AMD's AM2 vs 939

Now we all know AMD is about to release their ever new AM2 Socket CPU's that support DDR2 and all that other snazzy stuff. But in general some site are only posting 15% increase in speed. Does this mean 939 will be around with us longer than we thought? Is AMD going to have trouble meeting head to head with Intel...??

Well i don't think so. As AMD has announced unofficially that they will be boosting there ondie cache levels which is what AMD has needed to do for sometime now. what do you guys think?
 

werty316

Partition Master
I think S939 will be around for a year or more after all not everyone is gonna jump at the gun so to speak and buy an AM2 system. I hope that by using DDR2-800 as the standard performance will increase. The review samples could only use DDR2-667 and performance compared to a S939 was the same more or less.
 

sbrehm72255

Tech Monkey
I think AMD already said that they plan on contining production of the S939 till the end of next year, if I remember right. Maybe by then the AM@ will have better performance along with a better price ..................;)
 

sbrehm72255

Tech Monkey
That's exactly why I'm sticking with the S939 for the time being. I'm going to wait and see just what comes of all this. No reason to put out a lot of cash I don't have for the same or maybe less performance.
 

b1lk1

Tech Monkey
Until they start putting out some faster DDR2 ram, there is just no need to spend all that extra money on the AM2. Besides, look at all the people still sporting P4's. Sure they are not the greatest performers, but they can still handle anything the is out. The same will be true for the S939 CPU's. They will easily handle anything that comes out for the next few years. Just makes no sense to me AMD's guinea pig and buy it at the start.
 

spiffyp

Obliviot
I completely agree. For now, there won't really be a whole lot of performance increase. From what I understand, the first AM2's are going to be VERY similar to the current S939's. And since the latancy on current DDR2 isn't good enough to see any marked improvement, I wouldn't bet on more than a couple percentage points increase against the current S939's.
 

PUTALE

Obliviot
socket 939 should be around till the end of the year. I think for now the performance between am2 and 939 are too small to call for an upgrade. Unless the new virtualization in the am2 has significant improvement/usage, I think we can probably hold off our socket for a bit lnoger.
 

liqnit

E.M.I.
S939 is better for now or if you are going to buy CPU in coming 2 monthes after that the AM2 benmarks will show if it is somthing we all been waiting or not
 

werty316

Partition Master
With DDR2-800 being the new standard for AMD and Intel; hopefully this will show a performance between S939 and AM2.
 

(cf)Eclipse

Micron Lover
spiffyp said:
And since the latancy on current DDR2 isn't good enough to see any marked improvement
timings are not the sole determinant in latency you know. quick tests put 300mhz at 3-3-3 significantly faster latency than 200mhz at 2-2-2, with the cpu held constant ;)
 

Lothar

Obliviot
So if you were going to build a new system this summer/fall, and you're coming from really old tech, would you just go to S939 knowing that it's going to be obsolete in the forseeable future, or would you jump in and go AM2? I would like to see more benchmarks with faster memory, but I don't want to wait forever for it...
 

sbrehm72255

Tech Monkey
I always wait for the new tech to mature just a bit, there always seems to be bios and driver problems when the hardware is first released.
So I would go with the S939 for now anyway. I know I'm keeping both my S939 systems for the time being...........;)

That is unless someone wants to give me a new AM2 system just for the heck of it.
 

anibalX

Obliviot
i think AM2 is very new to be compared with the 939.. My question is, what's is going to happen with the high latencies of ddr2.. If there is not northbridge between processor and memories the high latencies have to be very low for best perfomance, or Am i wrong?
 

tugovony

Obliviot
Socket 939 is plenty fast for everything I need. Sooner upgrade my video card before switching to a new processor.
 
anibalX said:
i think AM2 is very new to be compared with the 939.. My question is, what's is going to happen with the high latencies of ddr2.. If there is not northbridge between processor and memories the high latencies have to be very low for best perfomance, or Am i wrong?

You're wrong. :D

Latency is latency, regardless of whether a NB is involved or not (and I believe you mean memory controller, not northbridge). Latency, in its simplest form, is simply a measure of how many moves a particular memory chip needs to go from read to write. It's not exactly a speed measurement (meaning a CAS of 2 does not mean 2ms).

