AMD Phenom II AM3 features?

[sseyler]

I just have a few questions. Although I am really tempted to buy the AM2+ Phenom II when it comes out since I can't wait much longer, I'm curious to know if there are any significant advantages to the AM3 Phenom II. I've searched, haven't really found much and I am curious to know what other people have heard.

Aside from the use of DDR3 memory, will AM3 boards support features like dynamic CPU voltage and frequency or separate power planes for each core? Will AM3 boards include any other other power-saving features as standard on all boards? If AM3 can offer something along these lines (or something else if someone mentions something cool that they know AM3 will have), I might be willing to take a dive and pay a little extra for DDR3 in February (prices will have dropped for DDR3 by then too, so maybe it won't be too bad).

Secondly, are there any features specific to AM3 Phenom IIs that give them an advantage over the AM2+ Phenom IIs when both are used on an AM2+ board with DDR2 memory?

Anyways, help me out!

 

[blippo311]

Good question! I would like to know that also. I have recently bought a AM2+ mb waiting for the PII. But being that DDR3 is mucho $$$ right now... I think AM2+.

 

[megamanx00]

The only difference is the use of DDR3. Originally it looked like AM3 was suppose to have a significantly higher Hyper Transport speed, but now it looks like it will be well short of its potential and thus yeild very little additional benefit.

 

[AdioKIP]

Any idea when AMD will release a Phenom (AM2+ or AM3) with a native clock speed of 3.0ghz or higher. When I built my system it was with the plans of going quad core when a phenom in this range was released but I didnt think it would take this long when I built the system last december.... and before the answers come in, I'm not interested in overclocking a current phenom up to this range.... Right now I'm running an X2 6000+ and want to step up to quad cores and 8 gigs of ram soon.

 

[emp]

January 9th will be the release of Phenom II X4 940, however to overclock that puppy properly I'm guessing you'll be needing a good 790GX or 790FX board equipped with an SB750.

Since I haven't seen any benchmarks, my educated guess it that it will be very similar to Athlons on S939 and AM2, there weren't any real speed differences, just more expensive products that had a better upgrade path down the road.

 

[Nik_I]

does anyone know if it's true that the the AM3 phenoms will work with an AM2+ board? i heard this was true a long time ago. is it still the case?

 

[blippo311]

AdioKIP: I'm in the same boat my friend!

 

[Nik_I]

AdioKIP: I'm in the same boat my friend!

i also wanna jump from dual core to quad. hopefully the phenom II's will actually be good. or else i might just buy a core 2 quad and P43/45 board after the prices come down a bit

 

[emp]

I may have read something along those lines in the newest reports, however why don't you just get an AM2+ phenom running at the same clock speed. (Phenom II 940 = AM2+ 3Ghz, Phenom II 945 = AM3 3Ghz)

 

[AdioKIP]

does anyone know if it's true that the the AM3 phenoms will work with an AM2+ board? i heard this was true a long time ago. is it still the case?

Yes the AM3 processors will work in AM2+ boards however you will not get the added benefits of it being an AM3 procsesor (Basically it will run like an AM2+)...

 

[q_nanotubes]

The AM3 socket will have HyperTransport 3.1 i guess. 6.4GT/s

 

[boredatcanon]

The difference is only ddr3 with am3. The am3 processors will work in am2 and am3 boards as it has the controller for ddr2 and 3 onboard. THe one they are releasing as BE is only am2 and doesn't have the ddr3 controller onboard.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

The Phenom II will oc like a monster, 4Ghz with proper cooling on air

 

[khelben1979]

The Phenom II will oc like a monster, 4Ghz with proper cooling on air

:-/

Where's your source on that information?

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

How many do you want? If its more than 4, Ill have to do some digging, but check out pcperspective, nordic hw, of course FUaDs site and the Inq has something out now too as well, theres others, just forgot who and where

 

[khelben1979]

According to PC Perspective it would be possible. At the same time they are also mentioning that the air cooling solution must be extreme in order to achieve this.

Water cooling would perhaps make it go beyond 4ghz? (I haven't found any information on that yet, though.)

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

What was used was stock air in all the demos, with hands on by everyone that was there. Youll find using better HSF will get most over or to 4Ghz. This is all coming from people who were there, or people whove talked to those people, or people whove actually done so.

At this point Im fairly confident this is the case. Im sure some will be better than others, and some worse, like any cpu, luck of the draw, but this is so far, the overall impression everyones getting