It's just killing fan boys like Kiijibari that Intel is the best 2-way server out there now and they have to craft these elaborate scenarios to somehow justify how AMD is still great.
Man give it up - Is it not enough almost every hardware site on the net has crowned Woodcrest the new 2-way champ over AMD? How much more evidence do you want?
As I've posted before I own an FX-60 now so I don't feel great that Intel will soon be selling at Wal-mart a chip that will kick ass on my carefully overclocked FX system.
But so what? It is what it is. Sure AMD are planning new things, and when and if they are benchmarked to be superior, then you can have your day again.
For now Intel *owns* AMD except a couple niche segments - get used to it.
i think you mean conroe... not woodcrest (the server chip) you can count the reviews on 1 hand that were made... two of them were from anand here. which are still in a large discussion about comparisson etc... and this one is comming straigth from intel...
nice to see the "king" is anounced by intel themselves
The charts are almost totally inscrutable for the red-green color blind population, which is something like 5% of males. Learn to use a decent color scheme or incorperate symbol shapes as well as colors. Map makers know this...
All of you ranting about comparing 3.0 GHz Woodcrest to 2.6 GHz Operton, look here:
http://www.behardware.com/articles/623-1/intel-cor...">http://www.behardware.com/articles/623-1/intel-cor... and see how much better Core 2 architecture is. Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz beats Athlon FX-62 2.8 GHz in most benchmarks. Of course architecture is not everything, especially in enterprise market. Operton has advantage thanks to HyperTransort and advantage of Woodcrest is diminished because of FSB. But the main battle will occur with Desktops and here Core 2 Duo shines. Lets hope AMD will show something intersting soon, not only prices drop. All in all we consumers will benefit from this battle.
AMD will manage to come out with a decent competetor in the next little while and we'll have real compitition in the CPU space again. I'm sure this sucks for AMD right now, and if AMD were able to rebound and deliver a competitor in the relitive near term futer for intel too. But for consumers, competition is beautiful, already we can look twards dirt cheap A64's for your low to mid-range computing needs.
I tried skimming back through the article but is Anand just measuring the CPU wattage or the overall wattage draw for the whole platform (i.e. cpu, northbridge,dimms?
Wall folks, sorry that wasn't more clear. We'll ensure we include power measurement information in future articles. We use the same procedure as we've used in previous articles with power, an extech device and we log power througout the test duration.
quote: We'll ensure we include power measurement information in future articles. We use the same procedure as we've used in previous articles with power, an extech device and we log power througout the test duration
Thanks Jason...it's just that the power draw is such a central theme to the review, it would be nice to know exactly what and how things were being tested. Could you let us know what features and chipset were on the OEM Woodcrest system?
Between the two platforms, the motherboards (Tyan 2882 vs 2891) are different with different chipsets (AMD+AMD vs NVidia+AMD), the software load is different (I presume even at apparent 100% load, there will be small power consumption differences depending on what the software actually does), and there is probably a power supply difference.
Those factors combined could easily account for 40 or so watts.
Could you be more specific on the Intel OEM system specs? (we can look up the Tyan of course)
I assume you used the same PSU for both systems...
Did you measure power draw at the wall?
-Charts have blue background (a la Intel). (There is one Anandtech symbol in the charts but could be Intel no difference).
-Charts with performance/watts, since when Anandtech review CPU based on those parameters? Never. Why now?
-.90nm CPU vs .65nm CPU - .65nm CPU wins, higher clock, lower consuming. No big surprise here, especially if this processor is derivates from a mobile one.
When AMD releases one socket F Opteron will be interesting, especially if = Intel with just half the cache size and 3 years "old" design on .90nm process.
quote: -.90nm CPU vs .65nm CPU - .65nm CPU wins, higher clock, lower consuming. No big surprise here, especially if this processor is derivates from a mobile one.
Heh, by your standards then, the Pentium4s should have been faster than all since they are higher clock.
I am not impressed with this latest review especially when you take into consideration how the intel is a 3.0GHZ processor while the opteron 285 is 2.6GHZ processor. I was so exited about Conroe but this latest benchmark made put my pre-order order on hold to see if Conroe will do what they said it would a 2.67GHZ win vs. a 2.8GHZ. Major bumper, it looks like woodcrest is still behing the opteron, maybe that is why dell still decided to go with AMD after Intel announced the core architecture.
What's the fastest Opteron dual core CPU you can buy?
What's the fastest Woodcrest CPU that will be released?
AMD don't make anything faster than 2.6GHz, so it doesn't really matter what speed Intel have to be at to beat it, they beat it with their top end part. And the Opteron is nearing its end (at 90nm), Woodcrest is new, so it will go faster probably, same as 65nm Opterons will go faster.
Woodcrest is not behind Opteron, it is better per watt, and the high end Woodcrest beats the high end Opteron. Enough said. Whether Intel is clock for clock better or not still doesn't matter. They are better, and if they are not better clock for clock, it doesn't seem to matter because, again, they have higher clocks.
"What's the fastest Woodcrest CPU that will be released? "
Umm.... None?
Does that mean AMD beats Intel by an infinite margin then?
True, if Intel has a 3ghz part out, and AMD only has 2.6, then it makes sense to compare these two.
But for now, let's just keep in mind that Intel doesn't have a 3ghz part out. They don't have a 2.6GHz part either. We are still comparing an unreleased product to one that has been out for a while.
You should note the way the two processors are compared here. Both are dual-CPU systems. Intel's FSB based system architecture means lower system bandwidth than AMD's DirectConnect architecture. The Opteron's have an on-die memory controller and a point-to-point interconnect. I am sure if you put Woodcrest on a Paxville system, you would see significantly worse performance. The 3.0Ghz Woodcrest is probably capable of a bit more performance, but the lower bandwidth FSB does not help it reach its full potential. Also coupled with the fact that FB-DIMMS have more latency than standard DDR2 means the Woodcrest isn't at a serious advantage compared to the Opteron system.
Bottom-line system performance for the Woodcrest processor is still 5-20% better than Opteron. But thats way better than being 30% lower during Paxville days.
