AMD FX-60 Reviews :
PC Perspective
FiringSquad
TechReport
T-Break
AnandTech
Björn3D
AMDZ
________________________________
Source : Bit-tech
For the full article with benchies click here
Dual Core Strategies Compared:
On the 27th December, Intel announced its new Pentium Extreme Edition 955, based on the 65 nanometre Presler core. This bought some interesting performance numbers to the table, but it wasn't enough to topple AMD through and through - the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ lost out in very few benchmarks, but the Pentium Extreme Edition 955's strength really showed through during heavy multi-tasking scenarios.
Intel has opted to target dual core processors at gamers since the launch of the Pentium Extreme Edition 840. This chip was clocked at 3.2GHz and was pretty woefully under-powered for gaming environments at that point in time. There was nothing to suggest that the Pentium XE 840 was worth considering if you were a gamer. The Pentium XE 955, on the other hand, was a little better at keeping up with the competition, but still not enough to trouble the scorers in gaming scenarios.
On the other hand, AMD was targeting the FX-57 at gamers, while keeping the Athlon 64 X2 in the power user segment of the market. While we don't fully agree with this, as the performance difference at realistic playable settings in games between the fastest Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 X2 was not very large at all, AMD has waited for games to start benefitting from the second processor before it has targeted the Athlon 64 FX at the gamer. In that respect, their move does make a lot of sense.
I guess the problem with Intel's strategy was that they marketed a CPU for power users at gamers. It wasn't quick enough to be labelled Intel's fastest gaming CPU, and I guess that is why Intel were on the receiving end of a lot of criticism when they announced that the Pentium XE 840 would be the successor to the Pentium 4 XE 3.73GHz.
Dual Core Architectures Compared:
Much like the different marketing strategies that AMD and Intel adopted with their dual core processors, they adopted two quite different architectures too.
On one hand, Intel opted for its two processors to communicate with each other via the North Bridge. With the Pentium Extreme Edition 955, that's limited by the front side bus of 1066MHz, while all other Pentium Ds - and the Pentium XE 840 - were limited to an 800MHz front side bus between the two CPU cores.
On the other hand, the two cores on an Athlon 64 X2 talk to each other via the system request interface, which is located on the CPU die. That works at the CPUs operating frequency, which means there is no bottleneck between the two separate cores. Also, the memory controller is located on-die too, which means that requests to the memory controller are direct and don't suffer from increased latencies.
Athlon 64 FX-60:
Where does this put the Athlon 64 FX-60 then?
Well, it's clocked at 2.6GHz, and has the same characteristics as every other Athlon 64 X2 - that means there are approximately 223 million transistors on a 90 nanometre SOI die, measuring 199mm² and the CPU has an a TDP of 110W. It also brings the unlocked multiplier over from previous Athlon 64 FX processors. Your motherboard should already fully support the processor, and all you're required to do is flash to the latest available BIOS for your motherboard.
As we noted at the end of our Pentium Extreme Edition 955 review, mult-threaded games are starting to appear - this is the reason why AMD has held off on marketing dual core CPUs at gamers until now. F.E.A.R, City of Villains, Call of Duty 2 and Quake 4 all support multi-threaded code. We've included F.E.A.R. and Quake 4 in our updated CPU testing suite, but we feel this is a subject that requires a closer look - we'll be doing that in the near future.
Lets not waste any more time - it's time to find out how the FX-60 performs...
The time has come...
Eight months on, and that time is getting closer and closer to us. In fact, I feel that the time is close enough that you should just assume it has arrived. Anyone who is building a system for the future would be foolish not to consider getting a dual core processor at the heart of their system. It makes little sense to look at a single core processor now.
There are already four games out on the market that are said to take advantage of dual core processors, despite both Call of Duty 2 and F.E.A.R. not quite living up to the same expectations as Quake 4. Both ATI and NVIDIA have released drivers with performance enhancements for dual core processors, and game developers are going to be releasing more and more multi-threaded games.
This is partly thanks to to the release of Xbox 360 and the pending release of PlayStation 3 - both of these bleeding edge gaming machines feature multi-core processors, so many, if not all future console ports will have some element of multi-core support and performance enhancement inbuilt. It's quite simple: multi-core processors are, without doubt the future of gaming. It's only a matter of time before top game developers like Valve Software and Epic Games start to implement dual core performance enhancements into their current and next generation engines.
There are also many multi-threaded applications, like DVD Shrink and AutoGK that can really show great improvements as a result of having the second core. Lets not forget the general feel of using a dual core processor too - I've had an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ in my main system for over two months now and I can't see myself going back to a single core processor ever again.
Final Thoughts...
The Athlon 64 FX-60 may not be the most attractive processor, based on its price, but it's good to see that the two slower Athlon 64 X2's with 1MB L2 cache per core keep up quite well with it. At £350, the Athlon 64 X2 4400+ is an attractive buy compared to the Athlon 64 X2 4800+, which currently retails at £535. We suspect that this will come down in due course, but we can't see it dropping down to a price that makes it even more attractive than the X2 4400+.
Lets not forget the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ either. It offers tremendous value for someone looking to get into the dual core market on a budget. We've not heard final pricing on the Pentium D 900-series just yet, but we expect the lower end processors to be reasonably competitive with the X2 3800+.
With that said, with the exception of one multi-tasking scenario, the Athlon 64 FX-60 is the fastest all-round processor on the planet. The Pentium Extreme Edition 955 may be attractive to someone who often finds themselves wanting to do more than two things at the same time, but that market is limited to a few die hard power users. However, it's worth noting that there are rare occasions where I find myself running out of processor power with my current Athlon 64 X2.
