Replies to post #5893 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[j3pflynn]

Haddock, the VIA KT600 is very close to the nForce2's dual channel performance. The competition here is ultimately Intel of course, not nVidia, so it's tougher, but with the integrated mem controller... we'll see soon, I guess.
Paul

[KeithDust2000]

Haddock, Athlon64 will also support PC3200 memory modules.

[fyodor]

Haddock: you really think that the more agressive memory controller of the Athlon 64 can compensate for only having one memory channel. I find that hard to believe.

Registered DIMMs have a higher latency than non-registered DIMMs.

Additionally, there is a latency decrease of 20% resulting from the higher clock frequency (Opteron uses DDR333, whereas A64 will use DDR400).

The higher clock frequency also yields an increase in peak bandwidth, so the comparison is: 128bit x 333 versus 64bit x 400. I.e. Opteron only has a 66% higher maximum theoretical bandwidth, not 100% higher.

Combine this with a more aggressive memory controller and, yes, I believe A64 will be very competitive with Opteron in most non-synthetic (but still memory intensive) applications and benchmarks.

-fyo