Now Conroe does not have all these complications that Woodcrest has, thats why you may see better performance advantage, also since it is a single-CPU solution, the system architecture is much simpler.
I find this article somewhat surprising in tone. My company is a Fortune 500 and a big Dell shop so we have had access to Woodcrest workstations and servers for testing for a while. We have also tested these vs HP 9300 Athlon based Workstations and vs Sun x4100 servers and HP DL385s. Based on our tests which involve business applications, trading applications, etc., the performance of Woodcrest vs the Athlons is slightly better (about 5-10%). Nothing to really rave about, especially when its the latest Intel designs on 65nm. This actually disappointed our in-house Dell groupies, especially since they were comparing the top of the line new CPU design from Intel vs AMD's older platform. As a result we are moving away from Dell simply because they do not offer choice of CPU's at the moment and into HP's world, with our first purchase being 3 full chassis of AMD blade servers.
IMHO, its now a two baron world with a missing king, each with strenghts and weaknesses.
>IMHO, its now a two baron world with a missing king, each with strenghts and weaknesses.
Yes I back that opinion.
Woodcrest is hampered by its FBDs. While it delivers much better bandwidth, it has worse latencies. Furthermore the 4 MB L2 cache & Core2 prefetch does not help that much in a multithreaded server environment, than in the average desktop application area.
What I want to say is, that the performance difference between Conroe/Athlon64 will be bigger than that between Woodcrest/Opteron.
First "tests"( I was told by an administrator of a huge financal institute) also showed a Woodcrest performace lack with gcc compiled 64bit applications. Are some of your applications 64bit, too ? It would be interesting, to get more 64bit statments. For some reason, there are none from Intel so far ...
Yes, I've been wondering about 64-bit performance too. Intel hasn't mentioned it with a word, but I hope they've made a decent implementation this time around.
no they didn't, still the same as in the Netburst. some small 64bit testing has been done on XS forums seeing a core architecture gaining 17-18% performance on a 64bit os + program like 64bit cinebench. the opty 940 gained 31-38%
If you're gonna be spending this much money on an upmarket system you better be running it in 64 bit mode. I know I will.
So if Opteron benches better than Woodcrest in 64 bit mode that changes the equation for me.
Also isn't Opteron 290 out any time now? The would close the % gap a little because of the higher clock speed.
Also S1207 Opterons will be here 1st August. The new nforce5 based pro/server chipsets might give a little boost over existing ones too, as could the bandwidth boost and lower power of DDR2.
Good to see than, that woodcrest doesnt take a 64bit penalty. Maybe the Linux application of my source uses FP calculations and no SSE, or it is due to the compiler which may be in favour for Intel on the windows. Anyways 64bit is a big "playing" field for benchmarks looking forward to read more ;-)
Slightly better performance and slightly lower power consumption. Looks like you have a winner for new servers.
However, for a Fortune 500 company, there are other things much more important than slightly better performance and slightly lower power consumption.
After the poor showing of NetBurst Xeons against Opteron, I'd think any Dell shops would be thrilled to regain the performance crown. Also, frankly, a 5-10% lead is about all most things get you these days, especially when I/O and everything else comes into play. The Woodcrest systems have better overall CPU performance, but it often isn't that important when working on massive databases.
Incidentally, from what we've seen of Conroe, it seems like Intel could release Core chips at up to 3.4-3.6 GHz without difficulty right now. Rather surprising, given the 14 stage pipeline vs. 39 for Prescott.
Actually its not a big thrill at all. One of the major pushes at the firm is to consolidate into VMware based servers or larger raw servers but in all cases stop the traditional 1 server per application that seems to affect most firms. Therefore we are more focused on 4 socket 8 core style servers i.e. HP BL45 blades than 2 socket blades. We had all the top level Dell executives coming in trying to convince us to stay with Dell because at this time, they have no answer for the larger server (the Oct/Nov timeframe for the Dell 4 socket AMD server is too far out). So in the short term we will be a hybrid Dell/HP shop. Maybe we will shift back if Dell's commitment to AMD indeed ramps as expected.
quote: I doubt this has much practical use, but I am nonetheless curious...could you "pinmod" a cloverton to run 1333 FSB?
No that is not possible, dont you think that intel would release it, if it would be possible ? Just think about it, to lower the FSB bandwidth on the 4core part doesnt make sense, does it ? 4 cores are much more bandwith hungry than 2 ..
Reason is the "Intel bolt-together" architecture. The 4core part is just 2 Dies in one package, thus it will have twice the bus load of a single (dual core) CPU. Intel did the same already with Netburst dual cores, hence you have the same FSB limitations there.
All in all it is a little bit odd, Cloverton/Kentsfield performance increases will be much less than linear, but Intel has the advantage of time to market vs. the AMD K8L quad core. Though AMD's QC design looks much more sound I expect intel to be 1st with releasing a quad core CPU.
cloverton's platform supports 1333, and the kentsfield ESs run 1333 easily. most clovertons probably CAN, it's just a question of if the 1066>1333 pinmod some have suggested for dempsey or 1066 woodcrests actually works, and if so, clovertons might be an interesting application of it.
It may work, however that kind of overclocking is more dangerous than normal overclocking. It is easy to oc a chip that run at, lets say 2 GHz, and there is e.g. a 3 GHz top model. Chances are good that yields are well, thus your 2 GHz model may be able to run faster as most models pass 2.6 GHz tests, thus your model was just down binned to 2 GHz.
However with the FSB1066 vs. FSB1333 I assume that you are playing around at the absolutly maximum. Intel would do everything to raise FSB speeds, exspecially with Quad cores. It is nonsense from the performance point of view, to decrease the available bandwidth while the number of bandwidth consumers (i.e. cores) increases.
It might boot & work with a FSB1333 though, but Intel cant and wont gurantee that. It may be good enough for Super Pi or other "fun stuff", but if you run I/O intensive applications, cross your fingers and be prepared for data corruption.
It is about time to see some benchmarks on Woodcrest. This is a victory for Intel in the dual cpu server market. It will be interesting to see how much market share they will be able to take back since losing some to AMD last year. I'm also happy to see that Intel has a roadmap for the future and with their history i'm sure they will be able to produce results.