PC Perspective
FiringSquad
TechReport
T-Break
AnandTech
Björn3D
AMDZ
________________________________
Source : Bit-tech
For the full article with benchies click here
Dual Core Strategies Compared:
On the 27th December, Intel announced its new Pentium Extreme Edition 955, based on the 65 nanometre Presler core. This bought some interesting performance numbers to the table, but it wasn't enough to topple AMD through and through - the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ lost out in very few benchmarks, but the Pentium Extreme Edition 955's strength really showed through during heavy multi-tasking scenarios.
Intel has opted to target dual core processors at gamers since the launch of the Pentium Extreme Edition 840. This chip was clocked at 3.2GHz and was pretty woefully under-powered for gaming environments at that point in time. There was nothing to suggest that the Pentium XE 840 was worth considering if you were a gamer. The Pentium XE 955, on the other hand, was a little better at keeping up with the competition, but still not enough to trouble the scorers in gaming scenarios.
On the other hand, AMD was targeting the FX-57 at gamers, while keeping the Athlon 64 X2 in the power user segment of the market. While we don't fully agree with this, as the performance difference at realistic playable settings in games between the fastest Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 X2 was not very large at all, AMD has waited for games to start benefitting from the second processor before it has targeted the Athlon 64 FX at the gamer. In that respect, their move does make a lot of sense.
I guess the problem with Intel's strategy was that they marketed a CPU for power users at gamers. It wasn't quick enough to be labelled Intel's fastest gaming CPU, and I guess that is why Intel were on the receiving end of a lot of criticism when they announced that the Pentium XE 840 would be the successor to the Pentium 4 XE 3.73GHz.
Dual Core Architectures Compared:
Much like the different marketing strategies that AMD and Intel adopted with their dual core processors, they adopted two quite different architectures too.
On one hand, Intel opted for its two processors to communicate with each other via the North Bridge. With the Pentium Extreme Edition 955, that's limited by the front side bus of 1066MHz, while all other Pentium Ds - and the Pentium XE 840 - were limited to an 800MHz front side bus between the two CPU cores.
On the other hand, the two cores on an Athlon 64 X2 talk to each other via the system request interface, which is located on the CPU die. That works at the CPUs operating frequency, which means there is no bottleneck between the two separate cores. Also, the memory controller is located on-die too, which means that requests to the memory controller are direct and don't suffer from increased latencies.
Athlon 64 FX-60:
Where does this put the Athlon 64 FX-60 then?
Well, it's clocked at 2.6GHz, and has the same characteristics as every other Athlon 64 X2 - that means there are approximately 223 million transistors on a 90 nanometre SOI die, measuring 199mm² and the CPU has an a TDP of 110W. It also brings the unlocked multiplier over from previous Athlon 64 FX processors. Your motherboard should already fully support the processor, and all you're required to do is flash to the latest available BIOS for your motherboard.
As we noted at the end of our Pentium Extreme Edition 955 review, mult-threaded games are starting to appear - this is the reason why AMD has held off on marketing dual core CPUs at gamers until now. F.E.A.R, City of Villains, Call of Duty 2 and Quake 4 all support multi-threaded code. We've included F.E.A.R. and Quake 4 in our updated CPU testing suite, but we feel this is a subject that requires a closer look - we'll be doing that in the near future.
Lets not waste any more time - it's time to find out how the FX-60 performs...
The time has come...
Eight months on, and that time is getting closer and closer to us. In fact, I feel that the time is close enough that you should just assume it has arrived. Anyone who is building a system for the future would be foolish not to consider getting a dual core processor at the heart of their system. It makes little sense to look at a single core processor now.
There are already four games out on the market that are said to take advantage of dual core processors, despite both Call of Duty 2 and F.E.A.R. not quite living up to the same expectations as Quake 4. Both ATI and NVIDIA have released drivers with performance enhancements for dual core processors, and game developers are going to be releasing more and more multi-threaded games.
This is partly thanks to to the release of Xbox 360 and the pending release of PlayStation 3 - both of these bleeding edge gaming machines feature multi-core processors, so many, if not all future console ports will have some element of multi-core support and performance enhancement inbuilt. It's quite simple: multi-core processors are, without doubt the future of gaming. It's only a matter of time before top game developers like Valve Software and Epic Games start to implement dual core performance enhancements into their current and next generation engines.
There are also many multi-threaded applications, like DVD Shrink and AutoGK that can really show great improvements as a result of having the second core. Lets not forget the general feel of using a dual core processor too - I've had an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ in my main system for over two months now and I can't see myself going back to a single core processor ever again.
Final Thoughts...
The Athlon 64 FX-60 may not be the most attractive processor, based on its price, but it's good to see that the two slower Athlon 64 X2's with 1MB L2 cache per core keep up quite well with it. At £350, the Athlon 64 X2 4400+ is an attractive buy compared to the Athlon 64 X2 4800+, which currently retails at £535. We suspect that this will come down in due course, but we can't see it dropping down to a price that makes it even more attractive than the X2 4400+.
Lets not forget the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ either. It offers tremendous value for someone looking to get into the dual core market on a budget. We've not heard final pricing on the Pentium D 900-series just yet, but we expect the lower end processors to be reasonably competitive with the X2 3800+.
With that said, with the exception of one multi-tasking scenario, the Athlon 64 FX-60 is the fastest all-round processor on the planet. The Pentium Extreme Edition 955 may be attractive to someone who often finds themselves wanting to do more than two things at the same time, but that market is limited to a few die hard power users. However, it's worth noting that there are rare occasions where I find myself running out of processor power with my current Athlon 64 X2.
