Anand Reviews Athlon 64 FX-53 305
trickofperspective writes "Anandtech has a review of AMD's latest processor, the Athlon 64 FX-53. Long story short -- the FX-53 is a "very solid processor," but you'd be better off waiting a couple months for Socket 939."
Explaining the difference... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:the FX-53 is a "very solid processor" (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Virus protection on the chip? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Explaining the difference... (Score:5, Interesting)
slightly OT, but 'Buzzword Bufoonery' is, in itself, a fantastic sort of anti-buzzword buzzword that i shall use from now on. a fictitious cookie for you if you invented that.
Re:Virus protection on the chip? (Score:1, Interesting)
I understand that kind of thinking can hurt other people when my machine is on a network, and in my laziness my machine becomes infected and starts a DoS attack and such. But still, not every machine is on a network, and I don't want to have to pay for the extra security.
Let the processor do the processing.
Josh
Re:Virus protection on the chip? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:the FX-53 is a "very solid processor" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Virus protection on the chip? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now who is going to have the first kernel which sets it all up properly to be secure? Linux? OpenBSD? FreeBSD? Or will it be that backward little company in Redmond who have major quality and security problems with everything they do?
Re:Anandtech (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Anandtech (Score:4, Interesting)
I definitely don't need one right now, but in a year, when it is a mainstream product, I will find some excuse to persuade myself to buy one. By that time the OS (Linux of course) will have been very well debugged.
I wonder when the move to 128-bit will come?
Re:the FX-53 is a "very solid processor" (Score:3, Interesting)
BTW, that only applies to non-64-bit Athlons/Durons. Yes, Intel is hotter than AMD. No, Intel processors don't hit 370 C when their heatsinks are removed, as the Pentium III shuts down, and the Pentium 4 slows down. The Athlon MP/XP had thermal overload protection in their spec, but some boards don't include it.
Flash for Graphs?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's just lame.
Re:Virus protection on the chip? (Score:2, Interesting)
Unless they do odd things like generate code on the fly, it shouldn't be a problem.
JIT runtimes might have problems, though, if you forced the flag in, say, your Gentoo installation.
What's with AMD's name (Score:2, Interesting)
Whatever happen to marketing making your purhase decisions easier. It's doing to exact opposite nowadays. Intel ain't doing a whole lot better.
Re:Virus protection on the chip? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Anandtech (Score:1, Interesting)
- Marked down prices from vendors clearing their old inventory.
- Mature technology without the usual sharp edges associated with cutting edge technology.
- Middle to high end performance.
Of course, then I'm stuck with this cpu for the next few years. That is, of course, until the newest, whizbang socket 1039's hit the market and I pick up a socket 939 mobo priced to move
BTW, Thank you for encouraging everyone else to adopt the newest techology as soon as it hits the streets. _Someone_ has to beta test the hardware after all...
Re:Waiting (Score:2, Interesting)
CPU thoughts (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess it's good this socket switch is happening at the same time as the switch to PCI-E, so you can get all this stuff outta the way at once.
Personally, there's no way I'd get a 939 board withOUT PCI-E at the same time - you're just going to have to ditch that soon enough, as well.
Really, I'm more interested in the PPC 970FX & 980, anyway. C'mon - 24.5 Watts for a 2gHz 970FX?! That's pretty amazing. I don't know if the 980 will have an on-die memory controller, but here's hoping.
As for other upcoming CPUs, the Intel Dothan also sounds very promising, as does the possibility of a multi-core version of the Dothan. I just wish Intel would wake up and make the Pentium-Ms for desktop platsforms. I also think the 2Meg L2 of the Dothan is overkill, and makes the chip more expensive than it needs to be. A 1Meg L2 is plenty for Dothan, and would reduce the die size considerably, and thus the cost. Intel's being a little strange on that front, though the Celeron-M is a good move.
I'm still curious as to why Intel and AMD haven't added AltiVec to their x86 processors.
Quantum (Score:5, Interesting)
Motherboard / Socket 940 fears (Score:2, Interesting)
Besides, everytime I have actually upgraded a processor, I have also had to buy new memory and motherboard to accompany it. There's no sense putting a shiny new processor in and having it use old, slow memory on an old slow, bus.