However on the other hand AMD is not going to stand still. The Opteron is an amazing chip and still leads in servers with more then 4 CPUs. You can bet they are working hard to one up this release. Unfortunately they have to deal with Conroe coming out on the client side later this month and it could start to stretch AMD resources thin. I can't wait for the upcoming battle!!!
From now on, AMD will compete (in new servers) mostly on price (at least after the point Intel will be able to produce the new microprocessors in enough quantity). For existing installations, they could be able to sell new servers "like the existing ones".
This is very bad news for AMD
lol, that's a nice comment you give. you probably didn't look so well at the real charts.
Nice setup again, but comparing a 2,6 to 3,0 it is normal that a 3,0 will have the performance crown looking at the new architecture. however if you look at the performance gain from 2,4 to 2,6 on the opteron and recalculate it to 3,0 you will see almost equal performance. so your thread start "birth of the new king" is not so clear to mee. Yes you can state that intel will have a 3.0 and AMD not at the moment.... but ehhh where are the woodcrests at the moment in the field.... yes none, i only have Eng Samples and backorders till end-august. So this is a big paper launch.
one missing point in your article... you clearly define the setup here with decent systems but what i am missing is the amount of dimms used... calculating this in performance can give a difference up to 25watt = 10%.
i really want to see your follow up on the windows platform....
Of course many people are sad to see "plucky underdog" AMD be beaten by the Giant Intel, but this is really to be expected and, in fact, it's no bad thing.
I say that for 2 reasons. First, new architectures are (generally) better than old ones and it's time for CPU technology to move a step ahead.
AMD has been king of the hill for about 2 years. That's quite a long time, and in that time K8 has really come to the end of it's life span (at least as a top of the range chip). So it's no surprise that the first really new architecture since K8 hit the scene is going to be a lot better than what we have at the moment.
There's really going to be nothing much that AMD can do in the single and dual-core arena to counter Core 2 until early next year at best. It sucks for AMD but that's life. They'll survive OK for a few months in second place.
Secondly, AMD needs the competition from Intel as much as Intel needs the competition from AMD. I have an FX51 box which I bought almost 3 years ago. The CPU runs at 2.2Ghz, it has 2GB of DDR 400 RAM and a pair of Raptors in a RAID 0 array. Despite being 3 years old it's still pretty fast.
My point here is that up until recently, if you were building a new AMD rig you would probably not have been buying a CPU or RAM that was a whole lot faster that what I have in my PC. So in almost 3 years AMD has only increased the speed of its processors incrementally. Although admittedly it did go dual core with much more success than Intel. AMD needs Intel to push it to do better. If they had K8L ready today, would they have lost the crown?
So AMD are now in second place, but it's going to be very interesting to see what happens in the next 6 months or so, and also let's enjoy the benefits that the new architecture(s) are going to bring to us all!
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quote: Performance scaling is not linear. I'm not sure how you can determine Opteron 3.0 performance by looking at only 2.4 and 2.6.
Due to the integrated memory controller, the scaling of Opterons is "nearly" linear. 10% more frequency gives you around 8% better benchmark results. That is true for SMP setups, too. Because you also add more memory bandwidth channels with each CPU. Of course you have to setup NUMA correctly then (SRAT enable, NODE interleave disable). By using SRAT it may be possible to raise also the performance of a 2way system. I am not sure if it was done for the benched article, it just stated, that NUMA was "enabled" not which kind ... :(
Anyways, I doubt that there will be a 3 GHz S940 Opteron. It will be S1207, i.e. it will feature DDR2 memory. Hence the performance scaling will be even better than "linear" (if you are willing to compare S940 vs. S1207) ;-)
quote: Due to the integrated memory controller, the scaling of Opterons is "nearly" linear. 10% more frequency gives you around 8% better benchmark results.
Maybe if your benchmark is heavily CPU bound, but not every test is, especially ones dealing with multi-gigabyte databases where the storage subsystem becomes more important.
Too bad there weren't more Opteron scores but a simple linear extrapolation from the two Opteron results would indicate that it would take a 3.4GHz Opteron to match the Woodcrest at saturation for the Dell Dvd Store benchmark, while a 3GHz Opteron would match the Woodcrest on the Forum benchmark at saturation. At the lower load points, it would probably take 4+GHz.
quote: Maybe if your benchmark is heavily CPU bound, but not every test is, especially ones dealing with multi-gigabyte databases where the storage subsystem becomes more important.
Too bad there weren't more Opteron scores but a simple linear extrapolation from the two Opteron results would indicate that it would take a 3.4GHz Opteron to match the Woodcrest at saturation for the Dell Dvd Store benchmark, while a 3GHz Opteron would match the Woodcrest on the Forum benchmark at saturation. At the lower load points, it would probably take 4+GHz.
Ah ok, sorry, if you were referring to Database test, of course I ment CPU bound applications.
However i cant see your point. If you are looking on databases then the most important stuff is the I/O subsystem, if it does not stress the CPU too much. Thus I dont understand, why a Woodcrest should be better than an Opteron or a Netburst setup.
As long as they feature the same harddisks & controllers and the CPU load is low, performance should be the same.
But the 2 test here were all CPU bound. You can see that in the DVD test, all system ties until Load 3 or 4, after that the woodcrests pull off, due to its higher processing power.
With the Forum benchmark, well I guess there were some problems with "throttling", mentioned in the text, thus the benchmark already benefits in stage 1 from the higher woocdrest performance.
On the one hand it is ok with me, because you can get (somehow) a woodcrest system and nothing better from AMD.
However I expect something more in the conclusion then, but there is just that "we dont know" sentences: "How those parts will compete with future AMD products is unknown".
Dear people at anandtech, I give you a hint concerning that topic:
AMD will introduce 65nm technology. That will them enable to raise core clocks, while lowering power consumption. This is really no big speculation, it's a well known fact.
*No* I repeat *no* mention about FB-DIMM, but of course a lot information about DDR2.
