Athlon 64 X2: New Memory Dividers and Multitasking Performance

jmke · 13th August 2005, 16:27

AMD was faced with a tradeoff during the development of the dual core Athlon 64 X2. In order to maintain backwards compatibility with earlier Socket-939 motherboards, they could not change the pinout of their dual core processors.

While maintaining the same pinout resulted in the ability to upgrade virtually any Socket-939 platform to a dual core Athlon 64 X2, it meant that the dual core processors were left with no more memory bandwidth than their single core counterparts. The single-core Socket-939 Athlon 64s feature a 128-bit wide DDR memory controller, which when operating at DDR400 speeds, it gives the A64 a maximum of 6.4GB/s of memory bandwidth. Sharing the same memory controller, the dual core Athlon 64 X2s also feature the same 6.4GB/s of memory bandwidth, despite the fact that there are now twice as many cores vying for the same amount of memory bandwidth.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...oc.aspx?i=2497

Sidney · 13th August 2005, 17:46

Does it mean AMD should lower A64 X2 processor pricing? Okay by me

13th August 2005, 16:27	#1
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,019	Athlon 64 X2: New Memory Dividers and Multitasking Performance AMD was faced with a tradeoff during the development of the dual core Athlon 64 X2. In order to maintain backwards compatibility with earlier Socket-939 motherboards, they could not change the pinout of their dual core processors. While maintaining the same pinout resulted in the ability to upgrade virtually any Socket-939 platform to a dual core Athlon 64 X2, it meant that the dual core processors were left with no more memory bandwidth than their single core counterparts. The single-core Socket-939 Athlon 64s feature a 128-bit wide DDR memory controller, which when operating at DDR400 speeds, it gives the A64 a maximum of 6.4GB/s of memory bandwidth. Sharing the same memory controller, the dual core Athlon 64 X2s also feature the same 6.4GB/s of memory bandwidth, despite the fact that there are now twice as many cores vying for the same amount of memory bandwidth. http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...oc.aspx?i=2497 __________________

13th August 2005, 17:46	#2
Sidney Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 15,738	Does it mean AMD should lower A64 X2 processor pricing? Okay by me __________________ lazyman Opteron 165 (2) @2.85 1.42 vcore AMD Stock HSF + Chill Vent II