K8, K8L. Whats the difference?

Kamakazie! · 7 Sep 2006 at 21:49

lucifersam said:
i dont think AMD have actually released any details on the K8L architecture but we know that it will be a native quad core CPU, where as the current K8 is native dual core

AMD have rleased loads of info about the K8L, including a die shot!

Increased amount of FPU, widers 128bit SSE execution, OOO execution, enhanced prefetch algorithms, L3 cache, new memory controller that supports both DDR2 and DDR3 natively, HT3.0 standard plus some other stuff that i can't think off the top of my head.... as well as a lot of power management enhancements like the ability to independantly scale the spead of each core and even fully shut some down.
Make no mistake, it should be an absolute beast.

manoz · 8 Sep 2006 at 01:44

Kamakazie! said:
AMD have rleased loads of info about the K8L, including a die shot!

Increased amount of FPU, widers 128bit SSE execution, OOO execution, enhanced prefetch algorithms, L3 cache, new memory controller that supports both DDR2 and DDR3 natively, HT3.0 standard plus some other stuff that i can't think off the top of my head.... as well as a lot of power management enhancements like the ability to independantly scale the spead of each core and even fully shut some down.
Make no mistake, it should be an absolute beast.

And it should cost like an absolute beast aswell! Word is that Intel's Quad-Core is gona cost $999 minimum. Same as their extreme core duo chip. No idea on pricing for k8l yet?

lucifersam · 8 Sep 2006 at 08:21

manoz said:
And it should cost like an absolute beast aswell! Word is that Intel's Quad-Core is gona cost $999 minimum. Same as their extreme core duo chip. No idea on pricing for k8l yet?

well based on what both marketing people from each company have said that quad core will only be in the High-end server\extreme gaming this CPU will be expensive both companies have said quad core wont reach the mainstream until mid to late 2008 but with competition as it is at the moment I think they will do there best to get quad core available to all quicker, such as intel have substantialy brough forward Kentsfield, I expect they will do the same to mainstream quad core

Gashman · 8 Sep 2006 at 19:45

K8L as far as im informed is simply a heavy revision of K8, its not at all a new architecture, just a heavily upgraded K8 fabricated on 65nm technology, they claim to be fixing all sorts, notably some pre-fetch problem the K8 had as well as adding more floating point units as well i think

Edit: K8L simply means K8 revision L

Kamakazie! · 9 Sep 2006 at 00:19

Gashman said:
K8L as far as im informed is simply a heavy revision of K8, its not at all a new architecture, just a heavily upgraded K8 fabricated on 65nm technology, they claim to be fixing all sorts, notably some pre-fetch problem the K8 had as well as adding more floating point units as well i think

Edit: K8L simply means K8 revision L

It is a new architecture. Yes it maybe based on K8 but it is heavily revised as stated. It is not brand new, built from the ground up but it is still new. It cannot be looked at in the same way as previous revision changes. It brings far more to the table than pretty much all previous revision put together, if not even more so.

The L does not stand for revision L. The most recent revision are F and G... where would H, I, J and K come from? I believe it is actually Rev H but the L is meant to stand for 50 as in K8.50 (L being the roman numeral). That is what i have read anyhow.

Kamakazie! · 9 Sep 2006 at 00:22

manoz said:
And it should cost like an absolute beast aswell! Word is that Intel's Quad-Core is gona cost $999 minimum. Same as their extreme core duo chip. No idea on pricing for k8l yet?

It will cost a lot, most certainly. I have not seen any info about pricing as of yet. I don't expect to till well in to next year.
AMD have to roll out 65nm K8 first

One thing to look out for is the dual core K8L's which AMD had previously announced (as possibly being out for the mainstream market before the quad core K8L). However, i am not sure how this works what with K8L being native quad core. Will they just chop it in half as such? Cutting the L3 cache in half and taking away the crossbar between the cores?

Cob · 9 Sep 2006 at 01:14

It looks like K8L will make Q2 '07. Tho Dell will have first dabs.

PCZ · 9 Sep 2006 at 06:56

Quad core in a gaming rig sounds nice but.

What OS do you think it would use, since XP only supports 2 physical / 4 virtual CPU's.
Perhaps MS would release a patch for XP but i doubt it.

NathanE · 9 Sep 2006 at 07:35

PCZ said:
Quad core in a gaming rig sounds nice but.

What OS do you think it would use, since XP only supports 2 physical / 4 virtual CPU's.
Perhaps MS would release a patch for XP but i doubt it.

XP Pro supports quad core just fine.

Cyber-Mav · 9 Sep 2006 at 10:03

windows server 2003 supports more than 4 cpus easy.

lucifersam · 10 Sep 2006 at 01:02

NathanE said:
XP Pro supports quad core just fine.

the standard version of XP only supports 2 real CPUs, I know this because I have a friend who bought himself 2 dual core opterons to find that XP would not support them, m$ do not openly sell XP that supports more than 2 cores, they only sell that version to special OEMs and clients I belive

Sherm · 15 Oct 2006 at 22:51

Hiya, been reading through and wondered what socket these new chips will need? I have heard somehng about am2+ or something?....

Jokester · 15 Oct 2006 at 22:56

I would imagine they will appear on AM2, Socket F and AM3 as well once it's released.

Jokester

Sherm · 16 Oct 2006 at 00:31

Thats the one that i heard, AM3. Socket F is there server socket if i am right. So really then AM2 will be useful for a while yet!

BigglesPiP · 16 Oct 2006 at 04:46

K8L are power saving die shrinks. AMD's 1st 65nm chips.

And soket F used for the Turion X2's.

And soket AM3 chips will apparently work in soket AM2 boards.

NathanE · 16 Oct 2006 at 10:51

lucifersam said:
the standard version of XP only supports 2 real CPUs, I know this because I have a friend who bought himself 2 dual core opterons to find that XP would not support them, m$ do not openly sell XP that supports more than 2 cores, they only sell that version to special OEMs and clients I belive

It supports 2 physical cores and up to 4 logical cores. So yes it will support 2x dual core CPU's just fine (albeit at its limit.) A quad core chip is only one physical chip but 4 logical cores, so that also will take the license to the limit but it will work.

Defcon5 · 16 Oct 2006 at 13:22

NathanE said:
It supports 2 physical cores and up to 4 logical cores. So yes it will support 2x dual core CPU's just fine (albeit at its limit.) A quad core chip is only one physical chip but 4 logical cores, so that also will take the license to the limit but it will work.

Is there a difference to the os between a logical core and a physical core?

Like a P4 HT and a Pentium D?

neologan · 16 Oct 2006 at 15:30

been posted here before but here's some info on K8L : http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=37&page=1

NathanE · 16 Oct 2006 at 15:44

Defcon5 said:
Is there a difference to the os between a logical core and a physical core?

Like a P4 HT and a Pentium D?

With HT on XP there is. It performs thread scheduling slightly differently. But dual/multi core chips don't make any difference on XP. On Vista they do.

Apart from that the only difference is with licensing

lucifersam · 17 Oct 2006 at 02:40

NathanE said:
With HT on XP there is. It performs thread scheduling slightly differently. But dual/multi core chips don't make any difference on XP. On Vista they do.

Apart from that the only difference is with licensing

Dual core chips do make a difference in XP it is a multi threaded operating system, m$ has been making windows multithreaded since the days of NT 3.51