PC Peripherals Some common hardware queries.

[faiyaz_fahad]

Hi guys, just a couple of short questions for some knowledge boost up,

Question number one, and Is there any difference between AMD 3500+ and 3500+( Venice core),
If there is what is the difference in performance and pricing,

Question number two, what are nforce4 motherboards basically ,

Question number three, what is the difference between the DDR 1 and the DDR 2 to RAMs
Question number four, is it true that, two 6600 GTs in SLI are better than one 7800 GTX

Question number five, is it worth spending 12 to 16k, on neo platinum and diamond motherboards,
Unless you don’t want to slam in two graphic cards in SLI, and what are the other differences between the above mentioned boards and MSI or ASUS which caused round about 5000 to 6000.

Question number six, if you want overall performance of rather than just gaming performance,
The wants to play all the latest games at maximum detail, should one opt for an AMD 64 bit( 40 And 00+, San Diego),
or an AMD X2(3800+ dual core), because the prices of both the processors are almost same.

Question number seven, what is bandwidth( by which I mean if you put in 2 RAM sticks, something happens and “ bandwidth increases†which enhances the speed of the computer.

Guys, waiting for your expert comments, please do send in your posts.

Thanks.

 

[Shakensoul]

Answers to Question One:

The OPN of the Processor identifies the different cores. For OPN guide refer to these posts.

OPN Guide - AMD64

Best Stepping for Venice & Winchester
The difference between the different cores are:

The Sledgehammer core is now somewhat old and was used for the original Opteron processors. With the 1MB of L2 cache memory taking up a lot of room on the chip and being made using 130nm technology these processors were rather large and consequently not many to a wafer making the selling price rather expensive.

The Newcastle core is based on the old Sledgehammer core but only has 512KB of L2 cache memory which enabled a major size reduction as memory takes up a lot of space in a processor chip. This enabled more to be made on a single silicon wafer and of course means they are cheaper to buy as well. And with dual channel menory controller for ordinary non-registered memory these were very popular processors.

The Winchester core is basically the Newcastle core but made using 90nm technology. These processors use less power and consequently produce less heat and run cooler. A Winchester core ends with 'BI' at the end of the SKU (Stock Keeping Units) and use the D0 stepping.

The Venice core is the Winchester but with SSE3 extensions enabled for the few applications that take advantage of it but the difference is not a lot. You will find 'BP' at the end of the SKU and uses the E3 stepping.

Venice cores have better memory controllers than Winchester and are suppose to overclock better.

The San Diego core is basically the Venice core but with 1MB of L2 cache memory. These have 'BN' in the SKU and use the E4 stepping.

Manchester and Toledo cores are the dual core versions of the San Diego core.

 

[Vandal]

U want comments...well here's one...don't make multiple posts...its very annoying reading the same headings again and again....

 

[Shakensoul]

These are the current AMD Athlon 64 3500+ OPN numbers:

Answer 2:

nForce4 motherboards are based on the Nvidia nForce4 chipsets. Features of the nforce4 chipsets are:

Answer 3:

Till date AMD does not support DDR2. DDR2 picks up where DDR memory currently stops, at 400MHz.

Features of DDR2 memory:

Speed of DDR2 memory: