AM2: FIRST LOOK AT DDR2 PERFORMANCE ON AM2

[9-inch]

Just as I said before, a new AM2 revision from AMD IS faster than socket 939 by a margin of 10% running average applications and gives 30% more bandwidth than socket 939 which will be useful for upcoming AM2 revisions.

Once AM2 and conroe are out, we'll see the REAL benchmarks.

However, the memory bandwidth increases of up to 30% on AM2 and the Latency improvements of 12 to 16% compared to the fastest DDR memory on socket 939 do not yield much in real-world performance. The real-world performance increase for AM2 compared to Socket 939 will likely be very small - in the range of no increase to about 10%, depending on the application.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2741&p=1

 

[spud]

Just as I said before, a new AM2 revision from AMD IS faster than socket 939 by a margin of 10% running average applications and gives 30% more bandwidth than socket 939 which will be useful for upcoming AM2 revisions.

Once AM2 and conroe are out, we'll see the REAL benchmarks.

However, the memory bandwidth increases of up to 30% on AM2 and the Latency improvements of 12 to 16% compared to the fastest DDR memory on socket 939 do not yield much in real-world performance. The real-world performance increase for AM2 compared to Socket 939 will likely be very small - in the range of no increase to about 10%, depending on the application.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2741&p=1

It clearly says 0 to 10% not a overall 10% increase in performance.

 

[RichPLS]

You realize that Conroe is doing 32 million decimal calcs on Pi in 21min 51seconds which takes a A64 dual core running at speeds near 3.3GHz or greater to equal.

That is fast and priced way less then what AMD will be able to market if and when it reaches that clock speed with AM2.

 

[SexBomb]

I really expect AM2 to deliver 10-13% more performance than s939 once it sees the light of day.

 

[endyen]

The conroe is using SSE extensions, in 128 bit . Not like it's doing it long hand. Too bad it cant do all calcs that way.
There are advantages to Intel's new marchitecture, but we dont know at what cost yet.

 

[rettihSlluB]

You realize that Conroe is doing 32 million decimal calcs on Pi in 21min 51seconds which takes a A64 dual core running at speeds near 3.3GHz or greater to equal.

That is fast and priced way less then what AMD will be able to market if and when it reaches that clock speed with AM2.

Well, if all you're going to do is run super pi on your comp, then, conroe is better than A64... :roll:

...oops, I forgot this:
conroe performance being busted.
8)

 

[ltcommander_data]

Most of the improvement seems theoretical from the memory tests which is obviously while the real world improvements seem much more conservative.

Hopefully, this last series of overclocked performance comparisons will finally put into perspective what is and is not possible with improved DDR2 memory performance. Clearly AM2 will launch a bit faster than current Socket 939 performance when comparing the same processor speed. However it is not likely that further increases in DDR2 bandwidth or latency will translate into further improvements in performance with the current AMD/Athlon64 architecture. Further improvements in AM2 performance will have to come with revisions to the core, more cores, die-shrinks and higher speeds, and increases in cache. The move to DDR2 will bring small improvements in performance, but DDR2 alone is not likely to bring the large performance boosts many hope for.

I think that pretty much sums it up. It's still nice to see numbers improving over S939 though.

 

[rettihSlluB]

Most of the improvement seems theoretical from the memory tests which is obviously while the real world improvements seem much more conservative.

Quote:
Hopefully, this last series of overclocked performance comparisons will finally put into perspective what is and is not possible with improved DDR2 memory performance. Clearly AM2 will launch a bit faster than current Socket 939 performance when comparing the same processor speed. However it is not likely that further increases in DDR2 bandwidth or latency will translate into further improvements in performance with the current AMD/Athlon64 architecture. Further improvements in AM2 performance will have to come with revisions to the core, more cores, die-shrinks and higher speeds, and increases in cache. The move to DDR2 will bring small improvements in performance, but DDR2 alone is not likely to bring the large performance boosts many hope for.

I think that pretty much sums it up. It's still nice to see numbers improving over S939

Still, AM2 delivers 10% better performance over socket 939. Once Anand and many others have the real chip (not engineering samples), then we can judge real performance and as sexbomb says, I do believe AM2 will deliver 10-15% real world performance.

