![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , November 30, 2006
- Author:
- Paul Jastrzebski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
AMD Athlon 64 FX-74 & Quad FX Platform Review
AMD's much hyped "4X4" system today brings dual socket Athlon 64 FX processors to the desktop allowing two dual-core AMD processors to be used. This in effect gives us a quad-core system and paves the way for a true octo-core desktop platform next year.
Where’s My New AM2 Socket?
One of the biggest things I’m sure many of you are already asking is what the hell happened to AM2? The simple truth it is that AM2 was never designed to handle dual processors nor has the ability to easily do so. From a hardware standpoint, the pin layout and bandwidth simply aren’t there for an AM2 CPU to interface with a twin CPU, the chipset, and main memory. There are always workarounds to these problems, but developing a dual-socket AM2 platform would probably be more work than it’s worth and surely would pose bottleneck issues that AMD’s engineers so greatly despise. So AMD decided to go with the next best thing, and that’s “simply modifying” their current Opteron processors to run on a desktop board, also modifying an Opteron chipset so it has desktop and enthusiast class features. This is a bit of simplified explanation, but it should draw you a good picture as to why we are seeing AM2 go by the wayside with Quad FX Platform. Are we happy about this? No, but we do understand the necessity on this platform.
An Opteron or an FX?
The visual representation of a desktop Opteron processor is hammered in even more with a simple CPU-Z image of the FX-74. CPU-Z thinks the FX-74 is an Opteron!
AMD Athlon 64 FX-74 Specifics
As you can see from the CPU-Z specs, each FX-74 processor has two cores clocked at 3GHz, each core with 1MB of L2 cache. Each FX-74 will have two 16-bit / 16-bit HyperTransport links, one to it’s memory and the other to the twin processor, with the both CPU’s sharing an interconnect to the chipset. The FX-74 will have an effective HyperTransport speed of 2GHz, with 8GB/sec of HyperTransport memory bandwidth.
We mentioned earlier that the FX-74 is built on AMD’s existing manufacturing technology, which is of course their 90nm Silicon on Insulator process, with the FX-74 fabricated at AMD’s Fab 30 wafer facility in Dresden, Germany.
LGA 1207 / Socket 1207
And here we have a series of pictures that show the FX-74 and its Socket 1207 packaging. For those of you unfamiliar with Socket 1207, it was introduced earlier this year with the Opteron and is AMD’s first Land Grid Array (LGA) form of packaging. That is, it’s the first non-pin CPU AMD has produced, but of course, Intel has had an LGA CPU’s on the market for more than two years now.
The FX is “Special” Again
I’ll quickly go back to the fact that the FX-74 is being launched in conjunction with the FX-72 and FX-70. One of the biggest problems I’ve always had with the FX line of processors was that they really weren’t available to the wide enthusiast market they proclaimed to be servicing. The problem was inherently that the $999 FX CPU was identical to many $99 Athlon 64 processors and a couple hundred MHz made up the $900 between the two. AMD has done a terrible job of differentiating product lines as the branding has moved forward. We have always seen AMD’s marketing at the mercy of their production lines and what they could get out the door. We’ve always insisted that AMD should try to do something special with the FX line, something different that would set it apart from their standard desktop CPU’s.
The launch of the FX-74 does just that. By launching three high end parts, the FX line will now live as a high end only part, complete with it’s own chipset, and of course with the unique feature that if features two twin CPU’s instead of just one.
AM2 is Here to Stay with AM2 Quad-Core on the Way
And don’t get me wrong here, AM2 processors aren’t going away currently. AM2 will be around and will likely finish out 2007 as the mainstream desktop packaging for AMD processors. Don’t think that just because you bought a new AM2 board AMD has pushed you aside in an effort to extract more money from enthusiasts. You’ll be able to pop in a quad-core AM2 processor into your existing AM2 motherboard when AMD ships its Barcelona core next year, but with Quad FX, you’ll be able to pop two of these quad-core chips in one system.