The Phenom II X4 810 & X3 720: AMD Gets DDR3 But Doesn't Need It
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 9, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The Economic Problem
For the consumer, AMD's pricing strategy is incredible. For AMD and its shareholders however, the pricing is a bit tough. The Phenom II X4 940 is priced similarly to the Core 2 Quad Q9400, a chip that is 36% smaller than AMD's offering. The Phenom II X4 810 goes up against the Q8300, again, a chip that's 36% smaller. The Phenom II X3 720 is even worse shape; AMD is selling a chip that's 258 mm2 at the same price Intel sells a 82 mm2 chip; that's a 68% smaller die at the same price.
| AMD CPU | AMD Die Size | Competitive Intel CPU | Competitive Intel Die Size | Intel Size Advantage |
| AMD Phenom II X4 900 series | 258 mm2 | Intel Core 2 Quad Q9xxx/Q8xxx | 164 mm2 | 36% |
| AMD Phenom II X4 800 series | 258 mm2 | Intel Core 2 Quad Q8xxx | 164 mm2 | 36% |
| AMD Phenom II X3 700 series | 258 mm2 | Intel Core 2 Duo E7xxx series | 82 mm2 | 68% |
AMD in many cases delivers greater performance than the similarly priced Intel CPUs, but not nearly a large enough performance gap to make up for the difference in die size. Again, great for consumers, but potentially painful for AMD in the long run. As yields improve AMD should be able to make more of these cores members of the 900 family, but without a separate, smaller die there will still be economic inefficiencies at the lower end.
The Core 2 Duo E7500, Intel's high-margin competitor to the Phenom II X3 700 series
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just4U - Monday, February 9, 2009 - link
I think you were a bit optimistic in your prediction that DDR3 will be at price parity with DDR2 by years end but otherwise a good review.I do have a question tho as I am not 100% sure on it. The cpu's that were launched in January (920/40). Are they also compatable with DDR3 boards? Or just these new cpu's?
faxon - Friday, May 1, 2009 - link
really? because right now newegg is selling a 2x2GB kit of Gskill cas9 1600 for $59, and the like kit of DDR2 cas5 is only $56. all we need now is for latency on the ram to drop at the same low voltages seen on i7 kits and i would call that price parity, not that you will even really notice the latency difference except in synthetic benchmarks anymoreDrMrLordX - Monday, February 9, 2009 - link
To the best of my knowledge, AM2 and AM2+ Phenom/Phenom IIs will not support DDR3. Their memory controllers just can't hack it.hyc - Monday, February 9, 2009 - link
How so? Barcelona/Phenom-I already had the dual memory controllers, they were just never enabled on any motherboards.Targon - Monday, February 9, 2009 - link
For DDR3 support you need a DDR3 supporting CPU. From the sound of it, the processors are the socket AM3 type, meaning they will work in both socket AM2+ and socket AM3 motherboards. If a processor is for socket AM2/AM2+, it will NOT work in a DDR3 motherboard.The way it works is simple, the DDR3 versions of the processor have both DDR2 and DDR3 memory controllers, so will work with either type of memory. The DDR2 processors(X4 940 and 920) only have a DDR2 memory controller(it is dual channel, but that isn't the same as supporting both memory types), so will only work in a socket AM2 or AM2+ motherboard.
The X4 945 and 925(I think) will be the DDR3 supporting versions of the current chips.
Again, you can NOT put a socket AM2+ chip in a DDR3 board, it won't work(pin is blocked in the socket to avoid frying the chip). Even if you could put the chip in a DDR3 board, without the DDR3 memory controller on the CPU, it just would not work.
grb1212 - Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - link
your not totally right if u have a am2/am2+/am3 compatible board and it uses ddr3 if u use a ddr2 compatible processor ddr3 will work with a ddr2 processor but it will act like ddr2 memory as far ass performanceTheFace - Monday, February 9, 2009 - link
This may help.http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/socket-am3-phe...">http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/socket-am3-phe...
The chips released today seem to be the only ones that work in AM3. But the chips released today will also work in AM2/AM2+. It's just, as has been stated repeatedly, the chips designed for AM2/AM2+ won't work in AM3.