Hence you can easily draw the conclusion, that AMD will have the better wattage package in 2007, as they lower CPU wattage with 65nm, and lower RAM wattage with DDR2, too.
Maybe the lowered DDR2 wattage will be already enough to even the Wodcrest wattage advantange with a Socket F 90nm CPU, but that is speculation. I dont know the absolut wattage differences between DDR1 and DDR2.
Anyways, the current Intel advantage is just due to the former "mobile" CPU Core2. Everybody knows that Netburst was/is a power hungry monster and that FBDs draw more power than any other kind of memory nowadays. Thus, any wattage advantage is due to the CPU.
quote: AMD will introduce 65nm technology. That will them enable to raise core clocks, while lowering power consumption. This is really no big speculation, it's a well known fact.
Just a few months ago, when there were Conroe samples and benchmarks available some people were saying: "we know nothing about real performance let's wait for final benchmarks". Now when talking about 65nm Opterons these people are saying: "it's a fact that 65nm Opteron will be much faster" even though that there even aren't any samples available. Funny how things change...
How about some real facts:
- Fastest 130nm K8 reached 2.6GHz
- First 90nm K8s became available in about October 2004
- First faster-than-130nm 90nm K8 (2.8GHz model) became available in June 2005
With 130nm->90nm transition it took AMD 9 months until the newer process (90nm) achieved higher clockspeeds than the older process (130nm). Now, you seem to think that this kind of situation is impossible with 65nm and K8 will get sudden and major boost immideately?
quote: Maybe the lowered DDR2 wattage will be already enough to even the Wodcrest wattage advantange with a Socket F 90nm CPU, but that is speculation. I dont know the absolut wattage differences between DDR1 and DDR2.
Well, the last part is pretty obvious. DDR2 consumes significantly less power with equal bandwidth than DDR1. However, I would guess that AMD fans would scream a bloody murder if somebody would benchmark Socket F Opteron with DDR2-400 :) When comparing DDR1-400 against DDR2-667, I doubt that there will be a significant difference in power consumption.
you cant compare it to Conroe, Conroe is a new architecture, first 65nm AMD chips will be a simple Die shrink, nothing to worry about as long AMD does not have major problems.
I havent checked your introduction dates, but I remind something like the same. AMD always introduces mid-range CPUs first. Because of that, I did not state, that a 3 GHz part will be out around christmas (this year). it will be some time in 2007, maybe they will skip higher clock parts and move to lower clock QuadCore parts. I dont know. However Intel will have a clock advantage until then: It could also be, that they hold that advantage. But there is to much speculation with that, AMD is using SOI and adding SiGe with 65nm, Intel is not.
I dont think that there is a big wattage difference on different DDR2 speed grades, well there is surely some, but imporantant thing is the voltage, and that is always lower with DDR2 than DDR1 (1.8V vs. 2.5V).
Could be wrong (replying to Kiijibari), but DDR2 is pin compatible with FB-DIMMs; you just need to implement the corrected memory controller. Initial Socket F should be registered DDR2, but the rumor mill has that later revisions will include FB-DIMM support.
Sorry, didnt saw your post soon enough, otherwise I would have answered it in my other post :)
FBD is *not* pin compatible to DDR2 modules, they have their own interface. But they use normal, off the shelf DDR2 chips, the same which are also used with DDR2 modules.
Advantage of this is, that you can change the used memory modules, and the mainboard is still compatible to the new modules. That is due to the fact, that the systems just sees the FBD module controller, what is behind that, is not of interest.
Because of this, there will be compatible DDR3 FBDs for current Bensley platforms.
But there is also rumour that DDR3 modules will be compatible to DDR2 ones, too. There is very little difference(only voltage and 8xprefetch) between DDR2 and DDR3 and the modules will feature the same 240 pin interface.
Er, sorry, but by "pin compatible" I mean it also uses 240 pins. Same size DIMMs, but you need the right type of memory controller - just like registered vs. unbuffered RAM. One way or another, I'm sure AMD will support FBD in the future; the question is when? Although, since they link RAM to each CPU socket it's certainly not as big of a concern since two sockets already support four memory channels. If they can get 4 registered DIMMs per channel, they're already up to 16 DIMM sockets.
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ashyanbhog - Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - link
Quite shocking to see Anand perform such a biased benchmark and get away so easily.Is it a coincidence that Dell did not sell AMD chips in their machines to date, and benchmarks from Dell show Intel chips perform better
Can we say tuned or skewed
photoguy99 - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
It's just killing fan boys like Kiijibari that Intel is the best 2-way server out there now and they have to craft these elaborate scenarios to somehow justify how AMD is still great.Man give it up - Is it not enough almost every hardware site on the net has crowned Woodcrest the new 2-way champ over AMD? How much more evidence do you want?
As I've posted before I own an FX-60 now so I don't feel great that Intel will soon be selling at Wal-mart a chip that will kick ass on my carefully overclocked FX system.
But so what? It is what it is. Sure AMD are planning new things, and when and if they are benchmarked to be superior, then you can have your day again.
For now Intel *owns* AMD except a couple niche segments - get used to it.
duploxxx - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
i think you mean conroe... not woodcrest (the server chip) you can count the reviews on 1 hand that were made... two of them were from anand here. which are still in a large discussion about comparisson etc... and this one is comming straigth from intel...nice to see the "king" is anounced by intel themselves
vaystrem - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
That prevented Intel's Woodcrest computers from being considered for government bids?http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32...">US government unit throws Intel out over RAID problems
or
http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32818">Conroe shows dodgy RAID performance anomalies
I know its 'The Inq' but since this is a server test it would be nice to see some confirmation or exploration of this issue.
drwho9437 - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
The charts are almost totally inscrutable for the red-green color blind population, which is something like 5% of males. Learn to use a decent color scheme or incorperate symbol shapes as well as colors. Map makers know this...forPPP - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
All of you ranting about comparing 3.0 GHz Woodcrest to 2.6 GHz Operton, look here:http://www.behardware.com/articles/623-1/intel-cor...">http://www.behardware.com/articles/623-1/intel-cor... and see how much better Core 2 architecture is. Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz beats Athlon FX-62 2.8 GHz in most benchmarks. Of course architecture is not everything, especially in enterprise market. Operton has advantage thanks to HyperTransort and advantage of Woodcrest is diminished because of FSB. But the main battle will occur with Desktops and here Core 2 Duo shines. Lets hope AMD will show something intersting soon, not only prices drop. All in all we consumers will benefit from this battle.
