AMD athlon64 benchmarked

[stickyblue]

awesome ! i cant wait to get one :)

[nose]

This is great! I just waited upgrading my computer, just to get this proc next year. This is gonna be a h*ll of a proc! :)

[johnny_riptide]

All we need now is a 64bit OS and 64bit versions of the software we use....I wonder how long before that comes. But in the mean time I guess it'll have to run with one hand tied behind it's back.

Did Microsoft ever decide to support this thing with an OS?

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by johnny_riptide
All we need now is a 64bit OS and 64bit versions of the software we use....I wonder how long before that comes. But in the mean time I guess it'll have to run with one hand tied behind it's back.

Did Microsoft ever decide to support this thing with an OS?

The biggest thing that the Athlon64 has is the integrated NorthBridge. While there are number of advantages in running
64-bit native code on the Athlon64 (e.g. extra registers, larger
address space) the biggest impact on performance comes from that memory controller upgrade.

[nose]

Originally posted by johnny_riptide
Did Microsoft ever decide to support this thing with an OS?

Well, there already is a 64-bit version of Windows2000, but I don't know if that is for Itanium or Hammer processors. I hope both. A 64-bit of XP was announced last year, but hasn't been released yet. I assume they're gonna wait with a 64-bit OS until the successor of XP, Windows Longhorn.

[UrbanFuturistic]

Both Windows and GNU/Linux have been under heavy development for some time now and, from what I can gather, will be ready for the release of the Athlon64, and if you look on the nVidia website under the drivers section you'll see they've already released supporting drivers..

Otherwise, if there's only on mention of Windows64 on the Microsoft website, it's for Itanium.

regards, Paul

[beaker]

You guys do know that this processor is going to cost more than your entire computer. It is supposed to start in the 1-2k price range. I am sure, just like xeon's, the motherboard is going to be 2-3x as expensive also.

[percydaman]

You guys do know that this processor is going to cost more than your entire computer. It is supposed to start in the 1-2k price range. I am sure, just like xeon's, the motherboard is going to be 2-3x as expensive also.

Sure, but its gotta start somewhere right? :thumbsup:

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by beaker
You guys do know that this processor is going to cost more than your entire computer. It is supposed to start in the 1-2k price range. I am sure, just like xeon's, the motherboard is going to be 2-3x as expensive also.

Nope.

The Athlon64 is going to be priced like today's upscale Athlon.

What you're thinking of is the Opteron, which AMD will be charging considerably more for (the marketing target for the Opteron is the same as for the Xeon).

[Array]

What you're thinking of is the Opteron, which AMD will be charging considerably more for (the marketing target for the Opteron is the same as for the Xeon).

Yeah, the Opteron will be much like the Athlon64, but it will also have 1mb of level 2 cache (therefore the price differance). Also, AMD will ensure that chipsets for the opteron can support up to 8(!!!) cpu's on one motherboard.

And for those of you worried about 3d application support for 64 bit, im more than certain that at the verly LEAST Pixar and Mental Images will have 64 bit binaries of their renderers available at launch.

[beaker]

>>And for those of you worried about 3d application support for 64 bit, im more than certain that at the verly LEAST Pixar and Mental Images will have 64 bit binaries of their renderers available at launch.

Array:
It doesnt matter that much because the AMD64 is 32 bit backward compatible. Works very similar to all the other 64 bit chips out there(except itanium). MIPS, Alpha, and powerpc all run 32 bit apps without any speed hit.

[Dedushka]

AMD cool....

[googlo]

beaker,
is that without any special tweaking or considerations? LIke you can just run any 32 bit program and it will work normally without any compatibility issues or other problems?

[Array]

yeah, I know they run 32 bit as well as 64, but there isnt as much incentive for people to buy these chips unless developers code 64 bit optimized applications for it, so even if maya stays 32 bit, a 64 bit optimized mentalray binary would make it all worthwhile :beer:

[playmesumch00ns]

Surely this is going to be a nightmare for developers? Even if all it takes to make an app 64-bit is just a recompile with a 64-bit compiler, to fully take advantage of a 64-bit processor is going to take a lot of work. So we're going to have to wait longer (and perhaps pay more) for new software while the developers make two different versions. It's going to be donkeys' years before they can say "OK it's safe to drop 32-bit support now".

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by Array
Yeah, the Opteron will be much like the Athlon64, but it will also have 1mb of level 2 cache (therefore the price differance). Also, AMD will ensure that chipsets for the opteron can support up to 8(!!!) cpu's on one motherboard.


There are two other differences between the Opteron and the Athlon64: the Athlon64 will have only one memory channel implemented, and will only have 2 16-bit HyperTransport links (keeps the packaging costs + motherboard costs down). Opteron will have 2 memory channels and 3 32-bit HyperTransport links.

Well, that's the plan for now, at any rate.

Beaker: There is an advantage in using 64-bit native code in a 64-bit native environment (OS) on the Hammer architecture, because in 64-bit mode, it exposes 2x as many general-purpose and SSE registers to the compilers, which makes it easier for the compiler + scheduler to keep the processor busy, resulting in higher performance.

This is unique among 64-bit processors; most of them look the same in 32-bit mode as they do in 64-bit mode from the compiler's point of view, so they'll actually take a slight hit due to increased memory throughput requirements (larger addresses take up more bandwidth to transport). Note that the hit is not large, and in fact barely noticable most of the time, so this is not enough to qualify as a bad thing. I mention it only to illustrate how much of an oddball the Hammer is going to be.

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by googlo
beaker,
is that without any special tweaking or considerations? LIke you can just run any 32 bit program and it will work normally without any compatibility issues or other problems?

Well... yes. Especially on the Hammer, which when running in 32-bit mode is an x86 processor.

Array: There are incentives even without 64-bit mode. One is the improved memory subsystem, because currently the Athlon's terribly imbalanced; it has a massively powerful FPU that the memory subsystem is quite overwhelmed by, and cannot hope to feed it adequately. (That's why the Barton showed such significant speed gains, the Athlon's been hampered by its memory bus, so speeding that part up has a significant impact).

Another is that because the NorthBridge is integrated, there is one less chip needed on the motherboard (and that chip happens to have a requirement for fairly sophisticated logic) which reduces cost and overall power consumption.

And yet another is scalability; while the Athlon64 does not offer this (it won't be SMP enabled) the Opterons will be able to link a HyperTransport connection directly to one another. Future versions of Windows (starting I think with Longhorn) will be NUMA optimized, to maximize the benefits of this; one processor can get data from the other's memory banks without the other's intervention, directly through the memory controller.

That means that when you add a Hammer processor to a machine, you have to add memory also... but you also add bandwidth as a result. So one SledgeHammer (dual memory channels) would offer 5.7 GB/s using PC-2700 (333 MHz DDR) memory, while a quad system would offer just over 21 GB/s aggregate bandwidth.

I think that's why Cray picked it for RedStorm.

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.