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AMD Bumps Up Socket AM2 Launch Date 234

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the scrambling-the-alert-five dept.
Thrill-Ki1l writes "According to DailyTech AMD has moved up the launch date for their new socket AM2 processors. The manufacturers of the new AM2 chipsets and motherboards have their hardware ready to ship early so AMD decided to launch the chips 2 weeks early. The new launch date is May 23rd."
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AMD Bumps Up Socket AM2 Launch Date More

AMD Bumps Up Socket AM2 Launch Date

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  • condolences (Score:2, Insightful)

    by caffeinemessiah ( 918089 )
    to everyone who just dropped a ton of cash building a brand new athlon x2 socket 939 systems...my condolences. at least this will bring the price of the higher-end athlon x2s down for the rest of us...yay!

    • Re:condolences (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) *
      You would hope anyone building a system would have done their research and would have known that new chips were coming.

      • Re:condolences (Score:5, Funny)

        by ePhil_One ( 634771 ) on Sunday April 23, 2006 @10:49PM (#15187534) Journal
        You would hope anyone building a system would have done their research and would have known that new chips were coming.

        Really, the jokes on the people who by this new socket. I hear that eventually it well be replaced with something even newer! I'm waiting until 2019, when there will be no more computer upgrades (society will collapse July 17th, 2019, ending all new product development short of the flint arrowhead)

      • New chips are ALWAY'S coming, why worry? By time this really affects prices, anyone currently currently running a top of the line system will probably be wanting to upgrade again anyway's,

        • Re:condolences (Score:3, Informative)

          by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) *
          Well, when you're this close to the launch of the new socket you might as well wait in the hopes that you'll be able to upgrade the CPU or motherboard separately once over its lifetime, if you so choose.
          • Considering that AM2 currently offers zero performance increase over s939 chips (in effect, it's simply moving the platform to DDR2 now rather than waiting for AMD's Conroe-equivalent), the possibility to upgrade would be nice. However seeing that you can still buy Socket A chips, I wouldn't worry about the availability of this-gen parts for quite some time, especially considering how widely successful s939 is among enthusiasts.

      • Why, exactly? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Weaselmancer ( 533834 ) on Monday April 24, 2006 @12:20AM (#15187827)

        You would hope anyone building a system would have done their research and would have known that new chips were coming.

        Putting aside that new chips are always coming up, why would this matter?

        Only reason I can think of is that you're suggesting that you might want to put a faster cpu in later on. Is that it? If so...is that a really common thing to do? Because it seems kinda....well, dumb to me. You unplug your existing cpu and stick it in a box. Then buy another one that's only a few percent faster. Then unplug that 3 months later...and stick it in a box. Seems like a waste of money to me.

        Every time I've done an upgrade, it's been a whole system upgrade. And then, I only do it every 5 years or so. Is there really a need to stay on the bleeding edge all the time that I'm missing?

        • If you start with the slowest CPU in a given socket, you can eventually get something like a 50% improvement with a new chip in the same socket.
          • you will hardly get a 50% gain of overall performance gain :(

            the motherboard and disk access will still be slow as hell. but sometimes even a 10% gain in the right place makes you feel a lot better ;) /* when are we going to get non spinning storage that beats the %^* out of scsi ? */

        • Re:Why, exactly? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Znork ( 31774 ) on Monday April 24, 2006 @03:14AM (#15188249)
          "Then buy another one that's only a few percent faster."

          As far as I can tell, AM2 will be a merge of the desktop sockets, which means you'll eventually have a fairly large range of performances.

          If AM2 reclaims the same kind of staying power that socket A had, this also means you get the capacity to do cascade upgrades once you have a few systems. Stick a new CPU in your desktop? You dont stick the old one in a box, you move it to the server, which gets faster... and your old server CPU can be moved to the media frontend, which also gets faster... etc.