duploxxx - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
you are looking at desktop... don't compare desktop with server... desktop is more the mass and low profit.... server and laptop are for the profit.Locutus465 - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
AMD will manage to come out with a decent competetor in the next little while and we'll have real compitition in the CPU space again. I'm sure this sucks for AMD right now, and if AMD were able to rebound and deliver a competitor in the relitive near term futer for intel too. But for consumers, competition is beautiful, already we can look twards dirt cheap A64's for your low to mid-range computing needs.FesterOZ - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
I tried skimming back through the article but is Anand just measuring the CPU wattage or the overall wattage draw for the whole platform (i.e. cpu, northbridge,dimms?Jason Clark - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Wall folks, sorry that wasn't more clear. We'll ensure we include power measurement information in future articles. We use the same procedure as we've used in previous articles with power, an extech device and we log power througout the test duration.Cheers.
Viditor - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Thanks Jason...it's just that the power draw is such a central theme to the review, it would be nice to know exactly what and how things were being tested. Could you let us know what features and chipset were on the OEM Woodcrest system?
Cheers
FesterOZ - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
JasonBased on your own Extech tests, the 280 you previously tested here http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2644&p...">http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2644&p... was drawing a max of 265 watts for that database forum test at max load. Now the same CPU seems to be drawing 300+ Watts.
Can you please explain this variation?
johnsonx - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Between the two platforms, the motherboards (Tyan 2882 vs 2891) are different with different chipsets (AMD+AMD vs NVidia+AMD), the software load is different (I presume even at apparent 100% load, there will be small power consumption differences depending on what the software actually does), and there is probably a power supply difference.Those factors combined could easily account for 40 or so watts.
FesterOZ - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Sorry but I really have to disagree here. 40 Watts in a south bridge? Both tests the CPUS were maxed out.Viditor - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Could you be more specific on the Intel OEM system specs? (we can look up the Tyan of course)I assume you used the same PSU for both systems...
Did you measure power draw at the wall?
MrKaz - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Was this review/preview made by Intel?I mean:
-Charts have blue background (a la Intel). (There is one Anandtech symbol in the charts but could be Intel no difference).
-Charts with performance/watts, since when Anandtech review CPU based on those parameters? Never. Why now?
-.90nm CPU vs .65nm CPU - .65nm CPU wins, higher clock, lower consuming. No big surprise here, especially if this processor is derivates from a mobile one.
When AMD releases one socket F Opteron will be interesting, especially if = Intel with just half the cache size and 3 years "old" design on .90nm process.
fitten - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Heh, by your standards then, the Pentium4s should have been faster than all since they are higher clock.
MrKaz - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Intel.http://www.intel.com/performance/server/xeon/intth...">http://www.intel.com/performance/server/xeon/intth...
sprockkets - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
65nm smaller than 90nm, I would hope they consume less power. Still, Intel has always been good with power with the P6 derivatives.berat556 - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
I am not impressed with this latest review especially when you take into consideration how the intel is a 3.0GHZ processor while the opteron 285 is 2.6GHZ processor. I was so exited about Conroe but this latest benchmark made put my pre-order order on hold to see if Conroe will do what they said it would a 2.67GHZ win vs. a 2.8GHZ. Major bumper, it looks like woodcrest is still behing the opteron, maybe that is why dell still decided to go with AMD after Intel announced the core architecture.Lonyo - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
What's the fastest Opteron dual core CPU you can buy?What's the fastest Woodcrest CPU that will be released?
AMD don't make anything faster than 2.6GHz, so it doesn't really matter what speed Intel have to be at to beat it, they beat it with their top end part. And the Opteron is nearing its end (at 90nm), Woodcrest is new, so it will go faster probably, same as 65nm Opterons will go faster.
Woodcrest is not behind Opteron, it is better per watt, and the high end Woodcrest beats the high end Opteron. Enough said. Whether Intel is clock for clock better or not still doesn't matter. They are better, and if they are not better clock for clock, it doesn't seem to matter because, again, they have higher clocks.
Spoonbender - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
"What's the fastest Woodcrest CPU that will be released? "Umm.... None?
Does that mean AMD beats Intel by an infinite margin then?
True, if Intel has a 3ghz part out, and AMD only has 2.6, then it makes sense to compare these two.
But for now, let's just keep in mind that Intel doesn't have a 3ghz part out. They don't have a 2.6GHz part either. We are still comparing an unreleased product to one that has been out for a while.
Cooler - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Their on new egg right now...http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Subm...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...rchInDes...
xtremejack - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
You should note the way the two processors are compared here. Both are dual-CPU systems. Intel's FSB based system architecture means lower system bandwidth than AMD's DirectConnect architecture. The Opteron's have an on-die memory controller and a point-to-point interconnect. I am sure if you put Woodcrest on a Paxville system, you would see significantly worse performance. The 3.0Ghz Woodcrest is probably capable of a bit more performance, but the lower bandwidth FSB does not help it reach its full potential. Also coupled with the fact that FB-DIMMS have more latency than standard DDR2 means the Woodcrest isn't at a serious advantage compared to the Opteron system.Bottom-line system performance for the Woodcrest processor is still 5-20% better than Opteron. But thats way better than being 30% lower during Paxville days.
