Where's All the 1MB Cache AM2's

[Andelin]

There seems to be a shortage of 1MB Cache versions of the AM2 64 X2 cpu's. There here and there but mostly the 512 versions are in stock. What gives? Is AMD holding back, are they just not producing many of them yet? Any speculations?

 

[jaguarskx]

Read this article.

 

[Andelin]

Thank you for steering me to that article. So if I understood it correctly. 1MB cache only gives maybe 5% performance increase. So AMD decided to push the 512 cache size and adding the new F stepping makes up for that?

 

[RichPLS]

not in performance, no that is still a sacrifice. They cut down cache size in order to conserve die space and this also let them lower thermals (they also increased the pitch so chips are actually 95 to 100nm) in an attempt to compete with Intels Conroe.

 

[Andelin]

So then how do I differentiate between the older chips still floating around and the newer ones that are emerging on the market for retail? Is there something in the product number? Would it be beneficial to grab one of the 1MB cache chips or would I be spending unnecessary money for the performance increase?

 

[RichPLS]

Only 939 chips still have the 2x1MB option; AM2 is not much choice in the matter other than 2x512K or 2x256K

 

[jaguarskx]

Revision F basically adds DDR2 RAM support. There are some other things as well, but people focus on DDR2 RAM thinking it will boost performance. It doesn't, at least not by much.

In one article from Dailytech (I can't find the article) AMD stated that when the socket AM2 Athlon 64 is released there will hardly be any performance difference than a similar socket 939 Athlon 64.

If you are in the market for a new PC you may want to consider Conroe (Core 2 Duo). Basically all of the benchmarks you can find on it will show you that Conroe is an Athlon 64 killer. That's why AMD will be dropping prices on July 24th.

The following is a link to one such benchmark that I posted:

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/X2-939-3800-faster-CONROE-86-GHZftopic-190117-days0-orderasc-150.html

Ignore the first two posts, I was replying to an idiot.

Honestly, I was suprised how well Intel's cheapest Conroe (about $210 - $220) performed.

 

[Andelin]

So the 1MB versions I find online are leftovers in a manner of speaking. And is AMD still going to drop their prices on the 24th or do you think they'll push it back to the 27th when Intel's Core 2 debuts?

 

[casewhite]

If you are the United States government, Cray Computer or a few selected other customers they are readily availabe. The Dept of Energy is to receive 150,000 Opteron 18x cpu's between now and year end, 87,000 are for upgrades to Jaguar, Red Storm and Coyote A and B replacing 148's. currently installed. Red Storm is to expand eventuallly to 100,000 18x opterons and Jaguar to 125,000+ 18x's. DARPA and NSA have two large machines each due in the next 12 months. . All Cray XT3 and XD1 cabinets have 996 1mb cache opterons each. Dell has a major allocation of Opterons beginnig next month for 4P use. Same for Sun and HP. Except for the few FX-60 and 62's, all 1mb cache chips will be reserved for the server market where the average sales price is $850+. No point in wating the best chips on a low margin market. The intoduction of RDC FPGU chips for the 8xx line will be pretty vigorous.

 

[RichPLS]

There are several sites that are already selling conroes...

NewEgg is now one of those with the X6800 in stock and shipping, you can have it overnight if you wish.

 

[Andelin]

way too much money. I'll wait till the small chips hit