Trinidad gets CPU named after it + new AMD socket

[TrinireturnofGamez]

  For all those who wish to ugprade.... once again.. WAIT... Socket 939 will offer no upgradability in 2006! AMD is introducing a new socket with 1200 and something pins to replace it, offering DDR II support, DDR II prices will drop and latencies will go down soon enough due to improvements in the manufacturing process , Dual Core chips willl be available for the low/medium end also. We will see a dual core Athlon FX with 2mb of cache... and a dual core laptop chip named Trinidad ( i'm sure its trinidad in california bieng refered to though).
 The new socket is to be named 'M2'  , and a socket 'S1' for laptops , with around 600 pins .

http://www.ocworkbench.com/news.stm
http://www.computerbb.org/about1537.html

[SideSwipe]

Hmmm sounds interesting...here's the big question though, and it's what is killing the Pentium-D:
Is that 2mb cache shared between the two cores, or is it 2mb per core? The Pentium-D has 2mb as well, but it's shared and as a result...performance hit. Most applications won't make use of the second core, so they end up using a single core with only 1mb of cache.

[W1nTry]

Dual core will come into its own as more and more pplz start writing software to take advantage of it. As for whats killing the Dothan.. good question. From what i've seen they perform around the same save and except (and its a BIG except) the M based CPUs have bad FPU or was is APU performance compared to an A64 (I believe its FPU since thats used more in gaming..if I have it backwards I am sure someone will correct me). And as it stands the A64 is still better adapted to dual core than any intel offering. As for the 2MB question its actually 1MB per CPU NOT shared.

[TriniXaeno]

as if anyone plans to stay on their old board two years down the road anyway.

lol

so much new tech will be around, you'd dump your board and grab a new one and new proc. If you're an enthusiast.

Which we all are, I'd hope.

[TrinireturnofGamez]

 Its actually 2mb  per core for the athlon FX , The dual core A64 still needs alot of cache , they only have  1 memory bus , and the 2nd CPU gets its data from the L2 cache of the first one , instead of having both choking the bus at the same time .  Only opterons and maybe athlon FX will have multiple HTT buss + memory controllers .
   Its important not to upgrade NOW because this is all supposed to happen in Q1 2006 ! Socket 939 may well become the new low end socket , and the most you might see for it are a few semprons . For me especially the only real  advantage for upgrading  now is future upgradability , i won't notice a big difference from my athlon XP 3200 unless i get a more expensive AMD cpu or i overclock like hell ( which i can do on the athlon xP too ) .
    64 bit is no real biggie as most programs still don't use it , and there will still be 32 bit programs released  in 2006, and the performance boost is only about 20% under 'ideal conditions' , though it looses a little performance under some 32 bit programs .
check www.techreport.com 's article for more info .

[Crixx_Creww]

on a related note, the 64 bit xp itereation is out.

Not retail in stores as yet though, MS has decided not to retail it as yet, some speculate to fix a few bugs as well.

You can get the new xp through oem channells with the purchase of a new pc, or you can trade in your retail (not oem) xp cd that was bought after may 2003 for the new version, but you void your warranty. *rolls eyes*


Interesting naming convention from amd.
Not impressed by amd as always.

Iam also disheartened by the release of yet another socket.

Intel just released like wha 4 or 5 new sockets?
Damnit

[cdx2k1]

you actually going to wait a year and change for this?Allyuh fellas kixy sometimes yes.By the time you wait for it you'll be saying "it too expensive" then as it gets cheaper something "faster" will be available and ya'll going to be saying the same thing "Hold on! Something faster is coming!"...HAHAHA.lol.

[TrinireturnofGamez]

   it'll actually be cheaper than the currant dual core processors ( which sell for 500 US at the least) , faster , and it will be upgradable , if we upgrade now  we'll have to spend a whole bundle to get noticable extra perfomance ( athlon 64 3800/4000+ ) , or spend money anyway  for 20% more cpu power on a socket that can't upgrade .

[TriniXaeno]

not true, a modest upgrade is not gonna cost an arm and a leg and it will see a massive increase in performance.

given the specs of the average pc.

2000+, 512mb, Geforce4 MX

Going to a "middle road upgrade"

3000+ Athlon 64, 1GB, Geforce 6600 GT

Easily see a double in gaming performance for around a $3000.00 spend.

