Question to BC

[em99010pepe]

What's the difference between an AMD Athlon™ 64 FX -53 (Socket 939)
and an AMD Athlon™ 64 3800+ (Socket 939) ?

FX versus 64?????

[BC]

What's the difference between an AMD Athlon™ 64 FX -53 (Socket 939)
and an AMD Athlon™ 64 3800+ (Socket 939) ?

FX versus 64?????

Sorry for the delay... I did not see the post until now.


The FX is a tailored version of the A64 line. It's tailored in specific areas, number of register, memory bandwidth / bus throughput and FPU. It had to be 939 pin to stop the bus contention with a very fast 64 bit/128 bit wide data path (the floating point) trying to get onto a 32 bit (754 pin) bus.

The initial concept was to enhance gaming performance (software shading performance in OpenGL) and then the ability to get fast refresh rates to the AGP and out to memory.

As the newer products emerge, the differences will become smaller but the FX microinstruction (how it does things internally) will always be different. This is simply because the 754 pin CPUs are now going to be '2nd class' even though still an A64.

I will ask, if you wish, for a more detailed list of differences between the 3800+ and the FX.

What I most frequently say is that the 754 pin package chips are the A64's on a 32bit bus... the A64's in 939 are actually the *whole* A64 coming out. It turns out that the FX series was a special tailored version, the prototype and "first one out of the shoot"... It, like the Clawhammer/Sledgehammer core, proved a point and was a stepping stone.

Here is what the AMD offical, published word is. You will see the special tailoring it got. You will see / sense it is also a prototype of future things to come

==== from AMD ====
Superior Technology
The AMD Athlon 64 FX processor is the only Windows-compatible 64-bit PC processor and the world’s most technically advanced PC processor. It features several technology innovations for immersive, cinematic computing experiences. The AMD64 architecture doubles the number of general purpose and SSE/SSE2 registers for improved performance and enhances multimedia processing with 3DNow!™ Professional technology and SSE2 technology. HyperTransport™ technology increases overall system performance by reducing I/O bottlenecks, increasing system bandwidth, and reducing system latency. A 128-bit integrated DDR memory controller, together with industry standard DDR memory technology, provides extreme bandwidth - up to 6.4GB per second, and significantly reduces memory latency, improving performance for many applications. The AMD Athlon 64 FX processor boasts the industry’s largest on-die, high-performance cache memory system for PC processors, enhancing performance for many applications, especially large workloads


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BC

[em99010pepe]

Thanks BC.

Look at this page (http://www2.amd.com/us-en/recmobo/DetailHandler/1,,30_2252_869_9480%5E9481,00.html?queryID=85900) and tell me which processor would you buy for that motherboard. The 64 FX or 64?

[jlangner]

Simple difference between a A64 3800 and FX53 is the FX 53 has 1MB cache and the A64 3800 has 512kb cache.

[jlangner]

I have the 3500 and I haven't done it but supposedly it is pretty easy to overclock to a 3800.

[em99010pepe]

Simple difference between a A64 3800 and FX53 is the FX 53 has 1MB cache and the A64 3800 has 512kb cache.

And the price.

[BC]

I have the 3500 and I haven't done it but supposedly it is pretty easy to overclock to a 3800.

it is common knowledge you should be able to overclock by 10% standard
on any part unless the Mobo is already at some other design limit.

(e.g. My Claw 2.0G is up a full 16%, and memory is up a full 18+%)

My only problem is I have a single-channel 32 bit mem bus. :(
I get disappointed at 1960 mb/sec but then realize that's not bad given
it has to run in 2T command delay mode (mobo limit) and is single channel.... given the price of the mobo is now only $90... what can I say? when i bought it I paid $179 because it was hot stuff. Things change fast... as do internal register counts and microcode for special processors... Today it may be hot stuff, and tomorrow it could be part of the main product line.