schuy1

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Hi all, I have a gigabyte k8ns-939 mobo, and I recently have started paying attention to the hype machine of dual core procs, I was curious as to if anyone knows if AMD is sticking with the 939 socket for their dual cores due at the end of this year or if they are taking another platform to do it. I would hate to go and buy a a8n-sli, and find out that the dual cores arent going to be compatible. Thanks for any info
 

fishmahn

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Best I can figure is: We don't know.

Some rumors say they are sticking with the 939 socket and it should work with existing mobos, but it's not confirmed. Honestly, I don't think we'll know until they're available.

Mike.
 
Fish is right - everything you hear about the dual-core CPUs right now is rumor and conjecture. I'll know for sure what it will be when they are released. Pat posted a link in Mobo section for an article by the Inquirer that states they won't be s939 and the article seemed to have sound reasoning, but I refer to my previous rumor/conjecture statement... :smile:

"He who will not risk, cannot win"
- John Paul Jones
 

peteroy

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dual cores won't come out in 2005 and when it comes out, it will be worth upgrading for people with 2ghz cpu and below.

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P4Man

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Nothing official, but I'm fairly certain it will work. Socket 939 isnt that different from 940, and it is confirmed dual core opterons will work in existing s940 boards with just a bios upgrade. I see no reason why S939 would be any different.

Furthermore, it is confirmed that AMD will produce a dual core Athlon (FX) product.. if that will not fit into S939, then where would it fit in ? There are not many enthousiast type of S940 boards, so that is hardly an option, and a new socket is no-no for such a low volume product, so that leaves S939 boards, or no dual core Athlon.

One last thing; depending on what you do, I wouldn't hold my breath for dual core. Unless you run some CPU bound, properly multithreading app, the performance increase just won't be there. As it is, only a few workstation apps really benefit from more than one core/cpu, and precious few consumer apps. And in spite of what some will tell you, it will take a very long time before we see usefull multithreading in games and plenty of other apps. Media encoding could benefit substantially though, but that is about the only consumer grade app I see that would warrant dual core in the foreseeable future.

Just my 2 cent

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
 

Spitfire_x86

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I've read in the Inquirer that AMD will introduce two new sockets, when Dual Core arrives (existing socket 940 and 939 won't work with dual core), don't have link right now.

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P4Man

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AMD seems to disagree with the INQ:
Drops into existing AMD Opteron 940-pin sockets that are compatible with 90nm single core processors
A BIOS update was all that was necessary to get the 4-socket server up and running with dual-core AMD Opteron processors

<A HREF="http://www.amd.com/us-en/0,,3715_11787,00.html" target="_new">http://www.amd.com/us-en/0,,3715_11787,00.html</A>

BTW, I also seem to remember reading something on new sockets from AMD, but ARAIR, it wasn't known if they where real, let alone what they where for. Could be for K9 as well.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
 

endyen

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Are you sure? <A HREF="http://www.digitimes.com/bits_chips/a20050125A7033.html" target="_new">http://www.digitimes.com/bits_chips/a20050125A7033.html</A>
Looks like Smithfield in Q2 and Toledo in Q3 to me.
Since toledo wont be DDR2, safe bet says s939.
 

P4Man

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As Endyen implied, the new sockets might be used to support DDR2, but if AMD is going to release a new socket required for CPU's launched in a couple of months, we'd have known for some time now.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
 

c0d1f1ed

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The first generation of dual-core processors will definitely use socket 939. Later new sockets will appear for newer memory types and increased bandwidth.

So buy that socket 939 board. It's going to last a long time.
 

Vapor

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You really like to make uninformed guesses, don't you? Dual core not in '05? AMD already promised them this year, the INQ has tons of evidence to think they'll be out before Q4, too. Other places have leaked roadmaps (a very recent one was leaked, but it was taken down after about 12 hrs due to 'bandwidth limitations' [it was a smallish gif, much smaller than their homepage]) showing S940 in late Q2, S939 mid Q3, M2 Q1 '06.

As for your theory on upgrade procedures, people using a 3.8GHz P4 will notice an improvement! That's damn near close to twice your claim! How do I figure? AMD has promised a 2.4GHz dual core chip with 1MB cache in each core... 1x 2.4GHz 1MB = 4000+ (or FX-53), now lets add a second core! It's like running two Opteron 250s with slightly less bandwidth but a better chipset (well, until a few days ago). All the gaming performance (maybe slightly less, maybe slightly more) with nearly all the performance of 2x Opteron 250s. I'm quite sure that nearly EVERYBODY's computer on this forum is slower than 2x 250s in workstation apps (or server) and is slower than an FX-53 in gaming.

So the question is: HTF do you get "it will be worth upgrading for people with 2GHz CPU and below" ?!!?!?

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