          "Every time I've done an upgrade, it's been a whole system upgrade. And then, I only do it every 5 years or so. Is there really a need to stay on the bleeding edge all the time that I'm missing?"

          Mmm, if that's how you do it, you probably wont benefit, no. In fact, it's far better to _never_ stay on the bleeding edge; bleeding edgers always get hosed by the price/performance ratio, and someone spending half of what you spend every 2.5 years will probably have a higher average performance over time on his systems, and twice as many systems. And again, once you reach the number of systems and component standardization needed for rolling upgrades, that's when you really start getting the payoff...

        • Only reason I can think of is that you're suggesting that you might want to put a faster cpu in later on. Is that it? If so...is that a really common thing to do? Because it seems kinda....well, dumb to me. You unplug your existing cpu and stick it in a box. Then buy another one that's only a few percent faster. Then unplug that 3 months later...and stick it in a box. Seems like a waste of money to me.

          Well, it depends on how and when you upgrade. Consider Socket 939 for example. You can buy a base syste

        • Re:Why, exactly? (Score:2, Informative)

          by imboboage0 ( 876812 )
          Is there really a need to stay on the bleeding edge all the time that I'm missing?
          [sarcasm]But what about your SETI scores?!?!? And PCMark! Those are my life! You're such a n00b![sarcasm]

          I kinda like my 939. if i wanna upgrade from 3000+ to 4800+, i can. that's a huge improvement still available.

      • Re:condolences (Score:4, Insightful)

        by buswolley ( 591500 ) on Monday April 24, 2006 @03:09AM (#15188239) Journal
        I just built an AMD 64 3800+ X2. I researched for quite a while, and was completly aware of the new socket. This does not bother me.

        1)I can't really imagine anytime soon when I will need more power than I have with this system.

        2) The price was good.

        3)You can overclock the shit out of them.

        4)I can scan for viruses, rip a cd, and play a top end game concurrently without a glitch or slow down.

        5)It is a stable mature technology(socket 939). I previously made the mistake of purchasing the first edition of a new intel socket, and regretted it for years.

        Let the new sockets, chips and boards work out their chinks before you buy, I say.

        • I can scan for viruses, rip a cd, and play a top end game concurrently without a glitch or slow down

          If you ran linux you wouldn't have to worry about the virus scanner.

          I guess you would'nt have to worry about the game either...

    • Re:condolences (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Bin Naden ( 910327 )
      I didn't get screwed: I bought the cheapest CPU with a socket 939 motherboard and will buy a better CPU once the prices go down much like 754 cpu went down once 939 came out.

    • Re:condolences (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bob_Robertson ( 454888 ) on Sunday April 23, 2006 @10:56PM (#15187561) Homepage
      Actually, the release of new hardware should drop the price of dual and quad 939 motherboards to buyable levels, as well as the dual core 939 CPUs.

      It's not like the 939 performance has dropped, only that the bleeding edge has cut another swath. Let them go, and enjoy the savings!

      Bob-

      • I am assumeing you mean 940 sockets, 939 does not support multi sockets.

      • Re:condolences (Score:2, Insightful)

        by caspper69 ( 548511 )
        Exactly. I once held off on buying a dual-cpu motherboard because I didn't think the (south)chipset was up to snuff. How stupid. Here was a motherboard with 3 PCI-X(66) and 1 PCI-X(133) (in addition to two PCI32 slots and two PCIe x16 slots). I was upset because the USB host controller only supported USB1.1. Completely neglecting the fact that I could buy a trivially inexpensive add-in card and get the same functionality with minimal effort. People always look to the latest and greatest, but fail to a

    • Re:condolences (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bersl2 ( 689221 )
      How about those of us who dropped not so much cash on such a system?

      As long as I catch DDR1 prices at its lowest point (to reach 2GiB RAM total), my Opteron 165 @ 2.49 GHz system should cut it for a while.

