Originally Posted by CingularDuality

OK, I'm not gonna read all of those articles. Since my computer upgrade has been postponed for up to a year, give me the down and dirty on what's coming down the pipe in terms of CPUs... From what I've been reading, it looks like AMD has a nice head start on consumer level 64bit processors. Is this anticipated to change? Or is AMD still going to offer the most processing power per dollar for at least the next year?

AMD's going to a new package with this Socket 939, right? Or is this the same pinouts that the current FX is using?

right, about september 2003 AMD released Socket 754 and Socket 940 platforms.

Socket 754 A64's being home market, 940 Opterons being server and top end FX cpus (server cpus renamed for the "people"). The memory controlers are built into the new AMD's to reduce latency and improve performance, hence the extra pins, socket 754 is single channel DDR and 940 is DUAL channel, but due to it being server cpus they needed registerd ram which is dam well expensive.

Most of these cpu's have 1mb L2 cache which gives a nice performance boost.

Now AMD are releasing socket 939, which is a dual channel version of 754, or basicaly 940 without SMP support. 939 uses normal DDR in dual channel format, much like P4's do. The thing is, the FX range is now moving down to 939, and will have 1mb L2 cache, and the A64 range starts "again" on the 939, this time with only 512kb L2 cache to make it cheaper for them.

Socket 754 will now become "value" or the new socket A, even including NON 64bit cpus being moved up to socket 754 which will make a nice cheap fast system and bring A64 upgradeablilty to the masses, ie buy a cheap 32bit cpu for socket 754, upgrade to 64 later.

One word of warning though (again), Socket 939 A64s will only have 512kb cache which reduces the performace by just as much as they gain by using dual channel. Some things are faster with dual channel, some faster with larger caches, its a hard choice. Basicaly a 1mb socket 754 CPU will perform the same as a 512kb socket 939 CPU. And another point to make is AMD chips, by design dont really need huge memory bandwidth like there P4's competition....

recap

Socket 939 FX's will have the full 1mb cache and perform rather good but at a VERY high price ($799 for a cpu?!?!).

Socket 939 A64s will ALL have 512kb cache to make them slower than FX's and cheaper to make.

Socket 754 A64s will have a mixture as it does now of 1mb and 512kb CPU's.

Socket 754 32bit cpus will have 256-512kb cache and will become "celerons". (theses are far away on AMD roadmaps)

ALL these cpus are made on 130nm proccess.

Note: Some of this is fact, ie what they already have, some of it may or may not happen, AMD seem to be quiet right now, not really taking advantage of Intels problems, so some of this might not happen...who knows.

2 years down the line AMD will need to make DDR_II cpus, and since the memory controller is on the CPU the sockets will have to change...word is AMD wont be switching to DDR-II untill its in the 667mhz range which is quiet some time off. This is due to them not really needing high bandwidth memory....


Intel on the other hand have lost a bit of lead in the perfomance, and heat output is going up. Intel CPU's by design need a much larger mhz to perform the same as a AMD. This was really pure marketing on Intels part, as the "Average Joe" walks into a shop and sees 3200mhz and is wowed by AMD only being 2000mhz.....but i wont GO down this road as it risks arguements....

anyway Intels ONLY socket right now is 478. All CPU's use this (apart from servers duh). Unlike AMD, intels memory controler is still on the motherboard, in the northbridge, so its upto the motherboard designer/Chipset designer what memory it supports and what speeds.

Intel have two CPU's right now, Northwood, based on 130nm proccess. And Prescott (Preshots hehehe) which are 90nm.

Northwood 2.8-3.4ghz
16kb L1 cache
512kb L2 cache
32bit

Prescott 2.8 and up
32kb L1 cache
1mb L2 cache
64bit "hidden" inside.
Longer pipeline = more mhz but less performance per mhz

Intel are struggling at making P4's with 90nm Proccess, its suppose to be cooler and faster but its causing major issues with power leakage since the lines are so small, causing the cpu to be hot, and hot doesnt = faster either. AMD will probably hit this wall in time too.

Anyway, clock for clock (2.8 vs 2.8) a northwood CPU will win. But as the speeds increase through to like 3.6ghz the gap gets smaller, and then the Prescots start to get faster from about 3.8 onwards (i think). Only problem is Intel cant make 3.8 cpus right now....

Power leakage problems also cause another problem, not just heat. They need massive amounts of power, and most Socket 478 Boards are not designed with this in mind, so right now prescots overstress the power circuits on Socket 478 boards. Which might not sound too bad, but your looking at 70-120c on some of the power circuits on the boards, instead of 50-60c with "normal" Northwoods.

Socket T or 775 will solve this, making the Prescott what it needs to be...

Intel will also be bringing in DDRRII in 400 and 533 speeds this year, it wont really be much faster right now, but it will scale high after a year or two. DDRII increases the latencys which is why AMD wont want it till the bandwidth increase is worthwhile.

PCI-X is out soon, which replaces PCI AND AGP, agian, Intel adopt this first/faster than AMD.

PCI-X ofers point to point conection and not shared bus like todays PCI. On normal PCI's there will be PCI-X 1 which is for normal sound cards etc, and PCI-X 16, which is for GFX's cards. PCI-X is a serial bus, and the number tells you how many lines its got, im not totaly sure on PCI-X specs though so i cant be sure. But a PCI-X card supports 2x the bandwidth of AGPx8, and more power per slot.....

ok so i bored you to sleep!