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A64 New Socket WHEN???

P

PSYKOMANTIS

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Sep 20, 2002
Messages
1,128
I'm going to be purchasing some high end 64 or 32 bit workstations and I really don't want to buy the current socket technology motherboards/processors yet.

I've been told that AMD is realeasing a new socket 939 I guess.

When is it expected to be released to vendors?
If all else fails, I'll just go and get the FX line of processors. They seem pretty nice.

I'm really not sure what to do...
It's either:
Wait for new sockets, new mobos, new PCIX vid cards with the possibility of missing my purchasing MAY30th deadline. By June 1st I lose my budgets.

Or

Buy FX 53 or P4EE systems now.

Any input any of you guys could provide would be great.
I'm kinda new to AMD again. It's been a while since I last owned an AMD system. These new 64 bit processors are looking promising so I'm kinda interested in seeing what they would do with our CAD department.

Psyko M.
 
PCI Express motherboards for Athlon64 DEFINITELY wont make your June 1 deadline.

Socket 939 cpu's and motherboards are supposed to be released in mid to late may. According to reports though supplies of cpu's will be CONSTRAINED until later in the summer though.

If you're looking to purchase in the next 4-6 weeks your options are an Athlon FX + socket 940 motherboard or an Athlon64 + socket 754 motherboard.
 
939 = may?? i think

the p4ee is not a good thing, very expensive and the fx53 is still better than it, unless you're doing encoding/decoding of course, which in a workstation you may be doing alot. PCIX will be out in a couple months i believe, but won't be popular for maybe a year, because agp 8x's bandwidth still hasn't been entirely used up, atleast from what i've heard
 
I was under the assumption that these new sockets and such would be released in mid April.

I guess so they say...

"Assumption is the mother of all fuckups!"

Leave it to HardOCP forums for the help!
Thanks guys!

BTW these workstations I'm building will also be used for those late night "benchmarking" sessions where we need to run game tests to make sure the systems are stable (teehee)

Psyko M.
 
Take as much money as you can, and buy an apple computer. Like a dual G5 ( doesnt matter which one, just an expensive one). Those things hold their value so well. Dont open it or use it, then, after June 1st, sell it and buy your parts.
 
PCI-X won't really be ready until later this year, what type of things will you be doing with you workstation, if it's HDTV stuff, then you should invest in PCI-X since thats the only thing that breaks the AGP 8x bandwidth barrier. Also it will enhance gigabit ethernet and things of that nature. With encoding/decoding you shouldn't be concerned with AMD, so some more info would be nice.

And these "becnhmarking" sessions sound like you're gonna need a gaming card (non-Quardo/Fire), and you obviously know new lines are coming out soon.

Mac idea is brilliant, do that if you really need to.

And one last thing: don't forget to order yourself some parts, after all you are saving money for your company from not buying from a large scale manufacturer and your doing research on your own free time!
 
It's not that. I fail to understand why would any normal being want an apple.
 
Originally posted by M4d-K10wN
It's not that. I fail to understand why would any normal being want an apple.
Click to expand...

Can't stand Apples, but they do hold their value. If you read the post rather than pick a fight trying to ridicule the poster you'd have gotten the poster's point: THEY HOLD VALUE... Which they do.
 
I'd probably get an a64-FX setup if I were you. Or maybe hold out until the near the end of May and see what's out on the market and go witht the best performer there.

And to clear things up PCI-X is different from PCI-E.

PCI-Express is for video cards just like AGP now is.
PCI-X are enhanced PCI slots that have been already utilized in servers for a couple of years now.

:cool:
 
The apple idea is good but it's something I'm sure my boss will not allow me to pull off.

With the Athalon FX procs, you have to have regestered memory right???

Also do the FX line or A64 procs offer dual channell memory?

Psyko M.
 
Yes, the A64 FX's line of processors REQUIRES registered/ecc ram and WILL run the memory in dual channel.

The regular A64 (on socket 754) uses regular ram and WILL NOT have the option to run dual channel with memory.