That is nothing to sneeze at. Not to mention you can sell your old stuff for about a $1000.00 to help offset the new stuff.

$2000.00 spend and you rollin with the big boys.

Wash rinse repeat, next year when the good stuff gets affordable.

Suhuweat!!!!

[Czar]

At this point Socket M2 is still speculation though...so it's anybody's guess as to what will eventually happen.

[TrinireturnofGamez]

  i would recommend for a mid range upgrade
 athlon xp 2400
512 ddr
9600 pro/non pro .

But the fact is , those of us who already have 3ghz+ cpus and 9800 pro/ 6600gt or better graphics cards are set till 2006 anyway , so we can afford to wait and still enjoy good frame rates .
  M2 is more than speculation, its in AMD's roadmap, it may be delayed but it will come about sooner or later

[steveunderwood0]

about waiting for changes and such....

there will ALWAYS be something newer and better on the horizon.  At some point, you just have to decide that what's out there is enough for what you need it for at the moment.  Good catch on the lack of upgrade available in the near future. 

[SideSwipe]

You can't keep it equipped for all the latest without spending a fair bit of money. Mine is an Athlon XP1900+ on an MSI K7 266 board, 512RAM(was 256 until recently) and 64mb GeForce3 Ti200 graphics card. I haven't been playing many games lately so I never really needed to upgrade, the original configuration was just fine except for the ram.

Later in the year I'll look at building a new system, but guess what...If I put it off until 2006 because of these new chips...when they ship I'll be hearing about a newer batch of sockets and cpu's coming out! Doesn't really make much of a difference. Just put in a decent motherboard and cpu that will be good for about 2 years and as time goes by, upgrade your graphics card and ram. Even though my ram is DDR-266 and the cpu is a 1.6...it still runs great. The upgrade to 512 did wonders, far less for if I dropped in a gig. If I were to put in a new video card I'll be set for another year yet before I decide its time for a new mobo/cpu.

It's a bit nonsensical and expensive to be doing major machine overhauls every year just to have the latest and greatest...it's just getting caught up in all the marketing. A major upgrade every cycle is going to let you see a little higher benchmark here or there, or decrease your movie encoding time from 1 hour to 55 minutes, or a better framerate in your game - even though the game was already running 30+fps in the first place anyway. However, practically speaking...you're not really going to notice the difference, yet you're spending in the thousands every cycle.

No doubt these new chips/sockets are some good stuff...but I'm not going to wait on them. Whatever I build by years-end will be blazing for at least 2 years, needing only a little ram boost perhaps or a new video card at some point if I get back into the heavy gaming.

[W1nTry]

The point of tech esp the video card/mobo/cpu market, is its driving itself at a faster rate than most other components in ur machine. New sockets are always roadmapped and sometimes scrapped as was seen by Intel in recent months... they scraped like what? about 3 different roadmaps before settling on their most recent?

So saying its best to wait till 2006 is hit and miss at best. If Intel brings out something from its magic bag that kicks AMD in the nuts they will pull out the stops and put out something else on a different socket to match. So I say nothing is wrong with going with the best of what we got right now. Reason being because its fact, its solid (real and not in some lab that may never see the light of day) and its available now.

The 939 will NOT be phased out just yet or even in say a year from now. Cause as it stands Dual cores will be expensive and relegated to the higher end markets at least till years end then by middle of next it MAY be widely accepted. AMD is supposed to migrate all their cpu's to 939 and 90nm within this year and the next. Dual core will come as a separate by summer and will not be in mass prod till next year I am sure. The ONLY reason they are bothering to put out the dual core A64 is cause Intel is pushing dual core on the desktop as well as server. It was publicly known that AMD wanted to focus on the Server front (which it will OWN Intels rear in and so far banchs show) but cannot afford to ignore the desktop market as they did the mobile. The only next thing to really push Dual core might be MS longawaited, longoverdue, longifmoneywasdistance, longhorn. writing multithreaded apps aren't as easy as single threaded and games will have a hard time with it for a lil while I am sure. Also Virtualization on both the Intel and AMD dual/multi cores will be completely different architectures that are so far not compatible. So dual core is mostly overkill for us for the while.