Now Conroe does not have all these complications that Woodcrest has, thats why you may see better performance advantage, also since it is a single-CPU solution, the system architecture is much simpler.
swtethan - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
how many people running servers are going to overclock their system? :Dfitten - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Zero. I'd fire any IT person on the spot if I found out they had overclocked a production server.FesterOZ - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
I find this article somewhat surprising in tone. My company is a Fortune 500 and a big Dell shop so we have had access to Woodcrest workstations and servers for testing for a while. We have also tested these vs HP 9300 Athlon based Workstations and vs Sun x4100 servers and HP DL385s. Based on our tests which involve business applications, trading applications, etc., the performance of Woodcrest vs the Athlons is slightly better (about 5-10%). Nothing to really rave about, especially when its the latest Intel designs on 65nm. This actually disappointed our in-house Dell groupies, especially since they were comparing the top of the line new CPU design from Intel vs AMD's older platform. As a result we are moving away from Dell simply because they do not offer choice of CPU's at the moment and into HP's world, with our first purchase being 3 full chassis of AMD blade servers.IMHO, its now a two baron world with a missing king, each with strenghts and weaknesses.
Kiijibari - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
>IMHO, its now a two baron world with a missing king, each with strenghts and weaknesses.Yes I back that opinion.
Woodcrest is hampered by its FBDs. While it delivers much better bandwidth, it has worse latencies. Furthermore the 4 MB L2 cache & Core2 prefetch does not help that much in a multithreaded server environment, than in the average desktop application area.
What I want to say is, that the performance difference between Conroe/Athlon64 will be bigger than that between Woodcrest/Opteron.
First "tests"( I was told by an administrator of a huge financal institute) also showed a Woodcrest performace lack with gcc compiled 64bit applications. Are some of your applications 64bit, too ? It would be interesting, to get more 64bit statments. For some reason, there are none from Intel so far ...
cheers
Kiijibari
Spoonbender - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Yes, I've been wondering about 64-bit performance too. Intel hasn't mentioned it with a word, but I hope they've made a decent implementation this time around.duploxxx - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
no they didn't, still the same as in the Netburst. some small 64bit testing has been done on XS forums seeing a core architecture gaining 17-18% performance on a 64bit os + program like 64bit cinebench. the opty 940 gained 31-38%peternelson - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Agreed!I'm not interested in 32 bit performance.
If you're gonna be spending this much money on an upmarket system you better be running it in 64 bit mode. I know I will.
So if Opteron benches better than Woodcrest in 64 bit mode that changes the equation for me.
Also isn't Opteron 290 out any time now? The would close the % gap a little because of the higher clock speed.
Also S1207 Opterons will be here 1st August. The new nforce5 based pro/server chipsets might give a little boost over existing ones too, as could the bandwidth boost and lower power of DDR2.
defter - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Check the review, this (and previous Linux review) uses only 64bit software.
Kiijibari - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Oh indeed, x64 Windows was used.Good to see than, that woodcrest doesnt take a 64bit penalty. Maybe the Linux application of my source uses FP calculations and no SSE, or it is due to the compiler which may be in favour for Intel on the windows. Anyways 64bit is a big "playing" field for benchmarks looking forward to read more ;-)
cheers
Kiijibari
Calin - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Slightly better performance and slightly lower power consumption. Looks like you have a winner for new servers.However, for a Fortune 500 company, there are other things much more important than slightly better performance and slightly lower power consumption.
JarredWalton - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
After the poor showing of NetBurst Xeons against Opteron, I'd think any Dell shops would be thrilled to regain the performance crown. Also, frankly, a 5-10% lead is about all most things get you these days, especially when I/O and everything else comes into play. The Woodcrest systems have better overall CPU performance, but it often isn't that important when working on massive databases.Incidentally, from what we've seen of Conroe, it seems like Intel could release Core chips at up to 3.4-3.6 GHz without difficulty right now. Rather surprising, given the 14 stage pipeline vs. 39 for Prescott.
FesterOZ - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Actually its not a big thrill at all. One of the major pushes at the firm is to consolidate into VMware based servers or larger raw servers but in all cases stop the traditional 1 server per application that seems to affect most firms. Therefore we are more focused on 4 socket 8 core style servers i.e. HP BL45 blades than 2 socket blades. We had all the top level Dell executives coming in trying to convince us to stay with Dell because at this time, they have no answer for the larger server (the Oct/Nov timeframe for the Dell 4 socket AMD server is too far out). So in the short term we will be a hybrid Dell/HP shop. Maybe we will shift back if Dell's commitment to AMD indeed ramps as expected.Dubb - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
I doubt this has much practical use, but I am nonetheless curious...could you "pinmod" a cloverton to run 1333 FSB?might make for some speedy rendering if it was stable.
Kiijibari - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Reason is the "Intel bolt-together" architecture. The 4core part is just 2 Dies in one package, thus it will have twice the bus load of a single (dual core) CPU. Intel did the same already with Netburst dual cores, hence you have the same FSB limitations there.
All in all it is a little bit odd, Cloverton/Kentsfield performance increases will be much less than linear, but Intel has the advantage of time to market vs. the AMD K8L quad core. Though AMD's QC design looks much more sound I expect intel to be 1st with releasing a quad core CPU.
cheers
Kiijibari No that is not possible, dont you think that intel would release it, if it would be possible ? Just think about it, to lower the FSB bandwidth on the 4core part doesnt make sense, does it ? 4 cores are much more bandwith hungry than 2 ..
Dubb - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
okaaaayyy...cloverton's platform supports 1333, and the kentsfield ESs run 1333 easily. most clovertons probably CAN, it's just a question of if the 1066>1333 pinmod some have suggested for dempsey or 1066 woodcrests actually works, and if so, clovertons might be an interesting application of it.
I'm just curious, is'all.
Kiijibari - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
It may work, however that kind of overclocking is more dangerous than normal overclocking. It is easy to oc a chip that run at, lets say 2 GHz, and there is e.g. a 3 GHz top model. Chances are good that yields are well, thus your 2 GHz model may be able to run faster as most models pass 2.6 GHz tests, thus your model was just down binned to 2 GHz.However with the FSB1066 vs. FSB1333 I assume that you are playing around at the absolutly maximum. Intel would do everything to raise FSB speeds, exspecially with Quad cores. It is nonsense from the performance point of view, to decrease the available bandwidth while the number of bandwidth consumers (i.e. cores) increases.
