AMD cpu's comparison

[sdf]

I'm looking for just a comparison of the AMD's clock speeds over the last several generations. I have tried several searches but am coming up with nothing. How does the clock for clock speed compare from the s939 up to AM3? All else equal (not taking the ram and chipset speed difference) have the AMD cpu's really gotten faster in any significance? As there is no point in comparing the first quad core and the latest so if you take the first dual core the FX-60 and add 3mb L3 cache and clock it at 3.1Ghz would it compare pretty close to the latest dual core the PII 550 all else being equal?

 

[joefriday]

What? No one can answer that question for you. You add cache, you change the IPC of the chip. K8s for the most part didn't seem to benefit a lot with more added cache. All you can do is compare what is made. K10 at the same clock speed as K8 is in general 10-15% faster. Of course, K10 has more cache, but that's how it is designed, you can't change that, and you can't discredit the fact. Cache is inherent to the architecture of the chip. The socket changes brought very little change to the table, as memory speeds were not a major limitation to the performance of the K8 and K10. I'm not sure what you mean when you say "several" generations. Seems you're only asking about the last 2 generations of AMD cpus. You want to talk about K7? K6? K5? Ask, and we'll all discuss them.

 

[loneninja]

I'm looking for just a comparison of the AMD's clock speeds over the last several generations. I have tried several searches but am coming up with nothing. How does the clock for clock speed compare from the s939 up to AM3? All else equal (not taking the ram and chipset speed difference) have the AMD cpu's really gotten faster in any significance? As there is no point in comparing the first quad core and the latest so if you take the first dual core the FX-60 and add 3mb L3 cache and clock it at 3.1Ghz would it compare pretty close to the latest dual core the PII 550 all else being equal?

Socket 939 to AM2 showed little performance gain at the same clock speed as the processors are all based off the K8 architecture.

AM2 Athlon X2 series compared to the AM2+ Athlon X2 series showed some performance gains as AM2+ Phenom and Athlon processors are K10.
=http://xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon-x2-7750_4.html#sect0
That link will show the difference between K8 Athlon X2 @ 2.7Ghz and K10 Athlon X2 @ 2.7Ghz and should give you an idea of the performance gain there.

AM2+ to AM3 also offers little performance gain due to it is yet again just a memory speed increase, however all AM3 processors are 45nm K10 while most AM2+ are 65nm K10, the exception being the Phenom II X4 940 and 920 which are both 45nm parts. 45nm K10 does have performance gains over 65nm K10, which this link will give you an idea of that difference.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3492&p=9

I know it isn't an exact comparison between a S939 processor which I'm guessing you have, and a current dual core based off the newer 45nm K10 architecture, but I hope it helps you understand the performance gains that have been made.

 

[xaira]

if the app is only interested in clock there will be little or no difference, if the app is interested in cache the 550 will win, the fx60 was 125w with ddr, the 550 is 80w with 8mb cache and ddr3 support, but i believe your initial comparison was with the x2 7000s which are produced on 65nm process and i believe tdp is 95w but if i had to choose price/perf x2 250 is the boss 65w. i know i didnt answer your question, but clock for clock every new generation beats the last. if you lookin to oc x2 550 will get alot igher clocks than 7000 series be

 

[sdf]

Thanks for the replies guys. It did help a little bit. I was rereading my original post and probably should have posted it a little different. The comparision of the FX-60 to the PII 550 should have said a hypothetical/what if the FX-60 arc could take the L3 cache instead of just saying if you add it. As for clock for clock from 939 to AM3, would I be in the ballpark at say a 25-30% increase for AM3? or more?

 

[joefriday]

from 939 to am2, there was no difference in performance with the change of ram type. Hell, from 754 to 939, there was only a very little change in performance. The only reason AM3 is higher is do to the processors running on it, not the DDR3 memory it uses. Back to back DDR2 to DDR3 tests on Pheonom-II cpus have shown this to be true. In short, if a K8 CPU could theoretically run on socket AM3 (i.e. use DDR3 ram), there would be no real performance increase from socket 939 with old DDR 400 ram. I would conjecture that the entire K8 spectrum from single channel DDR to DDR3, the performance increase due to ram changes would be around 10%, with the most massive increase being during the change from single channel DDR on socket 754 to dual channel on socket 939.