Although in the future (around May if AMD decides to release it) there will be dual channel memory support when the a64 moves to a different socket which is socket 939.

Hope that cleared it up for you a bit. :cool:
 
Do the CAD applications need memory bandwidth or FPU power? What about storage performance? You might look at some benchies and see. For workstations, I would think that you'de be looking at dual proc anyway. 939 won't be dual proc for quite a while, if at all.


Dual Opteron workstation motherboards compared
Three paths to dual Opteron nirvana

http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2004q2/dually-opterons/
 
s754 a64 chips are more than adequate. Don't waste money on FX chips, they are just too expensive for the minor boost in performance over regular a64 chips.

look at the difference in performance between 64 3400 and FX-51. That will give you a basic idea of the "performance leap" you will make going to dual channel memory with s939. *yawn*

I would reccomend even going with a64 3000 or 3200+, they are a can of whoopass.

Can't stand Apples, but they do hold their value. If you read the post rather than pick a fight trying to ridicule the poster you'd have gotten the poster's point: THEY HOLD VALUE... Which they do.
Click to expand...

rotflmao. Please do not consider computers as an investment. They do not appreciate. Try art or savings bonds.
 
poster's point: THEY HOLD VALUE... Which they do.
Click to expand...
Yes, but, money holds it's value better. Why use a horribly retarded computer that holds it's value well?
 
Originally posted by M4d-K10wN
Yes, but, money holds it's value better. Why use a horribly retarded computer that holds it's value well?
Click to expand...

Uhm, dude, he was like joking about the Apple. How dense are you??
 
Thanks again on the info on the Dual Channell questions.

Since we pretty much have CAD based video cards, I'm more into looking into hardcore memory bandwidth and processing speed.

As for dual proc systems, the software we have don't support dual proc. So it will be a total waste.

I'm looking for RAW power.

As for personal use, do the FX or the A64 overclock any?
Due to the fact I'll be taking one of these systems for "benchmarking" I'm quite interested. I'd like to know if the FX is more of a benifical overclocker then the A64

Thanks again for all your input!
I really apprecieate it!
 
FX = waste of money, power diffrence between a FX-51 and a 3400+ is <5%, FX-53 doesn't provide much extra. As of now, there isn't much overclocking power in the A64's because of the lack of AGP/PCI lock. If you wait for the nForce3 250 which should have a working lock, then overclocking will become a valid option.
 
Either way, you can't overclock them much because of instability issues. The A64 reaches it's stability peak at about 2.6Ghz, won't go any higher.
 
These Nforce 3 250GB boards should be coming around any day now right?

These will offer AGP/PCI locks?

Interesting. Thanks again for the info. I've been reading allot of sites about that 250. It seems quite faster then the VIA solution and the refrence boards are not even a FINAL product. Yet I can't find anywhere about overclocking on those boards.

Psyko M.
 
Although you will see a working AGP/PCI lock (most s754 boards already have an AGP lock) you wont see much more OC potential until s939 and a new manufacturing process.
 
--> *points to a dual Opteron system* <--

Or you could could with the A64 FX-53, can't go wrong there (very expensive though).

You could probably get away with using an A64 3400+ if you don't need dual-channel.
 
Originally posted by Captain Rehab
s754 a64 chips are more than adequate. Don't waste money on FX chips, they are just too expensive for the minor boost in performance over regular a64 chips.

look at the difference in performance between 64 3400 and FX-51. That will give you a basic idea of the "performance leap" you will make going to dual channel memory with s939. *yawn*

I would reccomend even going with a64 3000 or 3200+, they are a can of whoopass.
Click to expand...


In my experience, CAD loves bandwidth. You can't deny that the FX has substantially more bandwidth available than a regular A64. The fact that you pay almost double for the privilage isn't a problem if your business relies on how quickly you can get a finished product out of the door....the faster you work, the more money you make. In my line of business, saving just 1 hour over a project will pay for that difference between the A64 and FX and then some.
 