It might boot & work with a FSB1333 though, but Intel cant and wont gurantee that. It may be good enough for Super Pi or other "fun stuff", but if you run I/O intensive applications, cross your fingers and be prepared for data corruption.
bb
Alex
bwmccann - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
It is about time to see some benchmarks on Woodcrest. This is a victory for Intel in the dual cpu server market. It will be interesting to see how much market share they will be able to take back since losing some to AMD last year. I'm also happy to see that Intel has a roadmap for the future and with their history i'm sure they will be able to produce results.However on the other hand AMD is not going to stand still. The Opteron is an amazing chip and still leads in servers with more then 4 CPUs. You can bet they are working hard to one up this release. Unfortunately they have to deal with Conroe coming out on the client side later this month and it could start to stretch AMD resources thin. I can't wait for the upcoming battle!!!
Calin - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
From now on, AMD will compete (in new servers) mostly on price (at least after the point Intel will be able to produce the new microprocessors in enough quantity). For existing installations, they could be able to sell new servers "like the existing ones".This is very bad news for AMD
bamacre - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Go, Intel go!JackPack - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Murder, AMD wrote.coldpower27 - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
:cheers: Yay Go Intel!!! Woot!! Amazing!!!duploxxx - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
lol, that's a nice comment you give. you probably didn't look so well at the real charts.Nice setup again, but comparing a 2,6 to 3,0 it is normal that a 3,0 will have the performance crown looking at the new architecture. however if you look at the performance gain from 2,4 to 2,6 on the opteron and recalculate it to 3,0 you will see almost equal performance. so your thread start "birth of the new king" is not so clear to mee. Yes you can state that intel will have a 3.0 and AMD not at the moment.... but ehhh where are the woodcrests at the moment in the field.... yes none, i only have Eng Samples and backorders till end-august. So this is a big paper launch.
one missing point in your article... you clearly define the setup here with decent systems but what i am missing is the amount of dimms used... calculating this in performance can give a difference up to 25watt = 10%.
i really want to see your follow up on the windows platform....
ruprecht - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Of course many people are sad to see "plucky underdog" AMD be beaten by the Giant Intel, but this is really to be expected and, in fact, it's no bad thing.I say that for 2 reasons. First, new architectures are (generally) better than old ones and it's time for CPU technology to move a step ahead.
AMD has been king of the hill for about 2 years. That's quite a long time, and in that time K8 has really come to the end of it's life span (at least as a top of the range chip). So it's no surprise that the first really new architecture since K8 hit the scene is going to be a lot better than what we have at the moment.
There's really going to be nothing much that AMD can do in the single and dual-core arena to counter Core 2 until early next year at best. It sucks for AMD but that's life. They'll survive OK for a few months in second place.
Secondly, AMD needs the competition from Intel as much as Intel needs the competition from AMD. I have an FX51 box which I bought almost 3 years ago. The CPU runs at 2.2Ghz, it has 2GB of DDR 400 RAM and a pair of Raptors in a RAID 0 array. Despite being 3 years old it's still pretty fast.
My point here is that up until recently, if you were building a new AMD rig you would probably not have been buying a CPU or RAM that was a whole lot faster that what I have in my PC. So in almost 3 years AMD has only increased the speed of its processors incrementally. Although admittedly it did go dual core with much more success than Intel. AMD needs Intel to push it to do better. If they had K8L ready today, would they have lost the crown?
So AMD are now in second place, but it's going to be very interesting to see what happens in the next 6 months or so, and also let's enjoy the benefits that the new architecture(s) are going to bring to us all!
JackPack - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
1. Performance scaling is not linear. I'm not sure how you can determine Opteron 3.0 performance by looking at only 2.4 and 2.6.2. I guess you don't live in America? The ship dates are very reasonable. Not "end-august" as you suggest.
http://h71016.www7.hp.com/dstore/ctoBases.asp?Prod...">http://h71016.www7.hp.com/dstore/ctoBas...1&Fa...
duploxxx - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
wel you forgot to read the whole page.....HP is not responsible for delays outside of our immediate control, including delays related to order processing or unexpected increase in demand. Typically only orders paid for by credit card receive credit approval on the same day the order is placed. Orders delayed due to order processing will default to an Estimated Ship Date 30 days from the date credit is processed and the order is released. Estimated Ship Dates are based on any known extended lead times.
Accord99 - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
It says the same thing for their Opteron servers.Newegg has the 5150 Woodcrest for sale:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...
Kiijibari - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Due to the integrated memory controller, the scaling of Opterons is "nearly" linear. 10% more frequency gives you around 8% better benchmark results. That is true for SMP setups, too. Because you also add more memory bandwidth channels with each CPU. Of course you have to setup NUMA correctly then (SRAT enable, NODE interleave disable). By using SRAT it may be possible to raise also the performance of a 2way system. I am not sure if it was done for the benched article, it just stated, that NUMA was "enabled" not which kind ... :(
Anyways, I doubt that there will be a 3 GHz S940 Opteron. It will be S1207, i.e. it will feature DDR2 memory. Hence the performance scaling will be even better than "linear" (if you are willing to compare S940 vs. S1207) ;-)
cheers
Kiijibari
Accord99 - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Maybe if your benchmark is heavily CPU bound, but not every test is, especially ones dealing with multi-gigabyte databases where the storage subsystem becomes more important.
Too bad there weren't more Opteron scores but a simple linear extrapolation from the two Opteron results would indicate that it would take a 3.4GHz Opteron to match the Woodcrest at saturation for the Dell Dvd Store benchmark, while a 3GHz Opteron would match the Woodcrest on the Forum benchmark at saturation. At the lower load points, it would probably take 4+GHz.
Kiijibari - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Ah ok, sorry, if you were referring to Database test, of course I ment CPU bound applications.
However i cant see your point. If you are looking on databases then the most important stuff is the I/O subsystem, if it does not stress the CPU too much. Thus I dont understand, why a Woodcrest should be better than an Opteron or a Netburst setup.
As long as they feature the same harddisks & controllers and the CPU load is low, performance should be the same.
But the 2 test here were all CPU bound. You can see that in the DVD test, all system ties until Load 3 or 4, after that the woodcrests pull off, due to its higher processing power.
