AMD Announces 4x4 Enthusiast Platform

[ACESHIGH]

AMD Announces "4x4" Enthusiast Platform

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2638

The new 4x4 platform will feature two dual-core chips coupled with a dual-socket capable motherboard. AMD will also be releasing a new enthusiast focused chipset for the market, which is designed to take non-ECC unbuffered DDR memory. The new motherboards will be AM2 based, and take new AM2 FX-62 and higher -- all AM2 Athlon FX processors will have at least two cores.

 

[NathanE]

Why are they coining this as a gamer platform when games today barely support more than even one thread?

 

[kdd]

Another act of inane desperation from the creatively dead pc hardware market.

 

[Explicit]

AMD will also be releasing a new enthusiast focused chipset for the market, which is designed to take non-ECC unbuffered DDR memory

the new motherboards will be AM2 based

DDR memory on AM2?

 

[lemonkettaz]

technology great.

games.. cak.

the games are a total waste of space... its all a waste of money, its only worth points in benchmark applications

 

[trojan698]

Since when did 'enthusiast' equate to 'gamer'. I'm sure the processing power could be of use to some people.

 

[custard]

Why are they coining this as a gamer platform when games today barely support more than even one thread?

They claim it's an "enthusiast" platform i'm not quite sure what they mean but it's surely more than just gamers. If they clock well then overclockers will love them. If they're cheap enough then power users will go for them.

I reckon they are attempting to address their problem of previous dual processor workstation users moving to consumer level single processor dual core systems that offer more performance than their rather expensive workstations. A big price reduction over dual processor workstation systems is very attractive to users thinking of going to single processor dualcore.

Another act of inane desperation from the creatively dead pc hardware market.

I disagree . When i move to dual-core i will be moving to a dual processor setup and will take a rig based on this under serious consideration. The extra power is immensely useful to some users. If they clock easily then they're even more attractive as most workstation boards have been a royal pain to overclock.

 

[Gashman]

i use studio max 8 on my computer, which is multi-threaded so it could be good for that sort of thing, the more cores and processing power = the better studio max runs, and lower rendering times

 

[Pr0t0c0L]

is this basically a dual opteron 285 etc brought to desktop?

 

[Explicit]

is this basically a dual opteron 285 etc brought to desktop?

It does look quite similar, but then there's this Direct Connect malarky...

AMD says that 4x4 is not simply workstation and server technology reduced down to consumer level, but is in fact, a whole new design. The company indicated that the new 4x4 chipset will be able to allow each processor core to have direct access to memory, and to have direct access to each other. The technology is called Direct Connect, and according to AMD, will be able to give huge boost to performance over traditional multi-socket platforms.

 

[Jay_t]

Hmmm, this is going to be so expensive, thirsty & pointless IMHO. Why spend £1400 on a pair of FX62's when you will be able to get an E6600 Conroe for about £240.

Before anyone flames me, I am an AMD fanboy

 

[Pr0t0c0L]

they should be bringing this technology to server/workstations b4 desktop

this remeind me of intels last minute extreme addition to combat fx, just that
roles are reversed now

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Why are they coining this as a gamer platform when games today barely support more than even one thread?

Enthusiast != Gamer

I don't play any games but I'm absolutely a computer hardware and performance enthusiast.

 

[james.miller]

Why are they coining this as a gamer platform when games today barely support more than even one thread?

they didnt mention gamers anywhere. depending on the price (and it wont be that expensive) it could be indeal for encoders and folders alike. though i see no reason for AMD to limit the platform to Fx's only, that would be a mistake. just think 2 cheap dual core 65nm 3800+'s on one board. That's a lot of cpu power for very little outlay.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Indeed, Mr. Miller. Such a machine would make a wonderful low-cost workstation. Throw a few Quadros in it and you're golden.

 

[Jokester]

But does this really do anything that much different that a 2-way dual core Opteron already does for much the same price?

I don't really see a market at all above or beyond that that is already served by the Opteron line.

Jokester

 

[Joe42]

From what i've heard this may be limited to fx processors, and they certainly encourage it to be used with them. FX is a gamers processor, not for workstations, so that suggests this is aimed at gamers.
Considering there is no game on the market yet which can make proper use of 2 cores, it seems pointless.

I think its aimed at those with more money than sense, and sadly therefore there is a market, just as there is a market for fx processors.

Having said that, i like the way they are pushing the boundaries a bit, and it should help push software developers and particularly game developers to make better use or multiple cores.

If they open it up to all am2 processors such as semprons and the like that could open up some interesting options, for example a very cheap way to obtain 2 overclockable cores, and the ability to add one cpu now and one later.

 

[Participant]

Having said that, i like the way they are pushing the boundaries a bit, and it should help push software developers and particularly game developers to make better use or multiple cores

Huzzah for that man!

I was aghast when reading this thread that nobody had pointed out that in the imminent future game / software coders will be focusing seriously on the consumer level multi-cpu multi-core CPU.

 

[FrankJH]

Hmmm, this is going to be so expensive, thirsty & pointless IMHO. Why spend £1400 on a pair of FX62's when you will be able to get an E6600 Conroe for about £240.

Before anyone flames me, I am an AMD fanboy

Why should it be though? Opty's are pretty cheap now, and so its just a case of motherboards and what AMD have to add for this "direct connection" ability to work.

In fact I wonder if it will be possible for standard opty's to be used and the chipset to deal with all the extra funcionality?

 

[NickK]

Why should it be though? Opty's are pretty cheap now, and so its just a case of motherboards and what AMD have to add for this "direct connection" ability to work.

In fact I wonder if it will be possible for standard opty's to be used and the chipset to deal with all the extra funcionality?

Sniff sniff...

I would suspect that "Direct Connect" is a marketing term for using all multiple HT channels to get to the same memory bus. Perhaps the HT speed is stepped up to be 2-3GHz instead..

I can say that a thread heavy single process Java program doesn't make good use of a twin Opty 285s server setup due to the slow HT bus.


Also - Cray do a nice little FPGA chip for maths calculations that plugs into the standard Opty socket. The FPGA also has it's own cache and uses the HT links to work as a second co-processor...
Forget PhysX, ATI and nVidia - this would give radical physics processing power as it's not limited by the PCI or PCI-E bus bandwidth!

I can see the head line now - "AMD stike deal with Cray to deliver Supercomputer power to the Home PC" and... "Supercomputer games platform puts Xbox360 to shame".