Originally posted by theotherphil
In my experience, CAD loves bandwidth. You can't deny that the FX has substantially more bandwidth available than a regular A64. The fact that you pay almost double for the privilage isn't a problem if your business relies on how quickly you can get a finished product out of the door....the faster you work, the more money you make. In my line of business, saving just 1 hour over a project will pay for that difference between the A64 and FX and then some.
Click to expand...

Excellent point, thanks!
 
I'd wait until s939 is released. Take a look at the performance numbers of the new processors and see how many are actually available for purchase. Runnin an Athlon 64 FX chip with regular memory will be faster that an FX with registered memory. If you decide to stick with a s754 or s940 athlon 64 after you see the benchmarks, I'm sure some people will be offloading their older processors for cheap in order to buy the new s939 ones. Either way, you can't lose.

Also, you mentioned that you were also looking at a P4 EE. If you need tons of memory bandwidth, a P4 rig will provide quite a bit of it. I wouldn't recomend an EE chip though. The performance increase isn't worth it.

Finally, PCI-E will not be debuting on any platform before June. Mid June or July should bring the new P4 chipsets into being. They will support PCI-E and DDR-II. The Athlon 64 platform on the other hand will not support DDR-II until sometime in 2005.
 
Originally posted by dextrous
I'd wait until s939 is released. Take a look at the performance numbers of the new processors and see how many are actually available for purchase. Runnin an Athlon 64 FX chip with regular memory will be faster that an FX with registered memory. If you decide to stick with a s754 or s940 athlon 64 after you see the benchmarks, I'm sure some people will be offloading their older processors for cheap in order to buy the new s939 ones. Either way, you can't lose.

Also, you mentioned that you were also looking at a P4 EE. If you need tons of memory bandwidth, a P4 rig will provide quite a bit of it. I wouldn't recomend an EE chip though. The performance increase isn't worth it.

Finally, PCI-E will not be debuting on any platform before June. Mid June or July should bring the new P4 chipsets into being. They will support PCI-E and DDR-II. The Athlon 64 platform on the other hand will not support DDR-II until sometime in 2005.
Click to expand...

I'd love to wait but June 1st my budgets are drained for the end of my purchasing fiscal year.

Thanks for the points on the Dual Channell. I'm now leaning towards the FX and the Nvidia Nforce3 250GB boards. I definitley want Gig-ethernet onboard.
 
Originally posted by PSYKOMANTIS
I definitley want Gig-ethernet onboard.
Click to expand...

Have you checked out reviews of the nForce3 250? The gigabit ethernet thorough-put is amazing, much better than Intel's implementation.
 
Yes I did read the reviews. I know it is most likely a stupid question, but these 250 boards should be out any day now right?
I'm pretty excited just due to the fact they have perfected a solid and fast FX mobo.
 
yeah, the ETA on those nforce 3 250GB boards is any day.... I'd love to see some of the benchies on the retail boards!

Also, from my last post I made... I didn't mean to tell you to wait until June 1st. The new s939 a64's should be out around May 25th. That gives you 5 days to read reviews and decide what to purchase. Although, you may prefer registered memory for a workstation anyway. Regardless, A s940 FX will not disappoint.
 
while the 939 launch is supposed to happen last week of may I think expecting any availability before june 1 is a huge huge stretch not even taking the 'limited availability' rumors into account. :(
 
Originally posted by Surly
while the 939 launch is supposed to happen last week of may I think expecting any availability before june 1 is a huge huge stretch not even taking the 'limited availability' rumors into account. :(
Click to expand...

I'm not trying to get anyone's hopes up, but if you remember, there are cases where the products actually become available a few days before it's officially released. More than once I've seen products up for sale on some websites before NDAs and stuff were lifted.

Despite limited availabilty, you may actually see something a bit in advance. Just don't count on it.
 
Regardless, the best thing to do is simply to wait until the last week or two before the budget expires. This is when you will likely get the most bang for your potential buck.
 
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