    • Re:condolences (Score:4, Insightful)

      by toddestan ( 632714 ) on Monday April 24, 2006 @12:03AM (#15187768)
      Actually, I feel sorry for the people who built 754 systems back in the day. It seemed that AMD moved onto Socket 939 pretty quickly after that one.

      Though I really feel for anyone who has a Socket 423 Pentium IV system. Very short lived standard (1.3-2.0Ghz), expensive rambus memory, 100Mhz bus ("quad pumped" to 400Mhz), and really odd CPU coolers that screw into the motherboard that are virtually impossible to get replacements for.

      • Actually, I feel sorry for the people who built 754 systems back in the day. It seemed that AMD moved onto Socket 939 pretty quickly after that one.

        Amen to that. I'm stuck with two S754 systems. I sooooo wish I'd paid a few extra dollars to get 939....

      • Re:condolences (Score:2, Informative)

        by PayPaI ( 733999 )
        According to the article S754 is going to actually outlast S939.
        AMD's Socket 754 to Outlast Socket 939 [dailytech.com]
      • Don't feel sorry for me, there is no point.

        I bought a S754 system almost 2y ago. You can still buy new processors for my very own mobo today, great ones too, in the form of the latest and greatest Turion processors [silentpcreview.com]. A year later I bought the almost exact same system for my parents.

        Do you know any current mobo for which you think you'll be able to buy a compatible CPU in 2 year's time ?

        Also it was incredibly cheap, the CPU works with passive solid-state cooling and is still running like a champ. It was th
      • I have a hard time feeling bad for people who went to systems supporting RAMBUS. People who don't know shit about computers wouldn't know - but they should be asking someone who does know about 'em what they ought to buy, and anyone who makes an unresearched purchase can just fuck off. Including me, when I do something that dumb.

  • summary (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The_GURU_Stud ( 955937 ) on Sunday April 23, 2006 @10:40PM (#15187509)
    what should also be on the summary is that it was bumped up to coincide with Intel's paper launch.

  • Is it really worth it? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bin Naden ( 910327 ) on Sunday April 23, 2006 @10:51PM (#15187542)
    Is it really worth it to be an AMD processor with a DDR2 memory controller? Sure this meant a lot for the intel architecture but from what I understood the AMD architecture will not gain a lot from this memory speed increase. Also, the latency on the memory will likely also increase which might cancel all gains made from the increased speed. Therefore, I'm waiting and seeing before I get me one of those.

    • Re:Is it really worth it? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Sunday April 23, 2006 @11:07PM (#15187600) Homepage
      There was an article somewhere recently (Anandtech? Tom's Hardware?) checking performance of DDR2 versus DDR on the Opteron. They determined that DDR speeds below 533 (IIRC) would hurt the performance. At 533, it was about even. As the processor and or memory speeds up then you will see the benefit. This isn't strictly necessary right now. I think it was actually due to the latency issue that you mentioned that this was the case.

      I'd rather see FB-DIMMs, personally. But the move to DDR2 was going to happen at some point. Better now (when it's not necessary and people can still choose a great processor and DDR combo) then later (when DDR is more expensive and they were hurting for the change).

      I seem to remember that was going to be something else with this socket upgrade (in the form of processor features) that was more interesting or offered better performance increases than the memory change. I don't remember if it was SSE4 (is that out yet?), a better branch predictor, AMD's Vanderpool (can't remember the name), or what.

    • Re:Is it really worth it? (Score:5, Informative)

      by PsychicX ( 866028 ) on Sunday April 23, 2006 @11:09PM (#15187606)
      This article [anandtech.com] examines the question in depth. Hope that helps.
    • Is it really worth it to be an AMD processor with a DDR2 memory controller?

      Yes, if you care about the price of memory in your new machine. The price of DDR2 is generally expected to drop below DDR1 during this year, as manufacturers convert DDR1 production lines to DDR2. The performance won't change by more than a couple percent though (because the higher bandwidth of DDR2 is almost exactly cancelled out by its worse latency).
    • Is it really worth it to be an AMD processor with a DDR2 memory controller?

