AMD Athlon 64 release date confirmed!

[sabbath1]

It seems like the release date for the Athlon 64 has finally been confirmed. The release date is on September, the 23rd. More can be read over at hardocp.com

Thoughts about this?


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[ChipDeath]

It's good that they've finally set a date I guess.

However, as much as I'd love to get overly excited about A64, I still can't escape the feeling that it's going to be a flop, performance wise... :frown: ... I really hope it suprises everyone though.

I am still looking forward to the benchies, just to see - especially how good an Ocer it is..

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$hit Happens. I just wish it would happen to someone else for a change.

 

[rain_king_uk]

Doubt they would release it if it was going to be a performance lightweight - think how much nVidia delayed the GF-FX when they released it was going to be owned by the Radeons.

 

[eden]

Actually it's a bit of old news, it had been on the Hard News on THG IIRC. I believe AMD had reserve for Sept. 22rd the floor of a convention center to unveil the A64. If they want to unveil performance against a 3.2GHZ, it better not humiliate itself.

(bah, it's either that or they equip the 3.2 with DDR2100 Single channel! )

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[sabbath1]

Isn't the fastest A64 rated 3400+?
I'll be the first to pick on AMD if it ain't up to speed with the P4 3.2

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[pIII_Man]

well the first p4's looked like $hit too...


There is no smell better than fried silicon

 

[eden]

Yeah but they had a fresh new architecture which has led it to this.

Athlon 64 is nothing but a K7 on steroids. Ain't no long future in that, regrettably.

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[flamethrower205]

Ok, takt that date, multiply it by 2, divide by 3 and multiply by pi. That's when it's actually coming out.

All the things I really like to do are either illegal, immoral, or fattening.

 

[slvr_phoenix]

they want to unveil performance against a 3.2GHZ, it better not humiliate itself.

(bah, it's either that or they equip the 3.2 with DDR2100 Single channel! )

**ROFL** You just <i>know</i> that sites like AMDmb.com will do just that. :O

What I expect AMD to do though is run a very small set of specially-optimized 64-bit software on a 64-bit verison of Windows and/or Linux with great compiler options and compare that to 32-bit Wintel, quite possibly even compiled using GCC and slower-than-mud compiler options, maybe even disabling SSE2.

You know, just like Apple did.

I mean after all, these days it's hard to tell if AMD's marketing is copying Apple or if Apple's marketing is copying AMD.

"<i>Yeah, if you treat them like equals, it'll only encourage them to think they <b>ARE</b> your equals.</i>" - Thief from <A HREF="http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=030603" target="_new">8-Bit Theater</A>

 

[eden]

The worst is that Apple actually WAS able to make a rebuttal towards the allegations! Man some people WILL continue to debate when they are cornered.

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[knewt]

I will bet my paycheck on it being another paper launch :lol:

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[sabbath1]

No doubt they did. But that was not what I was talking about. I was talking about AMD's ever so misleading PR Ratings. An Athlon 64 that's rated 3400+ should perform like a P4 3.4. If it doesn't, it's misleading PR.

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[sabbath1]

Heh. Not this time though it seems...

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[Kemche]

Before anyone else has a chance to tell you that the PR is based on the T-bird core and not based on P4 Mhz, I would like to say you are right.

The person who useally says that PR is based on the T-Bird core will also give you proof by giving you link to AMD paper. But we know better.

I think AMD was doing very well when they started out with this PR rating. They were actually preforming on par with P4s with same MHZ. Sometimes they even beat P4s with same Mhz. I just don't know what made them change their mind? Is it the lack of Mhz available of Athlon?

KG

"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity." - Sarah Chambers

 

[sabbath1]

Of course AMD wants us to believe that their processors are meant to be rated against the Thunderbird, but the 2800+ and 3000+ thing is a great example of different proof. 200 pr but just 67 MHz.

Right. AMD's PR Rating was very correctly measured in the beginning, but eventually with the 2400+ and 2600+ the bad things started. Since rating is never an absolutely fair way of judging performance eg; the P4 is sure to remain the performance leader in Q3A, it's just a thing AMD should get off and start being honest instead. I mean, look at Itanium. It's max speed is 1.5 Ghz yet there's no doubt of it's performance. If AMD did the same with their products, and got themselves some better marketing guys, they'd sure to get better profits so they could market their own "way" of measuring performance.


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[knewt]

I never bought that PR thing to begin with. It was just marketing BS and has been taken way too far. I'm all for them using a model number instead of MHz to represent their products, but a direct comparison to P4's speed is stupid. When the ill-informed public find out the number is not the actual speed but AMD's idea of relative speed, they will see this as an attempt to deceive the consumer.

AMD would have been better off not going down that path as it has since backfired on them. The actual performance of their latest chips has unleashed a tidal wave of criticism about their PR #'s.

By the way, I completely agree that AMD never intended their PR to compare to the T-bird no matter what they say.

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[sabbath1]

Yeah it's fully possible that the Athlon 64 would not perform all too well. It's in fact pretty likely because it's always hard to get brand new hardware to work properly, both stand-alone and together with mainboard/memory, etc., in the beginning.
But, let's see what happens. If it is a very good performer, then I might buy one in October, which is roughly at the time when I first could afford another computer upgrade

About overclocking, personally, I've experienced strange slowdowns and things lately, so I wouldn't try too much of those things neither with Prescott nor Athlon 64, when they come out. Better start saving some money starting now...


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[Mephistopheles]

Ah well, I'll probably have enough money in October as well, but I think I'm going to hang out until December. I mean, by then, my money will go further and more information on both Prescott and A64 will be out. And quite honestly, buying an ultra-new piece of hardware is a bit of a risk... Wait a couple of months before buying, so they can iron out the edges. (in A64's case, they might need some more time than 2 months or so...). And that's for desktop users - if you think that's waiting too much, people in server/workstation segments might wait 6-12 months before going with new tech. Like Itanium, for instance... they were probably right in waiting anyway.

<font color=red><b>M</b></font color=red>ephistopheles

 

[sabbath1]

Yeah of course, you're right. I'll see what I'm gonna do.
It feels somehow that maybe Athlon 64 has undergone the most changes after all, and it maybe is the CPU that you should wait most of the time until you buy, maybe...
But to wait at least 2-3 weeks or a month is a good idea just so you know you don't buy something with really lethal bugs, and that goes for both Prescott and Athlon 64. Who knows, maybe some sorry person got him/herself that first version of my CPU, the P4 3.0, with 800 FSB and got to experience heavy crashes, or whatever the bug was about.

Thanks for reminding me about it again
Hopefully I really do that, wait and see and not buy at the first possible chance.


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