ED#57 : The AMD Phenom Goes Triple Core!

[The_YongGrand]

Originally Posted by peaz

it all depends on the way the application is coded for multi-core optimization. it's not that easy to support n-core. most applications are specifically designed to utilize dual core if I'm not mistake. 4 cores = 2x2. that makes it easy for the programmers to double the number of threads to process the instructions since it's all multiples of two. I could be wrong here though.

it just strikes me that 3 core would make things very odd. even in the SMP world. we hardly see 3 CPUs. It's usually multiples of 2.

In the world of computing, you will see these numbers: 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512....

3 looks and sounds so weird - are the AMD guys releasing it as X3? and also, they are planning to release the Sempron X2, but I couldn't notice any of these right now.

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by The_YongGrand

In the world of computing, you will see these numbers: 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512....

3 looks and sounds so weird - are the AMD guys releasing it as X3? and also, they are planning to release the Sempron X2, but I couldn't notice any of these right now.

Actualy, their line-up of cheap Sempron processors will eventually be replaced by Athlon X2 processors.

[The_YongGrand]

Not sure where I want to put this, but I got an interesting piece of news - AMD's releasing some of the Phenoms next month.

Dang, I hated that when they started delaying the stuff, and pushing the dates when the time comes. Sheesh, how fickle is AMD nowadays.

And also, are the AM2+ backward compatible to any AM2 platform? If those 4-core or 3-core are cheaper, heck, I would like to buy those!

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by The_YongGrand

Not sure where I want to put this, but I got an interesting piece of news - AMD's releasing some of the Phenoms next month.

Dang, I hated that when they started delaying the stuff, and pushing the dates when the time comes. Sheesh, how fickle is AMD nowadays.

And also, are the AM2+ backward compatible to any AM2 platform? If those 4-core or 3-core are cheaper, heck, I would like to buy those!

Where did you get that news? AMD just told me that they are on track for a December release.

As for AM2+ compatibility.. here's a quote from our AMD Phenom Pre-Launch Update.

According to AMD, the only difference between Socket AM2 and Socket AM2+ is the support for HyperTransport 3.0 which allows for a higher transfer rate of 20.8 GB/s at 2.6 GHz.

[The_YongGrand]

Originally Posted by Adrian Wong

Where did you get that news? AMD just told me that they are on track for a December release.

As for AM2+ compatibility.. here's a quote from our AMD Phenom Pre-Launch Update.

Here:
Release of Quad core phenom

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by The_YongGrand

Here:
Release of Quad core phenom

Oh, we had already posted the details here.

AMD just told me a few days ago, they are still going for a December release. They could be lying though.

[The_YongGrand]

Originally Posted by Adrian Wong

Oh, we had already posted the details here.

AMD just told me a few days ago, they are still going for a December release. They could be lying though.

I see. So, could it hurt if I put a 4-core into my AM2 board? Will it downclock, 'cause the HT is 3.0 instead of 2.0?

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by The_YongGrand

I see. So, could it hurt if I put a 4-core into my AM2 board? Will it downclock, 'cause the HT is 3.0 instead of 2.0?

Err.. no. According to AMD, it will be a painless upgrade. All you need to do is just update the BIOS.

[charge-n-go]

There is virtually no optimization penalty for tri-core. The thread scheduling is all done by the OS, not the application itself. As long as the application can spread itself into various light weight process (a.k.a. threads), the OS will dispatch these threads into the CPU cores based on priority. The limitation still lies within Windows. The most basic scheduling algorithm is, dispatch the higher priority threads into any available core. So, you don't really need to worry about dual, tri or quad core. As long as the OS supports 4 cores, it can still run very well with 3 cores or 2 cores.