SUNNYVALE, California--Fresh from its ATI acquisition announcement, processor manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) today demonstrated a working four-core desktop system at a technology event held at its company headquarters. The four-core test system used two dual-core 2.8Ghz CPU engineering samples, clocked at the same speed as AMD's flagship Athlon 64 FX-62 dual-core processor.
The first "4" in 4x4 represents the four processing cores present in a two-socket system populated with two dual-core processors. Many assumed that the second "4" referred to quad GPUs when AMD first made the 4x4 announcement, but Moorhead clarified today that the second four represents any kind of high-performance hardware, anything from four hard disks to four GPUs or even 4GBs of system memory.
Kind of a let down. To be fair though:
Quote :
Moorhead announced that the 4x4 platform will be upgradeable to eight cores once AMD releases quad-core processors in 2007. Consumers that pick up a 4x4 system this holiday season will be able to upgrade from dual-core CPUs up to quad-core CPUs without purchasing a new motherboard.
My question is:
Can you use a 4x4 motherboard with only one CPU? If you're staying with AMD on your next build, can you pick up just one CPU now and add another later? Or will you have to buy both CPUs with the 4x4 mobo now and have to replace both CPUs later if you want quadcore chips? (By "now", I mean when the 4x4 mobos appear, obviously.)
My question is:
Can you use a 4x4 motherboard with only one CPU? If you're staying with AMD on your next build, can you pick up just one CPU now and add another later? Or will you have to buy both CPUs with the 4x4 mobo now and have to replace both CPUs later if you want quadcore chips? (By "now", I mean when the 4x4 mobos appear, obviously.)
To the best of my knowledge, yes, you can use one CPU initially and add a second later.
it would make the most sense as an upgrade path but who knows as it hasn't been confermed either way, it will be interesting when toms gets to give it a run
SUNNYVALE, California--Fresh from its ATI acquisition announcement, processor manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) today demonstrated a working four-core desktop system at a technology event held at its company headquarters. The four-core test system used two dual-core 2.8Ghz CPU engineering samples, clocked at the same speed as AMD's flagship Athlon 64 FX-62 dual-core processor.
What I'd be interested to know is what type of Windows licensing arrangement 4x4 has. Currently Microsoft charges licenses per processor or per socket, which is why dual core or quad cores only need one Windows license. However, with 4x4 you have 2 processors in 2 sockets just like a workstation, which means that you not only have to pay more for the motherboard, get 2 CPUs, get twice the RAM to fill twice the slots, but also pay 2 Window licenses. Microsoft may decide to allow a single license for a 4x4 setup, but then they would lose workstation revenue since 4x4 makes a great cheap workstation.
What I'd be interested to know is what type of Windows licensing arrangement 4x4 has. Currently Microsoft charges licenses per processor or per socket, which is why dual core or quad cores only need one Windows license. However, with 4x4 you have 2 processors in 2 sockets just like a workstation, which means that you not only have to pay more for the motherboard, get 2 CPUs, get twice the RAM to fill twice the slots, but also pay 2 Window licenses. Microsoft may decide to allow a single license for a 4x4 setup, but then they would lose workstation revenue since 4x4 makes a great cheap workstation.
Good point, I'm very curious to hear what Microsoft's take is on this.
What I'd be interested to know is what type of Windows licensing arrangement 4x4 has. Currently Microsoft charges licenses per processor or per socket, which is why dual core or quad cores only need one Windows license. However, with 4x4 you have 2 processors in 2 sockets just like a workstation, which means that you not only have to pay more for the motherboard, get 2 CPUs, get twice the RAM to fill twice the slots, but also pay 2 Window licenses. Microsoft may decide to allow a single license for a 4x4 setup, but then they would lose workstation revenue since 4x4 makes a great cheap workstation.
Good point, I'm very curious to hear what Microsoft's take is on this.
What I'd be interested to know is what type of Windows licensing arrangement 4x4 has. Currently Microsoft charges licenses per processor or per socket, which is why dual core or quad cores only need one Windows license. However, with 4x4 you have 2 processors in 2 sockets just like a workstation, which means that you not only have to pay more for the motherboard, get 2 CPUs, get twice the RAM to fill twice the slots, but also pay 2 Window licenses. Microsoft may decide to allow a single license for a 4x4 setup, but then they would lose workstation revenue since 4x4 makes a great cheap workstation.
I was under the assumption that the number of cpus did not matter for the license, as long as every installation of windows has a valid product key. About the multiple processor issue though, it is true that only Windows XP Professional will work, as XP Home does not support multisocket systems.
What I'd be interested to know is what type of Windows licensing arrangement 4x4 has. Currently Microsoft charges licenses per processor or per socket, which is why dual core or quad cores only need one Windows license. However, with 4x4 you have 2 processors in 2 sockets just like a workstation, which means that you not only have to pay more for the motherboard, get 2 CPUs, get twice the RAM to fill twice the slots, but also pay 2 Window licenses. Microsoft may decide to allow a single license for a 4x4 setup, but then they would lose workstation revenue since 4x4 makes a great cheap workstation.
As Joefriday said, XP Professional has support for 2 CPU sockets while XP home only has support for 1.
I can't see what's so exciting about this. It looks like two dual-core CPUs on one dual-processor board. Kinda like a workstation for the consumer market. It might outperform Conroe, but it will cost a lot more, use a lot more power, and generate a lot more heat. It's probably a temporary solution until AMD can get K8L working.
Ah, I doubled checked and you're right. A single Windows XP Professional license allows 2 processors/sockets and Windows XP Home allows 1 processor/socket. The separate licensing per processor policy only applies to other Windows versions presumably Windows 2003, etc.
