Will the 45nm AMD processors compatible with current AM2+ boards?

[rwayne]

Can anyone bring me up to speed on AMD's new 45nm chips coming out 4th quarter this year?

Will these chips be 100% compatible with the current AM2+ boards that are on the market? Or are they going to roll out with AM3 boards?

What is the latest on these new chips? I think they are called Deneb or Shanghai. I heard they are projected to be slightly faster than the Core2Duos at the same clock speed? Is this true?

What is the fastest clock speed that will be available this year for these 45nm chips. How much wattage are they projected to use?

Any info will be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[someguy7]

100 percent no. Its mainly up to mobo makers to release bios for the chips. We had this entire mishap when the phenoms 1st came out. Some AM2+ boards wouldnt run them. As for the rest of your ?s nobody really knows really.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Shanghai is supposed to be the desktop CPUs code name.

They should get a IPC boost of about 10% so they should be on the level with the older Conroe based Core 2s but just a bit behind Penryn based Core 2s.

The fastest clock speed I have heard is 2.8GHz. Not confirmed though. I know they are supposed to be released in the speeds such as what is available now from 2.2GHz to 2.6GHz.

As for wattage, they should be about 10-20% lower wattage than the equivalent speed current Phenom.

Of course thats all just speculation and has yet to be confirmed by AMD. We will have to wait and see.

As for your first question there is no 100% guarantee that they will work in current AM2+ mobos. They are also releasing AM3 I believe for the main support of these chips.

 

[teh_boxzor]

i hear am2+ is supported and will use ddr2 RAM for deneb whereas AM3 will support ddr3.

 

[sarwar_r87]

Shanghai is supposed to be the desktop CPUs code name.

ummm.......i thought shanghai was server while deneb was desktop

 

[keithlm]

There are no physical or electronic reasons that the newer desktop 45nm chips would not work on an AM2+ motherboard. There are leaked screenshots showing engineering samples working on older AM2+ motherboards without bios updates.

When the Phenom originally came out it was supported on AM2+ motherboards. In addition it was also physically and electronically compatible with older AM2 motherboards. But the switch from X2 to Phenom was great enough that the boards would not boot or do anything without a new bios. Many things needed to be turned on/off to make an AM2+ chip work in an AM2 socket. Some motherboard makers didn't update their bios for the new chips on all of their older motherboards.

Many people like to blame AMD for the motherboard makers deciding not to update their BIOS for all older boards. (Although humorously most of the people still screaming about it didn't have AMD systems and were never affected by this issue in any manner.)

AND the biggest difference this time is the following: the new 45nm chips has dual IMC's that support both AM2+ and AM3 standards. So this will NOT be an AM3 chip merely working in an AM2+ socket; it will be an AM2+ chip working in an AM2+ socket. (So the need for a bios update will be no different than with the release of ANY new CPU for any given platform.) One rumor mentions that the earliest 45nm chips might not support AM3 but be AM2+ only.

As for release date, release speeds, or how they will compete: There is no available data and AMD tries not to leak information.

 

[Mathos]

Don't think it's a dual IMC, just updating of the IMC to support DDR3 memory as well as DDR2. On the lighter side, DDR3 memory should make it possible to run the IMC with less voltage stress due to the voltage difference between IMC and memory.

 

[keithlm]

Don't think it's a dual IMC, just updating of the IMC to support DDR3 memory as well as DDR2. On the lighter side, DDR3 memory should make it possible to run the IMC with less voltage stress due to the voltage difference between IMC and memory.

I've heard it both ways.

The AMD developer documentation make it appear that there are indeed two. (Which makes sense since they do have unused HT links available to link to.)

 

[spud]

I've heard it both ways.

The AMD developer documentation make it appear that there are indeed two. (Which makes sense since they do have unused HT links available to link to.)

I would like to see this document you are talking about.

Word, Playa.

 

[keithlm]

I would like to see this document you are talking about.

Word, Playa.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/31116.pdf

On page 21 it talks about a "node". It doesn't specifically state there are twin IMC... but the way it talks about the memory it very well COULD be possible. Remember when you look at this the "NB" they are talking about is NOT the NB of the motherboard... but the NB or IMC built into the CPU.

 

[jimmysmitty]

OMG keith actually linked something. Amazing.

All kidding aside, I looked at page 21 and from what I can see the little drawing is just showing the link to each channel, as dual channel is configured as channel a and channel b.

This was interesting though:

Each DRAM interface supports a 64-bit DDR2 or DDR3 registered or unbuffered DIMM channel.

It looks like they are going to have 64bit memory controllers that will support both DDR2 and DDR3 on the same one not two seperate MCs per memory type.

But then again we will have to wait and see when it is released.