With the Forum benchmark, well I guess there were some problems with "throttling", mentioned in the text, thus the benchmark already benefits in stage 1 from the higher woocdrest performance.
cheers
Kiijibari
Kiijibari - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Yes indeed the test is (mostly) crap.On the one hand it is ok with me, because you can get (somehow) a woodcrest system and nothing better from AMD.
However I expect something more in the conclusion then, but there is just that "we dont know" sentences: "How those parts will compete with future AMD products is unknown".
Dear people at anandtech, I give you a hint concerning that topic:
AMD will introduce 65nm technology. That will them enable to raise core clocks, while lowering power consumption. This is really no big speculation, it's a well known fact.
In addition to that, there is also an error in the article, Socket F wont add FB-DIMM, it will add DDR2. Download & read the updated BIOS guide from the AMD webpage. (For your convenience, here is the link: http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white...">http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content...e/white_... )
*No* I repeat *no* mention about FB-DIMM, but of course a lot information about DDR2.
Hence you can easily draw the conclusion, that AMD will have the better wattage package in 2007, as they lower CPU wattage with 65nm, and lower RAM wattage with DDR2, too.
Maybe the lowered DDR2 wattage will be already enough to even the Wodcrest wattage advantange with a Socket F 90nm CPU, but that is speculation. I dont know the absolut wattage differences between DDR1 and DDR2.
Anyways, the current Intel advantage is just due to the former "mobile" CPU Core2. Everybody knows that Netburst was/is a power hungry monster and that FBDs draw more power than any other kind of memory nowadays. Thus, any wattage advantage is due to the CPU.
cheers
Kiijibari
defter - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Just a few months ago, when there were Conroe samples and benchmarks available some people were saying: "we know nothing about real performance let's wait for final benchmarks". Now when talking about 65nm Opterons these people are saying: "it's a fact that 65nm Opteron will be much faster" even though that there even aren't any samples available. Funny how things change...
How about some real facts:
- Fastest 130nm K8 reached 2.6GHz
- First 90nm K8s became available in about October 2004
- First faster-than-130nm 90nm K8 (2.8GHz model) became available in June 2005
With 130nm->90nm transition it took AMD 9 months until the newer process (90nm) achieved higher clockspeeds than the older process (130nm). Now, you seem to think that this kind of situation is impossible with 65nm and K8 will get sudden and major boost immideately?
Well, the last part is pretty obvious. DDR2 consumes significantly less power with equal bandwidth than DDR1. However, I would guess that AMD fans would scream a bloody murder if somebody would benchmark Socket F Opteron with DDR2-400 :) When comparing DDR1-400 against DDR2-667, I doubt that there will be a significant difference in power consumption.
Kiijibari - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Hi,you cant compare it to Conroe, Conroe is a new architecture, first 65nm AMD chips will be a simple Die shrink, nothing to worry about as long AMD does not have major problems.
I havent checked your introduction dates, but I remind something like the same. AMD always introduces mid-range CPUs first. Because of that, I did not state, that a 3 GHz part will be out around christmas (this year). it will be some time in 2007, maybe they will skip higher clock parts and move to lower clock QuadCore parts. I dont know. However Intel will have a clock advantage until then: It could also be, that they hold that advantage. But there is to much speculation with that, AMD is using SOI and adding SiGe with 65nm, Intel is not.
To the RAM power consumption issue:
FB-DIMMs also run with DDR2 memory chips, too. Thus the additional +5W FBD wattage(Source: http://www.techreport.com/etc/2006q2/woodcrest/ind...">http://www.techreport.com/etc/2006q2/woodcrest/ind... ) is (only) due to the controller.
I dont think that there is a big wattage difference on different DDR2 speed grades, well there is surely some, but imporantant thing is the voltage, and that is always lower with DDR2 than DDR1 (1.8V vs. 2.5V).
Concerning that topic:
http://download.micron.com/pdf/pubs/designline/dl1...">http://download.micron.com/pdf/pubs/designline/dl1...
There they calcualte 2.7W for moderate use of a DDR2-533 module and 3W for a DDR2-400 module under high load.
Compared to DDR1 that is a 40-50% less power usage.(http://www.kingston.com/press/2006/memory/05b.asp)">http://www.kingston.com/press/2006/memory/05b.asp)
Anyways FBD adds +5W with every other memory module. That's bad, cause normally you have a lot of them in servers :(
But hopefully that will be changed with new, better controllers and/or bigger modules.
cheers
Kiijibari
JarredWalton - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Could be wrong (replying to Kiijibari), but DDR2 is pin compatible with FB-DIMMs; you just need to implement the corrected memory controller. Initial Socket F should be registered DDR2, but the rumor mill has that later revisions will include FB-DIMM support.Kiijibari - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Sorry, didnt saw your post soon enough, otherwise I would have answered it in my other post :)FBD is *not* pin compatible to DDR2 modules, they have their own interface. But they use normal, off the shelf DDR2 chips, the same which are also used with DDR2 modules.
Advantage of this is, that you can change the used memory modules, and the mainboard is still compatible to the new modules. That is due to the fact, that the systems just sees the FBD module controller, what is behind that, is not of interest.
Because of this, there will be compatible DDR3 FBDs for current Bensley platforms.
But there is also rumour that DDR3 modules will be compatible to DDR2 ones, too. There is very little difference(only voltage and 8xprefetch) between DDR2 and DDR3 and the modules will feature the same 240 pin interface.
Anyways AMD will go to FBD later (~2008), maybe after the wattage problem has been solved by Intel et al ;-) ( source: http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/0623/kaiga...">http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/0623/kaiga... )
But as I said earlier, Socket F is DDR2 only, no FBD in the BIOS guide.
cheers
Kiijibari
JarredWalton - Thursday, July 13, 2006 - link
Er, sorry, but by "pin compatible" I mean it also uses 240 pins. Same size DIMMs, but you need the right type of memory controller - just like registered vs. unbuffered RAM. One way or another, I'm sure AMD will support FBD in the future; the question is when? Although, since they link RAM to each CPU socket it's certainly not as big of a concern since two sockets already support four memory channels. If they can get 4 registered DIMMs per channel, they're already up to 16 DIMM sockets.