If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
AMD 64bit CPU differences
Hi
Something I had not picked up on before, but aparently I was wrong when I thought the Opteron 1-2 way and Athlon 64 FX were identical. After reading up on the AMD site I was suprised to see that while the Athlon 64 FX has Opteron's dual channel functionality, but it only supports a single hypertransport path like the standard 64. Thus I realise this means the FX cannot do multi-processor. Even the 100 series (which is 1-2 way) Opteron had 3 HT links necessary. Any ideas if this is just something they disable on the core, or are AMD producing 3 similar but separate versions of the hammer core? Tim |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
"Tim Cunnings" wrote in message
... Any ideas if this is just something they disable on the core, or are AMD producing 3 similar but separate versions of the hammer core? My impression is that there are two similar but separate cores, the one in the regular Athlon 64 (aka Clawhammer), and the one in the Athlon 64FX and Opteron (aka Sledgehammer). Then within the Sledgehammer core, they enable or disable certain features by shorting certain bridges after manufacture, just prior to packaging. The Clawhammer is a single-channel DDR chip, whereas the Sledgehammer is the dual-channel DDR chip. Yousuf Khan |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 15:42:28 GMT, "Yousuf Khan"
wrote: "Tim Cunnings" wrote in message ... Any ideas if this is just something they disable on the core, or are AMD producing 3 similar but separate versions of the hammer core? My impression is that there are two similar but separate cores, the one in the regular Athlon 64 (aka Clawhammer), and the one in the Athlon 64FX and Opteron (aka Sledgehammer). Nope, only one core. Take a look at the transistor count and die size of the chips, all are identical. It's just a matter of what is enabled or disabled that determines whether it's an Opteron 8xx, 2xx, 1xx, an Athlon64 or an Athlon64 FX. All use the same basic die. FWIW the test versions of the AthlonFX 51 actually had all three of their hypertransport links active, though apparently this will change in the very near future if it hasn't already for retail chips. One thing I'm curious about though. The Opterons all have 3 hypertransport links, however the 1xx series is for uniprocessor machines only, the 2xx are for dual processor setups and the 8xx and for 4 and 8-way setups. Does AMD actually enforce this somehow? ie do the 2xx chips have 3 HT links, but only 1 of them will allow cache-coherent hypertransport (required for connecting to another processor)? Or is it just a matter of testing, ie an Opteron 1xx series chip COULD work in a 4 or 8-way SMP setup, but it just hasn't been tested and verified as such? ------------- Tony Hill hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
"Tony Hill" wrote in message
.com... My impression is that there are two similar but separate cores, the one in the regular Athlon 64 (aka Clawhammer), and the one in the Athlon 64FX and Opteron (aka Sledgehammer). Nope, only one core. Take a look at the transistor count and die size of the chips, all are identical. It's just a matter of what is enabled or disabled that determines whether it's an Opteron 8xx, 2xx, 1xx, an Athlon64 or an Athlon64 FX. All use the same basic die. Well, depends on what we define as the core. The Clawhammers are single-channel DDR, whereas the Sledgehammers are dual-channel. Also the Clawhammers have less L2 cache, don't they? Yousuf Khan |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 21:20:21 GMT, "Yousuf Khan"
wrote: "Tony Hill" wrote in message t.com... Nope, only one core. Take a look at the transistor count and die size of the chips, all are identical. It's just a matter of what is enabled or disabled that determines whether it's an Opteron 8xx, 2xx, 1xx, an Athlon64 or an Athlon64 FX. All use the same basic die. Well, depends on what we define as the core. The Clawhammers are single-channel DDR, whereas the Sledgehammers are dual-channel. Err, more or less (it's not quite "dual-channel" in the same sense as nVidia's nForce or RDRAM chipsets, more just a 128-bit wide channel). However this is simply because on the Clawhammer chips, half of the width is disabled, not because it doesn't exist. Also the Clawhammers have less L2 cache, don't they? Nope, all have 1MB of L2. ------------- Tony Hill hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
FX 5xxx differences? | Nostrobino | Nvidia Videocards | 10 | October 22nd 04 02:12 AM |
Canon Pixma iP3000 & iP4000 - Differences..? | Stroller | Printers | 21 | October 1st 04 01:50 PM |
64 bit - Windows Liberty 64bit, Windows Limited Edition 64 Bit, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Developer Edition 64 Bit, IBM DB2 64 bit - new ! | vvcd | AMD x86-64 Processors | 0 | September 17th 04 09:07 PM |
Please Help with Dell Precision 730 Need Windows XP Pro 64bit OS Will buy from anyone | Alex | Dell Computers | 8 | January 20th 04 05:38 PM |
64 bit - Windows Liberty 64bit, Windows Limited Edition 64 Bit,Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Developer Edition 64 Bit, IBM DB2 64 bit - new! | TEL | Overclocking AMD Processors | 0 | January 1st 04 06:59 PM |