Price Guides, May 2005: Processors
by Kristopher Kubicki on May 22, 2005 10:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Athlon 64
AMD had some big announcements lately. Aside from the dual core stuff, the new “E3” and “E4” stepping chips finally started to make their way onto the retail marketplace. These new chips, dubbed “ Venice” and “ San Diego”, are just slightly newer steppings of the existing 90nm chips, but the finer tuned memory controller and SSE3 instructions are a welcomed addition. Feel free to check out Derek’s initial coverage on K8 E stepping here. If AMD product SKUs have you confused, you might want to briefly check out page two of our AMD CPU update here.Due to AMD’s incredibly “buyer friendly” [sic] product naming, we had to recently revamp the way our processors were listed in the RTPE. Since die process, cache size, clock speed, stepping and socket size all vary within products that are named the same, we had to start annotating a core name to the end of each product in our database. This is slightly unnecessary if you know AMD’s product SKU strategy well enough, but after doing this for five years, I still don’t have it quite memorized. Just keep these important names in mind:
- Hammer: 1MB (sometimes 512KB due to half cache disabled), 130nm, “C0” Socket 754 and Socket 939
- Newcastle : 512KB, 130nm, “CG” Socket 754 and Socket 939
- Winchester : 512KB, 90nm, “D0” Socket 939
- Venice : 512KB, 90nm, “E3” Socket 939
- San Diego : 1MB, 90nm, “E4” Socket 939
With prices as cheap as they are, if you’re going for a new system, we have to recommend a Socket 939 processor. Not only because the 90nm processors run considerably cooler than their 130nm predecessors, but also because Socket 939 prices are actually more competitive [RTPE: Athlon 64 3200+]! The minor boosts in SSE3 and dual channel memory are just icing on the cake.
The Venice processors grab our pick of the week, even if they cost marginally more than the Winchester variants. Oddly, when Winchester prices didn’t fall even though Venice and San Diego processors started showing up at retail merchants en masse, we started to get the impression that many merchants were just going to continue to sell the chips as “Athlon 64” chips and make no mention of the core features. If there will not be a discount for non-SSE3 90nm processors, then it doesn’t make sense to purchase a non-SSE3 chip. The Winchester Athlon 64 3500+ seems to be the only exception to that generalization. Let’s take a look at the price trends over the last few months:
AMD Athlon 64 (939) 3500+ 512KB Winchester
Athlon 64 X2 preorders are starting to crop up, but there seems to be a lot of indication that Intel will beat them to the desktop market first. On another side note, we have heard several reports about 90nm Athlon 64 processors performing poorly in MSI’s K8N Neo4 product line. We will have more details for you in the near future, but if you are in between motherboards and you are also planning a 90nm purchase, you may want to stay away from the K8N until we can either verify or dispute those K8N reports. Our guess is that some new BIOSes should fix the performance issues.
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g33k - Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - link
johnsonx,Thanks for your reply. I can see how this proc would confuse things a bit. Axiom Technologies even lists the proc as a skt754.
johnsonx - Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - link
BTW, for anyone who doubts the rare P4 I mentioned:http://www.powerleap.com/Processors.html
Intel P4 2.8GHz 400MHz 478pin 512K CPU OEM $161.99
Core: Northwood Operating Frequency: 2.8GHz FSB: 400MHz Cache: L1/12K+8K; L2/512K Voltage: 1.525V Process: 0.13Micron Socket: Socket 478 Multimedia Instruction: MMX, SSE, SSE2 Warranty: 30 Day DOA Packaging: OEM(Processor Only)
Apparently Intel made these for one or more OEM's who wanted to offer 2.8Ghz CPUs on an existing platform validated for 400Mhz FSB only. Powerleap got ahold of some and sell them for upgraders, particularly for use with their socket-423 to 478 adapter (socket-423 boards of course support 400Mhz FSB only).
johnsonx - Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - link
g33k,There actually is such a thing as a socket 939 A64 3400+. It is a 2.2Ghz cpu with 512k cache (same as the 3500+), but it is limited to an 800Mhz hypertransport link instead of 1000Mhz HT like all other socket 939 CPU's. The 800Mhz HT limit is the reason the performance rating is 100 points lower, though I doubt it really makes much difference at all.
These CPU's were in fact sold by NewEgg about 9 months or so ago, but I've not seen them since. Many other vendors had them as well, and there was quite a bit of speculation and confusion about them both then and now. AMD doesn't even list the CPU in their online database now; I'm not at all sure AMD ever 'officially' acknowledged the existence of these CPUs. Sort of like the 2.8Ghz Pentium 4 with a 400Mhz FSB: Intel doesn't admit such a thing exists, but they do, and can be purchased if you know where to get them (though that P4 probably even more rare and obscure than the S939 A64 3400+).
g33k - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link
KristopherKubicki, I have never seen a skt939 3400+. I have only seen them in skt754. Even the link in the price guide to "Axion Technologies" says it is a 3400+ skt754. Although, it rates the proc at 2.2ghz and 512k cache. These are 3200+ specs. So something not right there.Tujan - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link
The spec.for the EM64 for Intel processors..you stated that 'all Prescott have these enabled,in addition to some new Celerons.In the ""Processor Obfuscation And You.."" article,stated that the numeration for the 3.2 Prescott begins with 540J for example,but the E64 would start with the following designation of 541J..542J etc.
Within the stats for Newegg.com (Hi Newegg.com), the processors they show dont include the feature set of the EM64 along with SSE,SSE2,HT etc. Although the 540J might be seen EM64T is not specified.
As well,the specific numeration (541j,542J etc) isn't detailed for the information fields there. Is this something for the retailer to further detail,and is there some way to be sure that a Prescott processor can utilize the EM64T.? Since if ordering you cannot usually detail that spec even though it may be available.
Or Not ? [ ]
Sidenote: 915s support EM64T with XP64bit..?
KristopherKubicki - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link
g33k: That is no error. One of these really exists!Kristopher
johnsonx - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link
It'd be useful to add the clock speed to the Intel processor designations. Yes, yes, I know, clock speed isn't everything any more, but I sure can't remember what a 535 or 640 is either.vitamalt - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link
mmm venice 3000+ great bargain that's my next buy atm which may change since I'm not upgrading until games become unplayable on my current rig.arswihart - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link
it should come as no surprise that there are issues with the msi boards, thats always the case with that garbage companyg33k - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link
Minor error on pg4 AMD (939) proc list. It lists S939 3400+ proc?