However, just last week, I had to replace the mb in my kids' computer - I got a kt600 board [newegg.com] in anticipation of upgrading their Athlon XP 1900+ and PC2100 at some point.
How much do you want to bet that by the time I need to upgrade that processor and memory, I will still need to buy a new mobo in order to utilize the new features of whatever processor or memory architecture I use.
BTW, I LOVE MY FX51 MACHINE! I built the whole system for just $3200 ($1150 was the display). For work stuff, I run Gentoo Linux compiled for AMD64, and for games, regular 32 bit Windows XP Pro. Absolutely no complaints. Wolfenstein Enemy Territory shows 60-90fps at 1600x1200 full detail.
tests done with 64 bit OS and apps or not? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe I'm missing it, but in the "OS" category, they only say "Windows XP Profession SP1", no reference that I can see if it's a 64 bit version of the OS or not. Ditto for the apps.
My understanding is (with the current state of affairs, 03/18/2004) if you run to the store and buy an AMD 64 machine, you'll get a 32 bit version of Windows and apps.
But you only get the benefits of eg. >2^32 ram access IF you run a 64 bit OS and 64 bit apps.
Being able to access >2^32 of ram in an app is really useful for 3D rendering of very large projects (a business I happen to associated with), so if the tests are done with 32 bit OS/Apps, the benchmarks would seem to be not so useful for that purpose.
Considering this is a 64 bit processor being evaluated, it would seem lacking not to mention this.
Most folks in 3D evaling AMD 64's are sticking 64 bit os's on there right away (Suse, Gentoo, Fedora/Yarrow, etc), and doing tests with that.
Am I missing the part where they talk about 32 vs. 64 bit OS in these tests? I would
ps. With all those blinking flashing (*!&@# banner adds, it's often hard to RTFAC. I wonder, do schools now give reading comprehension tests in rooms with flashing lights and spinning graphics to simulate 'real world' scenarios? >;)
Re:Explaining the difference... (Score:4, Interesting)
Just for the record, you do know that it's a very good insulator, and that if you have more than just a bare film of the stuff then you've basically wrapped your CPU in a sweater, right?
Perhaps you do, but it seems like Arctic Silver is the computing equivalent of low-profile tires: if a little bit is good, a whole lot must be better! It's almost the computing equivalent of a whaletail on a Sentra, although some people do actually use it correctly and see some benefit.
Re:Flash for Graphs?!? (Score:1, Interesting)
Of course you probably meant to say "A few architectures, operating systems and browsers are not supported by Flash at all. And those few represent a pittance of the market." C'mon, Flash works on my Sun Ultra 5 running Aurora Linux. If that isn't a niche market, then nothing is.
But go ahead and keep those blinders on. The rest of us will be smarter than you.
Re:Explaining the difference... (Score:3, Interesting)
If I where buying a new computer, I'd but the absolute fastest, most maxed out machine I could, but only because it's such a rare occurance that I have the money to make such a purchase, I'd need my machine to last me a few years.
Where are the native compiled tests? (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, given that the x86 64bit decendants have more registers and all, running some stupid Sysmark or Unreal Tournament on top of them is like comparing V4 and V8 engines in such a way that the V8 only gasoline to four of it's cylinders.
What I want to know is the P4 flag ship lined up with the AMD 64bit flag shit on linux with a kernel compiled for 64bit and apps compiled for 64bits.
I have not been able to locate a single such benchmark as of yet. Anyone? Please...
how about a review w/out P4EE or 64FX?? (Score:2, Interesting)
I suspect that these chips exist entirely for marketing purposes & are there really to have the 'fastest desktop cpu on the market title'. But a much more VALUABLE question to ask is 'what's the best chip for $400, $300, $200, $100?, heck even $50!!'.
every time i look at these benchmarks, i have to cut out the EE's & the FX's & just see how the P4's compare to the althon-64's & XP's. because in my mind these 'elite' chips don't exist. They're toys. there's no remotely reasonable reason to buy them.