AMD Announces Dual-Socket, Dual-Core '4x4' Platform

[Evil-Dragon]

Advanced Micro Devices is expected to announce a new dual-core, dual-processor platform later Thursday, in an attempt to roll over the competition in the enthusiast computing space.

Dubbed "4x4", the new enthusiast platform will debut at AMD's Technology Day in its headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. Two Taiwan ODM system makers will launch 4x4 systems beginning in the second half of 2006, AMD executives said.

The 4x4 initiative will be directly targeted at enthusiasts, according to Moorhead. Each socket will include an AMD Athlon64 X2 chip in a new AM2 socket, although what limitations will be placed on the clock speed will not be released until a future date, he said. Each socket will be connected using AMD's "Direct Connect" architecture, which already provides a dedicated channel from each of the CPU cores out to the system memory, and to each other. Due to the nature of the Direct Connect architecture, each CPU can access the other's dedicated memory store.

"Whenever we add sockets, Direct Connect kicks in," Moorhead said. "It's a huge pickup in performance."

The 4x4 board will also tweak the front-side bus speed, according to Moorhead. The 4x4 architecture will use unbuffered, non-ECC DIMMs and AMD's "Pacifica" virtualization technology. "It's not a warmed-over workstation board," he said.

Moorhead also declined to comment on what type of cooling solution the new boards will require. Although AMD launched a line of 35-watt low-power desktop CPUs earlier this month, the company's standard Athlon64 and Athlon64 X2 processors will consume a maximum of 89 watts. "Expect a really unique cooling solution," Moorhead said.

More at: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1970271,00.asp

[taters]

Meh, I'll just wait for K8L
It's going to be a whole lot of mess starting July 23rd, imo. (Conroe)

[gamer007]

Wow. This is getting crazy.
The next CPU wars start now! :P

Now wheres my K8L...