Comparing Gaming Performance

Real-world gaming results were then compared in charts at all tested memory speeds. Despite the lower memory bandwidth, DDR400 performs better compared to DDR2-800 than we really expected. This will likely shift to patterns similar to those seen in bandwidth positioning as the AM2 memory controller is further refined and game patches make better use of AM2 capabilities.

Far Cry Gaming Performance


Serious Sam 2 Gaming Performance


Doom 3 Gaming Performance


F.E.A.R. Gaming Performance


Call of Duty 2 Gaming Performance


With the exception of Call of Duty 2, DDR2-800 takes the top spot, followed closely by DDR-400 and DDR2-667. (The COD2 issue may be related to the latest 1.2 patch with SMP support; we're looking into the matter more.) What is somewhat surprising is how poorly DDR2-400 does on some of the other tests like Far Cry, where even DDR2-533 is 21% faster. Again, this may simply be last-minute timing issues which will be corrected in the near future, but we don't recommend that anyone run with slower than DDR2-533 on AM2.

Comparing Memory Performance AM2 Overclocking vs. Socket 939 Overclocking
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  • peternelson - Saturday, April 15, 2006 - link

    No I don't work for VIA or Transmeta but I do work in the IT Industry ;-)

    Efficeon chips were used in Orion Multisystems DT-12 and DS-96 cluster in a box computers and some notebooks.

    Whilst they have low power, they do lack performance for some applications compared to the latest chips. But using VLIW based code-morphing they do indeed run x86 code.

    Just call it a "good idea" rather than "unique" ;-)
  • Bladen - Friday, April 14, 2006 - link

    Although DDR2 667 at 3-3-3 doesn't seem that common, all I can find is DDR2 667 4-4-4 or 5-5-5. Here in Australia anyway.

    Maybe when AM2 is released a rehash article featuring the higher latencies is in order.
  • Gary Key - Saturday, April 15, 2006 - link

    quote:

    Although DDR2 667 at 3-3-3 doesn't seem that common, all I can find is DDR2 667 4-4-4 or 5-5-5. Here in Australia anyway.


    In our recent experiences with Infineon based DDR2-667 modules rated at 4-4-4, the majority of these modules will run at DDR2-667 with 3-3-3 settings with a voltage setting around 2.2V. Your mileage will vary based upon supplier but going with one of the more performance oriented providers will usually result in the better timings.

    We fully expect a wave of higher performance DDR2 modules to be launched in conjunction with the AM2 product. The majority of these new modules settling in around the DDR2-667 and DDR2-800 levels or above as we recently witnessed in our DDR2-1000 article -http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=273...">DDR2-1000 goes Higher.....
  • AnandThenMan - Friday, April 14, 2006 - link

    quote:

    This may change in the future, but for now the move to AM2 and DDR2 memory looks like it will yield far too little in performance improvements to keep AMD competitive in the upcoming marketplace.


    It will be interesting to come back to this statement after AM2 and Conroe are out in the wild to see how accurate it was.

    Interesting article, but nothing very surprising to me. The Athlon64 core is pretty much at its computational limit at a given clock, feeding it with more memory bandwidth does little. Which means that early adopters of the AM2 platform will get 939 performance with an updgrade path, which is not too shabby.

    Conroe better live up to expectations though...
  • Wesley Fink - Saturday, April 15, 2006 - link

    It would be a very pleasant surprise if AMD has us all in the dark and launches a Conroe competitive part or a Conroe-killer. Competition is good for buyers, especially when performance is very close. The close performance results in lower prices, as we are now seeing in the ATI/nVidia video cards from the most recent generation.

    However, we have to evaluate things with the best information we have available on time to Fab, launch dates, and the available revs that have been provided to AMD partners to design their companion products for the AM2 launch. There is always room for an unexpected surprise, but it looks less likely the closer we get to 6/6/06.
  • Viditor - Saturday, April 15, 2006 - link

    I have no doubt that AM2 is a very weak upgrade...management at AMD said as much in their recent conference call.
    The only critique I have would be of the line
    quote:

    the move to AM2 and DDR2 memory looks like it will yield far too little in performance improvements to keep AMD competitive in the upcoming marketplace

    You should have added the word "desktop" before marketplace as the server marketplace should still be solidly AMD, and we have yet to see what will happen in the mobile space...JMHO
  • Wesley Fink - Saturday, April 15, 2006 - link

    A very fair comment. I added the "desktop" qualifier since it makes sense.

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