AMD Socket-AM2: Same Performance, Faster Memory, Lower Power
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 23, 2006 12:14 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Power Consumption
Given that AMD reduced power consumption a bit alongside the move to Socket-AM2, we wanted to see how the new chips compared to the latest CPUs AMD had sent us prior to the launch. So we pitted our last Socket-939 sample, the Athlon 64 FX-60, against the two new Socket-AM2 samples we just received: the Athlon 64 FX-62 and the X2 5000+. Remember that the FX-62 actually carries a 125W TDP rating, so it shouldn't be any cooler than previous CPUs, but the X2 5000+ is a new 89W part.
There are inevitably going to be power differences between the Socket-AM2 and Socket-939 motherboards we used, but unfortunately there was no way to isolate them from the comparison as we are measuring total system power consumption.
Under full load, the X2 5000+ does appear to be a bit cooler than the Socket-939 FX-60. We've seen in the past that the 1MB vs. 512KB of cache doesn't really result in any significant difference in power consumption, so it looks like the overall decrease in power consumption is because of the improvements in production AMD has implemented at Fab 30. It is worth noting that the Pentium Extreme Edition 965 consumes just as much power as the FX-62, thanks to its 65nm manufacturing process. Even so, we still can't wait for Intel to drive its power consumption levels even lower later this year.
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Griswold - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
Sounds conceiveable indeed. Though, the latter option would probably blow TDP out of proportion on 90nm.
mlittl3 - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
Yeah, that is a problem but Anand did say "trick up its sleeve" so maybe they have one last 90 nm manufacturing process that's better than today's. I've read some articles about L3 cache coming for AMD and one inquirer.net article (take with grain of salt) that says AMD will ramp clock speeds fast. Maybe the trick will have something to do with these factors. Who knows?darkdemyze - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
Whatever it is I'm interested in reading about itRegs - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
Whatever it is, it's going to be expensive.TrogdorJW - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
Actually, I was sort of thinking that the "stopgap solution" might be to cut prices. God only knows that I would love to see a $200 X2 processor!Griswold - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
Well, they will have to drop prices at some point after core 2 is actually available.xFlankerx - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
Indeed, same results as expected. Maybe this will make the AMD fanboys shut up about "waiting to see what the final results are." NOTE: I have a AMD system, I'm simply addressing those that refuse to accept Conroe's superiority.Although...I must say that this "stop gap" solution by AMD has piqued my curiosity.
But I believe that these say it perfectly;
"One of its stipulations for sending out Socket-AM2 review kits was that the CPUs not be compared to Conroe."
"We do get a sense of concern whenever Conroe is brought up around AMD."
"So when Intel first started talking about its new Core architecture, we turned to AMD for a response that it surely must have had in the works for years, but as you all know we came up empty handed."
Those just say it all for me. Seems like AMD's in trouble. From what I've been reading, K8L doesn't bring in architectural changes either. Sure you get Quad Cores, L3 cache, FB-DIMM support, DDR3, and faster HyperTransport, but if AMD doesn't improve on it's performance-per-clock efficiency, then Intel's Quad Cores (due almost 9 months before AMD's) are going to rule supreme yet again.
Griswold - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
Maybe read up on it first.
Memory mirroring, data poisoning, HT retry protocol support, doubled prefetch size (32byte instead of 16), 2x 128bit SSE units (instead of 2x 64bit), out of order load execution, Indirect branch predictors and a handful new instructions sure sounds like a few architectural changes and not just a simple revision stepping.
rADo2 - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - link
Sorry, links again:Intel Conroe @ 3.9GHz: SuperPI 1M - 12.984s
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php...">http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php...
AMD FX-57 @ 4.2GHz: SuperPI 1M - 21.992s
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php...">http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php...
MadAd - Monday, May 29, 2006 - link
Try measuring like for like and then come back with your silly benchmark comparison. EG use a superpi data size that will fit on BOTH cpus caches, not just conroes and then compare performance.With the FX57 having just a 1M cache its bullsht smoke and mirrors saying the 1M superpi is slower, o rly? perhaps thats because it takes more than 1M to hold both the feature and data sets on a 1M superpi.
muppet