Phenom II X12?

[madass]

Is AMD going to release a Phenom II X12? If so, will it be AM3?
I intend to build a new PC soon, and I have upgradability in mind-buy a 945 now, bolt on an X12 five years later.

Also, are there any AM3 boards with x16-x4 PCIe slots? I'm thinking of sticking a 5850 in the x4 and bolt on a 5970/5950 after a few years onto the x16 slot. Should work, if this (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_5870_PCI-Express_Scaling/) is to be believed.

 

[jennyh]

You'll have x12's long before 5 years are up. More like a year from now we'll be talking about 12 cores (16 in the case of Bulldozer actually, though only up to 8 initially for high performance desktops).

It's too early to say which motherboards will work with it and which won't.

Don't build a pc with the thought of it lasting 5 years because in 5 years it's bound to be lacking somewhere that an upgrade can't fix. Build a pc to last 2.5 years instead, then build another one costing what you expected to pay over the whole 5 years.

 

[madass]

You'll have x12's long before 5 years are up. More like a year from now we'll be talking about 12 cores (16 in the case of Bulldozer actually, though only up to 8 initially for high performance desktops).

It's too early to say which motherboards will work with it and which won't.

Don't build a pc with the thought of it lasting 5 years because in 5 years it's bound to be lacking somewhere that an upgrade can't fix. Build a pc to last 2.5 years instead, then build another one costing what you expected to pay over the whole 5 years.

Sadly, I do not have the luxury of upgrading every 2 or 3 years. 4 years, minimum.

And BTW, I play at 1024*786. Total overkill, eh?

 

[madass]

I know that AMD's X6's are AM3. Intel intends to make dual die 12's with the i9 hex cores. So I was wondering if AMD would do something similar.

 

[Devastator_uk]

The X6 will indeed be AM3, but AMD have not yet said whether the X12s will be AM3, or some kind of AM3+ or something different.

Regarding the PCI-E x16 and PCI-E x4, electrically it would work putting a x16 card in a x4 slot but mechanically this usually is not possible. Why not simply get a motherboard with two x16 slots, they barely cost any more than ones with just one slot.

 

[MU_Engineer]

Is AMD going to release a Phenom II X12? If so, will it be AM3?
I intend to build a new PC soon, and I have upgradability in mind-buy a 945 now, bolt on an X12 five years later.

Also, are there any AM3 boards with x16-x4 PCIe slots? I'm thinking of sticking a 5850 in the x4 and bolt on a 5970/5950 after a few years onto the x16 slot. Should work, if this (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_5870_PCI-Express_Scaling/) is to be believed.

AMD most likely won't release a 12-core CPU for a desktop socket until they can get all 12 cores on one piece of silicon. The upcoming 12-core Opterons are MCMs made of two six-core dies, and AMD decided that they needed to have each die retain its two memory channels for adequate performance. So AMD needed to make a new socket (G34) with nearly 2000 contacts to handle all of the extra connections for the extra two memory channels and such. (In comparison, AM3 has 938 contacts.) The CPU package itself is also larger and oblong compared to AM3- it probably had to be made larger and oblong to hold the two dies and provide enough surface area for all of those contacts.

 

[BadTrip]

Puts on asbestos underwear.

Can we say I can haz double cheezburger?

lol

 

[MU_Engineer]

Puts on asbestos underwear.

Can we say I can haz double cheezburger?

lol

Eh, it is funny that the roles have compltely reversed- AMD is now making MCMs while Intel's new parts are big monolithic chunks of silicon. Intel did have the right idea in making MCMs, they just didn't really execute it ideally. Their reasons for doing MCMs were sound- better yields, better binning ability, and lower costs. Their "tie the two dies together over the FSB" worked well for single-socket systems but petered out when feeding four dies of a dual quad-core server. AMD has a much better implementation since they kept the per-die bandwidth the same as in single-die setups, so scaling shouldn't drop off as it did with Xeon 5300 and 5400 setups.

I am a bit surprised that Intel isn't making Nehalem-EX an MCM unit. The Nehalem-EX is going to be one enormous chip and the reasons why Intel originally built MCMs instead of enormous monolithic chips are still very valid. Their IMC-and-QPI platform should allow for good scaling out of MCM chips if they make an "everything is doubled" MCM in the same vein as AMD's Magny-Cours. I suppose the reason Intel isn't doing an MCM is that it would take a bit of work to make and validate an MCM and poor yields from a huge die aren't going to be nearly as much of an issue with a CPU selling in the $2000+ range as it is with CPUs selling for a tenth of that. I do wonder if Intel may not eventually move back to MCMs when AMD starts selling 24-core, 2P MCMs that greatly outperform Intel's 8- and 12-core Xeon DPs but is far less expensive than a 4P, 32-core Nehalem-EX. I doubt Intel will want to try to sell something as big as a Nehalem-EX in DP guise for DP prices, so I suppose we shall see.

 

[madass]

The X6 will indeed be AM3, but AMD have not yet said whether the X12s will be AM3, or some kind of AM3+ or something different.

Regarding the PCI-E x16 and PCI-E x4, electrically it would work putting a x16 card in a x4 slot but mechanically this usually is not possible. Why not simply get a motherboard with two x16 slots, they barely cost any more than ones with just one slot.

I meants x16 in sizze but x4 in lanes.