AMD's QuadFX
The Quadfather Makes Us An Offer We Can Refuse
Since the introduction of the Core 2 Duo processor of the summer, the response of every AMD "fanboy" has been: "Wait for the 4 x 4 to come out." This was rumored and heralded to be AMD's answer to their speedy Intel competition. By putting two of their flagship "FX" processors on one motherboard, the performance should be nudged upwards by a hefty amount, no? Well, I've been looking through the benchmarks, and the universal feeling is that we are less than impressed. (Before the nasty comments appear, just be aware that my last Intel processor was a Pentium MMX 200 MHz, and I didn't even buy it!).
AMD probably took too long to get this thing to market. The overall performance is not terrible, but Intel released its quad, and the QuadFX can come close on some benchmarks, but not really beat it at anything. If the QuadFX had been available in September, at least it would have been fastest at some things, but it can't seem to regain the performance crown at anything.
When you combine that with the issues of two separate chips running on a motherboard, and the necessity of a 600 watt power supply (or more), and we start to get that sinking feeling that we don't want this. Add in that there is only one motherboard, from ASUS, and it can't be overclocked. This is leaving the AMD faithful looking over the Intel processor section of the NewEgg website, with at least a little envy. Home built performance systems in this price category are all about choices, and we're not getting it in the motherboard department. On top of that, the Core 2 Duo's run a lot cooler than this QuadFX, and I'm starting to think the only reason to buy one is to write a comparison article of how much better Intel's chips are this week.
If you look back at our article on Processor Core Communication, the above diagram will make perfect sense. The "take home message" of that piece is that for multicore processors to really reach their performance potential, the separate cores need to be connected and able to share memory and data cache efficiently. This is when the heavy lifting can be shared, and the process sped up. From my diagram, we can see that by using two dual core chips on a motherboard, in two different sockets, this puts the motherboard in between as the middle man. The quad core approach that Intel has taken, although far from ideal, at least keeps the four cores on the same piece of silicon, if not in direct communication. Bearing this in mind, I was not at all surprised to see that the newly introduced QuadFX's are not retaking any performance crowns.
What is AMD to do? Well, I was disappointed to see that I can't buy one FX70 chip. They're sold as a pair for two, for the price of $599. While I'm not interested, if I could by one for around $300 with a reasonably priced motherboard, it could be the performance buy of the year. I think that this would at least buy AMD some time while their true quad cores come to market, which will not be till the second half of 2007. Don't forget that Intel is releasing a more affordable quad, based on the 6600 chip next month.
Despite all the anticipation, the QuadFX ends up being more smoke and mirrors than serious firepower in the chip wars. Then again, I can't find a single QuadFX chip for sale in either a system, or as a processor. In the end, AMD is making it easy for the performance crowd to flock to the Intel side.
--Jonas
AMD probably took too long to get this thing to market. The overall performance is not terrible, but Intel released its quad, and the QuadFX can come close on some benchmarks, but not really beat it at anything. If the QuadFX had been available in September, at least it would have been fastest at some things, but it can't seem to regain the performance crown at anything.
When you combine that with the issues of two separate chips running on a motherboard, and the necessity of a 600 watt power supply (or more), and we start to get that sinking feeling that we don't want this. Add in that there is only one motherboard, from ASUS, and it can't be overclocked. This is leaving the AMD faithful looking over the Intel processor section of the NewEgg website, with at least a little envy. Home built performance systems in this price category are all about choices, and we're not getting it in the motherboard department. On top of that, the Core 2 Duo's run a lot cooler than this QuadFX, and I'm starting to think the only reason to buy one is to write a comparison article of how much better Intel's chips are this week.
If you look back at our article on Processor Core Communication, the above diagram will make perfect sense. The "take home message" of that piece is that for multicore processors to really reach their performance potential, the separate cores need to be connected and able to share memory and data cache efficiently. This is when the heavy lifting can be shared, and the process sped up. From my diagram, we can see that by using two dual core chips on a motherboard, in two different sockets, this puts the motherboard in between as the middle man. The quad core approach that Intel has taken, although far from ideal, at least keeps the four cores on the same piece of silicon, if not in direct communication. Bearing this in mind, I was not at all surprised to see that the newly introduced QuadFX's are not retaking any performance crowns.
What is AMD to do? Well, I was disappointed to see that I can't buy one FX70 chip. They're sold as a pair for two, for the price of $599. While I'm not interested, if I could by one for around $300 with a reasonably priced motherboard, it could be the performance buy of the year. I think that this would at least buy AMD some time while their true quad cores come to market, which will not be till the second half of 2007. Don't forget that Intel is releasing a more affordable quad, based on the 6600 chip next month.
Despite all the anticipation, the QuadFX ends up being more smoke and mirrors than serious firepower in the chip wars. Then again, I can't find a single QuadFX chip for sale in either a system, or as a processor. In the end, AMD is making it easy for the performance crowd to flock to the Intel side.
--Jonas
quad fx, amd, processor design, 4 x 4
posted by digitaldoc at 9:12 AM
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