Dual core Athlon launch tomorrow?

[StormPC]

Dualcores are exactly like dual CPUs. They are not for gamers.

[Timmy!!!]

Not yet anyway, im sure in time they will have to be.

[0iD]

I don't believe AMD have any plans to bring them out on the S939 format, only S940, so no dual core FX's ..... yet?

I have no plans to replace my Opteron 150 any time soon.

[arthurleung]

Dualcores are exactly like dual CPUs. They are not for gamers.

I wonder why so many sites keep prasing dual core is the fastest, best, etc, but in fact they can get dual proc at about the same cost with about the same performance. They of course beat single proc in multi-tasking, how many site did compare it to dual proc?

Dual Core is not really that "exciting" as most people thought. Its just Marketing.

[oralpain]

Dual core Opterons are supposedly supoposed to be available very near now, and dual core 939 A64s out some time in June.

Dual Core is not really that "exciting" as most people thought. Its just Marketing.

Dual cores are EXACTLY what I expected and I'm reasonably excited.

I fully anticpated a moderate single thread perfromance loss and moderate multi-thread performance gain, this is what I've been looking for.

[nichomach]

Well, it SHOULD mean lower production costs for the same performance, which would be nice, and would extend the benefits of SMP to more users; and generally, I've found SMP machines to feel much more responsive. No, it's not going to double their performance, but there is a qualitative difference.

[0iD]

Hope to be putting them in servers later this year. That's what I'm looking forwars to, quad dualcores

[Rave]

I could get a LOT of Find-A-Drug crunching done with a dual core processor or two. Unfortunately with the lowest model being the 4200 (for the time being) I won't be buying one any time soon.

[arthurleung]

Hope to be putting them in servers later this year. That's what I'm looking forwars to, quad dualcores

not going to try 8x dual core = 16cores?

[StormPC]

For crunching they're gonna be great. I just hate to see all these gamers getting worked up over dualcores. They'll play games ok but if you don't do crunching, CD ripping, etc... you're wasting money. Most people would be better off with a nice fast A64 singlecore. I'll be getting both the Intel and AMD dualcore rigs because I have no choice.

[arthurleung]

I just read Anandtech's dual core bench.

Look at the pricelist.

Opteron 175 @ 2.2Ghz $999
Opteron 248 @ 2.2Ghz $455
Athlon 64 X2 4400+ @ 2.2Ghz $581

Opteron 246 @ 2Ghz $307
Opteron 170 @ 2Ghz $799
Athlon 64 X2 4200+ @ 2.2Ghz (512Kx2) $537

Now see, it is not much difference in cost for buying 2 single core or buying one dual core.

Memory: Dual Core = 4 DIMMs max, Dual CPU = 8 DIMM Max (10 for MSI)
Motherboard: Dual CPU motherboard cost a bit more, but the extra PCIe, PCI-X and memory slot worth the extra money
Performance: Dual Core = Single 128Bit Shared, Dual CPU = Dual 128Bit (Each proc with 128Bit)
And if you go dual single core you can upgrade when the price of dual core come down.

[BenW]

AMD site is saying release date of june for the desktop and 2006 for the mobile

[Rave]

Point is though Arthur, the dual core uses a lot less power and tends to be faster overall. Anyway, the dual core Athlons (as opposed to Opterons) should go in pretty much any S939 motherboard, which can be a lot cheaper and a lot better at overclocking than S940 boards.

[0iD]

Indeed, Opterons are multi locked. Lucky to o'clock them much. Most I've got is my Opteron 150 running @ 216 fsb giving 2592Mhz. Dual boards are mostly devoid of overclocking features. Quad boards, well forget about it.

[DR]

Read my CPC Bitchin column this month

[arthurleung]

Point is though Arthur, the dual core uses a lot less power and tends to be faster overall. Anyway, the dual core Athlons (as opposed to Opterons) should go in pretty much any S939 motherboard, which can be a lot cheaper and a lot better at overclocking than S940 boards.

Then you'll need to invest money into expensive low latency ram and fancy cooling not to mention fancy motherboard.

I'm not really bitching dual core but I'm just holding the point that a Dual proc setup is more worthy than Dual Core at the moment. And you could potentially go Dual Dual core later on Not to mention the stability of the dual proc boards. I don't have a word to say about overclocking, YMMV.

The S940 may/will be a good overclocker since the newer boards use NF4 too.

Indeed, Opterons are multi locked. Lucky to o'clock them much. Most I've got is my Opteron 150 running @ 216 fsb giving 2592Mhz. Dual boards are mostly devoid of overclocking features. Quad boards, well forget about it.

150 is the max speed of older core so obviously it does not overclock very good.