I'm really glad to know that the processor is not bandwidth starved as Conroe and as Anand says, future revisions will take full advantage of the extra bandwidth and low latency:

Further improvements in AM2 performance will have to come with revisions to the core, more cores, die-shrinks and higher speeds, and increases in cache

 

[Spitfire_x86]

 

[JonathanDeane]

I have been thinking about AM2 and after some thought I think its a good move for AMD and will allow the A64 to breath better that 2Ghz FSB is useless when tied to slow ram ! how much performance I cant say.... Another good thing to remember is that soon DDR2 will be cheaper then DDR1 and its price will go higher (have you seen the price for SDR133 ???)

 

[spud]

Just as I said before, a new AM2 revision from AMD IS faster than socket 939 by a margin of 10% running average applications and gives 30% more bandwidth than socket 939 which will be useful for upcoming AM2 revisions.

Once AM2 and conroe are out, we'll see the REAL benchmarks.

However, the memory bandwidth increases of up to 30% on AM2 and the Latency improvements of 12 to 16% compared to the fastest DDR memory on socket 939 do not yield much in real-world performance. The real-world performance increase for AM2 compared to Socket 939 will likely be very small - in the range of no increase to about 10%, depending on the application.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2741&p=1

It clearly says 0 to 10% not a overall 10% increase in performance.
Give up he won't understand.

Word.

 

[Ycon]

10% was the best performance gain achieved, while average performance gain was 2-3%
Only Sandra shows greater performance gain, bandwidth gain that is, but we already knew that.

If you had read amdtech.com´s article properly, you would know better now.

 

[gOJDO]

I will say this loud:
1. MEMORY BANDWIDTH PERFORMANCE IS NOT CPU OR SYSTEM PERFORMANCE!
2. MEMORY BANDWIDTH BENCHMAKRING IS SYNTEHTIC BENCHMARK!
3. SYNTHETIC BENCHMARK HAS NOTHING WITH REAL-LIFE PERFORMANCE!
4. DDR2-800 CL3 IS DAMN F*CKING TOO MUCH EXPENCIVE COMPARED TO DDR-400 CL2 TO ACHIEVE 1%-3% SYSTEM PERFORMANCE!
5. K8 + AM2 + DDR2 = WASTING TIME & MONEY

 

[mdd1963]

"I really expect AM2 to deliver 10-13% more performance than s939 once it sees the light of day."

In purely synthetic mem bandwidth tests, perhaps...

I expect the gain in gaming framerates to be in line with the 1-2% gains shown...and only 18% shy of catching up with Conroe...!

 

[BigRat]

I'm curious. What's with the current fad of posting keyboards? What does it mean?

 

[Mardark]

I'm curious. What's with the current fad of posting keyboards? What does it mean?

Its an ongoing jab at people who post in all caps, claiming their keyboard is broke. Using all caps, can be considered shouting. But even the posting of the keyboard, is just like the topic, both are just shouting at the wind.

 

[carpcmelee]

nope, i think it was because of action man, im not sure though

 

[BigRat]

I see. That does make sense.

 

[CompGeek]

AM2 is indeed faster but is that enough to make it worthy of a good succesor. No. Because 2-3% in most apps is insignificant for most.
Why don't AMD fanboys accept that:
-DDR2 was a step AMD was gonna sooner or later
-while DDR2 is not great now,it'll get better later and it already has some obvious advantages over DDR

DDR2 was a time eater for both companies. AMD is just slower in the implentation process and also,remember, AMD also has to come up with a mem. controller. That's why people waited so much for so little. But it may seem little now,but by the begining of 2007 when real DDR2 will appear the performance gains might increase.
Still, until then Conroe will probably lead. I'm saving up right now for my future Conroe system. 2.4 Ghz chip seems very tasty for the price.

 

[9-inch]

AM2 is indeed faster but is that enough to make it worthy of a good succesor. No. Because 2-3% in most apps is insignificant for most.

Take your big finger out of your @ss and don't make your self a jackass with that post. AM2 IS better than socket 939 since it delivers 10% performance over s939. AM2 is not and it won't be a failure like prescott since it couldn't deliver better performance over its previous socket which was based on the Northwood core.

 

[RichPLS]

You want it after it has been up his ass? :roll:

 

[gr8mikey]

LOL! in other words there is no link to it. Closest I could find was anands latest preview which concluded by stating a 0% - 7% improvement depending on the application.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2741&p=9

9-inch please dont pull that link out of your ass please. Leave it be.

 

[gr8mikey]

Do you not think sometimes that 9-inch just pretends to be so thick just to see how we will respond to his ill informed posts? I think he does it on purpose purely for entertainment. Sad really.

 

[RichPLS]

nods, but he has been doing it so long he has bought into it inadvertantly.

 

[gr8mikey]

PhD = Piled higher and Deeper