Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[dougSF30]

YB Fortunately for AMD, they will deliver Athlon FX-53 on socket 939 in April. This beast will have 2.4 Ghz, 1 Mb cache and dual-channel unbuffered. It should score two full speed grades above current Athlon FX-51, or three speed grades above current A64 3400.

I thought I'd run through these numbers myself, because they sounded so good...

FX-53 will be clocked at 2.4 GHz. FX-51 is at 2.2 GHz. Both are already *on* dual memory channels. The only difference for the 53 on 939 (other than the clock) is unbuffered memory. I'd give that +5% at most.
Now 2.2 to 2.4 is a speed-up of 9%.

1.09 * 1.05 = 1.145, 14% faster than the FX-51.

From recent benches, for most applications, FX-51 is about the same as the 3400+. Perhaps a tad faster, overall (yes, exceptions for a few bandwidth-hungry apps, but ignore those). Give it a 3500+... saying it is 2.9% faster, on avg.

3500 * 1.145 = 4007. I'll be damned.

Now Prescott may be slightly faster clock for clock...

And perhaps unbuffered vs. registered is not worth +5%.

If it is, then the FX-53 (@ 2.4 GHz) on 939 may well be worth a 4000+ (v. Northwood) rating.

I was surprised the numbers worked out that way.

I say this is 2 grades above A64 3400, and 1.5 grades above the FX-51... essentially 1 grade for 2.2 --> 2.4, and .5 grade for buffered --> unbuffered.

Doug