AMD Athlon 64 3200+ and the Asus K8V Deluxe

by Josh Walrath

AMD provides all of the basic CPU components for installation.  Apparently not every motherboard comes with the installed backplate for the heatsink mechanism.  Otherwise, the user gets the quick install, warranty info, sticker, CPU, and heatsink.

     The final, and most significant, change is that of making the Athlon 64 a true 64 bit processor. AMD has extended the 30 year old X86 ISA to 64 bits. Past iterations of X86 went from 8 bit, to 16 bit, and then to 32 bit. Most current desktop processors use the 32 bit X86 standard (IA32), but AMD is trying to get a huge jump on the competition by introducing the first 64 bit X86 chip (AMD64). 64 bit chips have been around for a long time, but these were reserved for high end workstations and servers. Most users did not need 64 bit computing at the desktop, but there are two things that are pushing the move to 64 bit as we speak. The first is that software is getting incredibly complex, but it is running into a very big problem. File sizes for most operating systems have a 4 GB limit, and high end applications and databases are constantly pushing that number. True 64 bit machines can theoretically address up to 18 billion billion bytes, but of course in the real world there is an artificially placed limit of 40 bits, or 1 terabyte of memory. The current iteration of the Athlon 64 can address up to 8 GB of memory, while the Opteron and FX 51 can typically double that number. Of course, there are not a whole lot of 2 GB DIMMS out there, so the point is somewhat moot at this time.

     The second reason why 64 bits on the desktop is now coming into play is that memory density has gone up significantly, while the price has remained level. So while 2 GB DIMMS are not extremely common, they will be within the next year for high end applications. Current desktop machines regularly have up to 1 GB of main memory installed, so it really will not be terribly long before we start seeing 2 GB be the standard load out of high end machines. It will only be a few years before we start to hit up against the 4 GB barrier, but by then AMD will have millions of chips out there that support more than 4 GB.

The Athlon 64 is quite a bit smaller than the older Athlon XP (Palomino core), but slightly larger than the Intel Pentium 4.  It was nice that AMD finally provided a heatspreader to help protect the core and give a bit more overall surface area for heat transmission.  Of course there are those that argue that the heatspreader actually insulates the core a bit.

     64 bit computing also brings some distinct advantages to the market other than the larger addressable memory and larger file sizes. The X86-64 extension increases the overall register space by a factor of 3. One of the biggest complaints of X86 is the number of registers that are available. Work arounds such as register renaming in CPU hardware have helped to extend the limits of the X86 ISA, but X86-64 quadruples the space in the general purpose registers, as well as double the register space for 3DNow!/SSE/SSE2 units. Programs compiled for such a 64 bit architecture running on a 64 bit operating system should exhibit a performance increase anywhere from 5% to 15%, depending on the application. Essentially this gives a lot more space internally in the CPU which allows more data to be processed each clock, as well as increase the overall throughput of the registers.

462 pins vs. 754 pins vs. 478 pins.  Unfortunately I don't have an Athlon 64 FX 51 to show off all 940 pins of that processor.

     The Athlon 64 3200+ is based on the 754 pin socket, and for the time being AMD will aim this part at the upper mainstream. The FX 51 is definitely the high end product, while the different versions of the Athlon XP will fill out the rest of the midrange and low end of the market. Depending on the timing of the 90 nm transition for AMD, this product range will remain much the same. There will be speed grade improvements over the next nine months, but the overall processor strategy will remain the same. AMD will move the current 940 pin FX 51 to a new 939 pin socket. This total redesign of the power, ground, and I/O pins allows 4 layer socket 939 motherboards (as compared to the 6 layer 940 pin motherboards). The 939 pin FX series will also allow the use of non-registered DIMMS. Once 90 nm and 939 pin products combine, then AMD will transition the socket 754 chips into the lower midrange and budget sectors. The FX chips will then take over the upper midrange and remain in charge of the high end.

     The operating system question is still looming large for AMD, as the release date for an AMD 64 based Windows XP has not been confirmed. The only date officially given is Q1 2004. Whether or not Microsoft makes that date is still up in the air. For the time being, the most compelling reason for buying an Athlon 64 will not be available for the average user. One other compelling feature about X86-64 is that Microsoft may in fact be forcing Intel to use AMD’s ISA. Due to the time, money, and complexity of creating another 64 bit operating system for a desktop processor, Microsoft appears to be telling Intel that it will only make one version of its 64 bit desktop OS, and that version will support the first 64 bit X86 processor to hit the market. The AMD Athlon 64. This could be the reason why we have not heard much about Yamhill lately, as it may have been based on an Intel created 64 bit ISA that is not compatible with X86-64. On the surface it appears that Intel was trying to pull another 3DNow! vs. SSE. If you remember, 3DNow! was introduced about 6 months before SSE, but now SSE is the standard SIMD unit for software developers to utilize (and the standard unit for both AMD and Intel processors). It appears that Intel lost this particular (and expensive) crapshoot, and we may for the first time see Intel forced to utilize AMD developed technology (should I mention Intel using DDR for main memory instead of RDRAM?).

We can see that the heatspreader on the Athlon 64 is significantly thicker than the Pentium 4's.  In this situation it would seem that the thinner the heatspreader, the better the overall conduction.

     When all of this is taken in, the jump from the K7 to K8 architecture is at the same time evolutionary and revolutionary. While it retains many of the basic features of the K7 architecture, it is able to extend that architecture in several meaningful ways to create a true 8^th generation processor.

Next: The Asus K8V Deluxe

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