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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Slappi - Thursday, May 25, 2006 - link
That is the real question.Very biased these last few months.
I sure hope Conroe can cook dinner and clean my house because if it can't someone has some explaining to do.
lewisc - Thursday, May 25, 2006 - link
How was that review at all biased? AM2 showed very very small improvements over socket 939, Anand said so. Is it biased because the result was not what you wanted? How you could possibly suggest buying a a new platform that has hardly any improvement over a predecessor is beyond me.Slappi - Thursday, May 25, 2006 - link
Just all his talk about Intel the last few months has been really biased. Not necessarily this article.Just my opinion and I really like this site it just seems like someone is being taken care of.
I could be wrong.
clnee55 - Friday, May 26, 2006 - link
I agree in the last few months, AMD has shown that it doesn't have anything ready to compete with Conroe. I certainly can trust Anand's analysis. Your conspiracy theory is full of it.By the way, just how much AMD stock do you own?
EdisonStarfire - Thursday, May 25, 2006 - link
I've owned AMD systems since 1998 starting with an Athlon 600 OEM. I've built several other AMD systems since then. Sure, there is a slight chance Intel had some influence on their test systems anand tested but from seeing other pre-release samples around the web I think its just a case of Intel finally waking up and building a good cpu. I hope AMD has a good answer but if they don't and fooled themselves into thinking Intel didn't have the resources or need to build something (like alot of fanboys do) then they were kidding themselves badly. If the Core 2 Duo chips are the best out when its time to dump my X2 4400 then thats what I will be buying. I know AMD is limited in resources but the Dothan should have been a sign of what was coming and made some revisions with the AM2 release. Let's hope the deerhound cores improvements add about 20% IPC so can keep some good competition going between the two companies.in short... I don't think Anand is being biased about anything. Just my 2 cents.
Thatguy97 - Friday, May 1, 2015 - link
well it sure did and amds dyingThatguy97 - Tuesday, December 27, 2016 - link
Ayyyyy things looking upThatguy97 - Sunday, June 28, 2020 - link
Ayyy AMD is in the lead nowpeternelson - Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - link
I am interested in the changes from 939 to AM2/940 and opteron/940 and SocketF/1207
I would like detailed PINOUTS for these.
eg how many pins are GND, how many power / core power, how many ddr, how many ddr2, how many hypertransport links.
Ideally full pinout not just summary by group function.
Is this information available anywhere or would I have to/my company have to sign an NDA with AMD to obtain it?
ultraCODE - Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - link
Have anyone managed to benchmark new AM2 platform with RightMark RMMA? It shows the real peak speed (I don't trust crappy Sandra) for mem. read/write. Any results highly appreciated. Thanks in advance!Best wishes,
uC