Already dissapointed in Athlon64

I know it's not coming out 'till Sept 03, but I'm sure I know what the story is going to be.

I was really rooting for AMD on the A64, but then I found out it was only going to be single channel DDR. IMHO that is a stupid mistake for them to make espesially when they already have a dual channel design in the Opteron.

Even if the latency will help out in a lot of apps it will still never compete where outright bandwidth counts ie VIDEO. If they want to be seriously viewed as a good media platform they can't just do games well. The biggest reason the current Athlon can't do as well in media apps even with dual channel DDR is because the CPU can't make use of it all through the FSB. Now theyre going to give us a direct link to the memory and castrate it right off the bat by only using one channel? How is AMD really going to support their argument of total platform performance over outright CPU speed when Intel will have the speed AND the bandwidth! In order to make waves AMD will really have to make a jump in performance over Intel, and that doesn't seem like it's what they're is trying to do. When the benchmarks come out I am sure its going to be pretty close between the two with AMD winning on some and Intel on others.

I know you could say "Just buy the Opteron!", but you know since its got the Server Label it carries a premium price tag. PLUS desktop chipset makers most likely won't touch it keeping prices high and the features down. Why not take the Opteron and give it only 2 HT links, decrease L2 cache and call it the A64? That would make the most sense. Why settle for being around the same speed at a lower price than Intel? People that like Intel products don't really have much of a reason to make a change right now and the P4 IS a moving target. By the time Sept rolls around they will be faster than they are now.

Basically I think if AMD keeps the A64 at one channel DDR they are blowing a good oppurtunity to have a product that wouldn't force enthusiasts to compromise in any one aspect and risk losing those sales to Intel.

Ok, enough ranting...

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by BlackLoTuS on 04/21/03 09:04 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

I'm not compalining about the Opteron, I'm complaining about the Athlon64 (coming out in Sept) that we'll be able to afford.

Opteron Athlon Athlon 64 all the same core with some change across the CPU.

For those who think that the CPU can be change now forget it it too late for that.

[-peep-] french

Opteron as been launch final spec is there to see and test.Nothing else can be change

[-peep-] french

To help you out of your confusion:

HyperTransport is the technology AMD uses for interfacing the CPU with the other components of the computer. It is a little bit comparable to the former FSB of athlons. The on-die memory controller can be looked at as the northbridge of current chipsets moved to the CPU itself. The interface from that memory controller to the memory itself, is totally independent of those HyperTransport interfaces.

To reply to the general topic of this thread: Don't be too disapointed yet about that single channel memory-solution. First of all, as might be hinted in that quote above, a double channel solution might be in the final stages of developement (and if you look at the Opteron, it already exists) and will be brought to the market as needed. Also bear inmind that if the Athlon64 is competetive enough in a single channel configuration, there is no real need for a (more complex and thus more expensive) double channel solution. Third point I'd like to say, is that you might have to look at the performance gain that the P4 had withgoing from single to dual channel: Compare the performance of a i845pe-homed P4 to a i875p-homed one, and you'll see that the difference is not that big, actually. And keep in mind that the FSB of the P4 does allow the double channel solution to be utilized as it should. So yes, it would give the A64 another performance boost, but don't expect too much from it.

Greetz,
Bikeman

<i>Then again, that's just my opinion</i>

nForce3 chipset, isn't that to be for the Opteron, and wouldn't be dual channel?

Athlon XP 1600+, MSI K7T PRO2 RU (POS), 2x256 MB CRUCIAL PC2100 CL2.5 memory, Asus V6800 DDR Delux (GF 256) video card, 6.4GB+27GB WD HD, 40GB IBM HD (all 7200RPM). My computer is an acronym

I really doubt they would make that kind of mistake

dude whoa whoa whoa there ... new technology... remember williamette pentium 4? did horrible! remember? now the p4 is the dominating platform. Same will happen with the athlon 64 in 2004. I would gamble on AMD right now. Next year these processors will be the dominating platform in 2004.

New technology - always give it 6 months before purchase.

Life is irrelivent and irrational.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=9933" target="_new"> My Rig </A>

Stepping change is not affecting feature at all exception to Nvidia.

A64 opteron have the same core so the core optimization is made between Game and HPC that dont really fit well but AMD cannot do 2 different core.

Opteron is out they cannot change any feature now if they do a total rework as to be done or a others version L3 ???
DDR-2 this may just come in Q4 2004 when 90 nm is ready.

For now is just little steeping change for improve headroom for clock speed to reach the claim 2.4GHZ.

[-peep-] french

can anyone say "Itanium I"?

Athlon XP 1600+, MSI K7T PRO2 RU (POS), 2x256 MB CRUCIAL PC2100 CL2.5 memory, Asus V6800 DDR Delux (GF 256) video card, 6.4GB+27GB WD HD, 40GB IBM HD (all 7200RPM). My computer is an acronym