requested.

Thanks

Teek

Unregistered

29 Nov 2004, 08:37am

As some viewers already have pointed out, all Semprons have a 256 kB L2 cache.

- Tapio Nuutinen

Unregistered

4 Dec 2004, 05:34am

8. Best motherboard to date? Arguably, the Tyan Thunder K8W (S2885). Supporting:

Up to two AMD Opteron� processors
Eight 184-pin 2.5V DDR DIMM sockets for up to 16GB (400/333/266/200)
Four 64-bit (3.3V) PCI-X slots; one 8X AGP / AGP Pro110 slot
One GbE LAN controller; integrated FireWire controller
Serial ATA controller (option); integrated audio
SSI EEB v3.0 footprint (12"x13"; 304.8x330.2mm)
Tyan has positioned itself, yet again, as a world-class provider of quality enterprise/workstation products. This motherboard makes my heart race.

I'm not sure if IWill's DK8N was out when this was writted but it's the best dual opteron board around a step below the new boards with PCI-E.

Unregistered

12 Dec 2004, 01:51pm

one hell of *good* information on one page :)
*bowing before the author*

Unregistered

29 Dec 2004, 05:26am

Hey would an athlon xp-m 1500+ work in a socket a motherboard? or do only the newer xp-m's work on socket a boards?

thanks,
-Ryan

Thrax

29 Dec 2004, 07:09am

It'd work.

Unregistered

11 Jan 2005, 08:15pm

would the amd sempron run on my socket a motherboard running at 266 mhz fsb

Unregistered

30 Mar 2005, 09:33pm

'Tyan has positioned itself, yet again, as a world-class provider of quality enterprise/workstation products. This motherboard makes my heart race.'

Seen the k8we (http://tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8we.html). Yowza. Great page, btw.