Look at it this way. If you OC at all, you know that the first thing you want to do is loosen up your memory timings. The reason for this (and why you'll crash an OC if you don't) is that the RAM needs to be able to take a "breather" if you're pushing the FSB high. CAS 2 reads a bit of data, then writes it to the memory chip immediately. At high speeds, this can cause a "traffic jam", as the previous bit of info might not have been flushed from the RAM circuit. Dropping to CAS 3 allows for a holding zone, if needed, so if a bit of data moves faster than the previous, it'll just cool its heels for a little bit, while the other piece moves on. Memory timings aren't absolutes. Let's say you have a gig of RAM rated at 2-2-2-6. It will run at those timings, in optimal conditions, no matter how you have your timings set manually. When you set your timings to 3-3-3-8, all you're doing is allowing the RAM to slow down a bit if it needs to, to improve stability.

So, ironically, when you remove the memory controller from the NB, and speed it up to insane levels, the better performer will be running on looser timings.
 

LOOP

Obliviot
fussnfeathers said:
You're wrong. :D

Latency is latency, regardless of whether a NB is involved or not (and I believe you mean memory controller, not northbridge). Latency, in its simplest form, is simply a measure of how many moves a particular memory chip needs to go from read to write. It's not exactly a speed measurement (meaning a CAS of 2 does not mean 2ms).

Look at it this way. If you OC at all, you know that the first thing you want to do is loosen up your memory timings. The reason for this (and why you'll crash an OC if you don't) is that the RAM needs to be able to take a "breather" if you're pushing the FSB high. CAS 2 reads a bit of data, then writes it to the memory chip immediately. At high speeds, this can cause a "traffic jam", as the previous bit of info might not have been flushed from the RAM circuit. Dropping to CAS 3 allows for a holding zone, if needed, so if a bit of data moves faster than the previous, it'll just cool its heels for a little bit, while the other piece moves on. Memory timings aren't absolutes. Let's say you have a gig of RAM rated at 2-2-2-6. It will run at those timings, in optimal conditions, no matter how you have your timings set manually. When you set your timings to 3-3-3-8, all you're doing is allowing the RAM to slow down a bit if it needs to, to improve stability.

So, ironically, when you remove the memory controller from the NB, and speed it up to insane levels, the better performer will be running on looser timings.

I believe if you run memory at 5-2-2-2, it will always be faster then running memory as 5-3-3-3. And the first digit doesn't seem to effect memory speed at all on the Nforce 3 or Nforce 2 chipset motherboards (I currently use a Nforce 3 motherboard). In fact, on a Nforce 3 or Nforce 2 motherboard, it usually runs faster if you increase the first digit to around 10. Thus you would run your 5-2-2-2 memory at 10-2-2-2 on a Nforce 3 or Nforce 2 motherboard.
 

werty316

Partition Master
When you say increase the 5 to a 10 do you mean the CAS? If so then I think you might be confused with another ram timing setting like TRC or DRAM Idle Timer setting. I think you mean 2-2-2-5 not 5-2-2-2.
 
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LOOP said:
I believe if you run memory at 5-2-2-2, it will always be faster then running memory as 5-3-3-3. And the first digit doesn't seem to effect memory speed at all on the Nforce 3 or Nforce 2 chipset motherboards (I currently use a Nforce 3 motherboard). In fact, on a Nforce 3 or Nforce 2 motherboard, it usually runs faster if you increase the first digit to around 10. Thus you would run your 5-2-2-2 memory at 10-2-2-2 on a Nforce 3 or Nforce 2 motherboard.

That's specifically what I said. Loosening your timings can allow your machine to run faster (particularly with the chipsets you mention). The first digit is your CAS.

I'll state again: loosening your timings does NOT alter the fastest timings that the RAM will run at, but only allows for extra error checking. As long as the data flow is constant, you could set your 5-2-2-2 RAM to 20-10-10-10 and it would still run at 5-2-2-2, until it started to back up with data.
 

werty316

Partition Master
Are you guys talking DDR or DDR2. Since you guys are mentioning NF2 and NF3 5-2-2-2 is impossible with DDR memory; CAS max for DDR that I have seen is 3. I think you guys have the values backwards.
 
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