      Well, it's certainly easier than my old dream of being an astronaut...
    • "Sure this meant a lot for the intel architecture but from what I understood the AMD architecture will not gain a lot from this memory speed increase."

      Early indications are that Intel's architechtural improvements with Conroe will give them a significant edge over AM2 chips, even though AMD still has an on-die memory controller and Intel doesn't.

      "Also, the latency on the memory will likely also increase which might cancel all gains made from the increased speed."

      They'll be using 667 and 800 mhz clock speeds
    • AFAIK DDR2 brings better throughput but at the expense of more latency. For the current AMD chips the overall result seems to be equal, but once you go to more cores I guess the throughput will become more important.
      A few months ago I've read a review of AMD Opteron vs. Intel Xeon dual cores. For one socket, both systems had similar memory bandwidth and while the AMD was faster, the difference was not dramatic. For two sockets (4 cores total), the Xeons still had to make do with the same memory bandwidth be
      • Just a FYI as you might be interested, Anandtech today did another Opteron vs. Xeon test, this time with 8 cores per machine, 4 sockets.

        The 2.6GHz Opterons stomped on the 3.0GHz Xeon MPs by around 30-40%.

        Article [anandtech.com]

        Woodcrest (Conroe based server part) will have the same bandwidth restrictions that hurt Xeon in the above test. Expect to see the usual suspects test four socket Woodcrest with cache intensive benchmarks.

        However they're not a large part of the market really.
    • The latency issue gets masked when you start talking DDR2-667 and DDR2-800. Anything less and you're right DDR1 is a winner.

      The trick to realize is the DDR1 spec can't [cheaply] clock over the 400 mark without resorting to people just over clocking their memory.

      That and DDR2 parts are expected to be cheaper to produce in volume quantities.

      Tom

  • Too many sockets!!! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Freaky Spook ( 811861 ) on Sunday April 23, 2006 @10:52PM (#15187543)
    Although I find AMD to be better chips, I still stay with intel because their chips are all on one socket.
    AMD at the moment offers no upgrade path because their Semprons & Athlons are different sockets, you can't turn a budget AMD box into something more powerfull without replacing the motherboard.

    Intel allow people to start with a Celeron and easily upgrade to a P4 or Pentium D if more CPU power is required, I find the upgrade option far better value.
    • The reason that AMD had to go this route is that the AMD architecture has the memory controller embedded in the CPU chip while the intel machines have the controller contained in the motherboard. This means that AMD have better overall memory performance, however, a change in memory technology forces them to redesign their CPU and use another socket for fear that consumers might put those new CPU's in older 939 motherboards and either fry them up or call for tech support too much.

    • Re:Too many sockets!!! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Z0mb1eman ( 629653 ) on Sunday April 23, 2006 @11:04PM (#15187587) Homepage
      Y'know... I used to reason along the same lines. After 10 years of building/upgrading my own computer, however, I realized one thing:

      Not once has it made sense to upgrade the processor. Every time it would've provided only a small gain compared to the expense and hassle. I've upgraded the RAM, hard drives, and video card several times - but by the time I felt I needed a better processor, it made more sense to replace the entire motherboard and go with a new generation (or build a new box entirely).

      To each his own, of course. But in the future I'm going to worry about the upgrade paths a motherboard offers for the RAM, drives, or video - and not the CPU, because I know I'll never bother.

      Then again, so far I've mostly had AMD boxes, so maybe there is some truth to what you say. :)
      • I was the same to until 7 months ago when one of my PC's died and I had to build a new box. The PC that was being replaced was only my home workstation used for just light work so I decided to put a basic processor as I didn't want to spend $300+ on a CPU that wouldn't be used, but still wanted an upgrade path just in case.

        Just recently for work I had to test some software that needed a beefier CPU but I didn't want to put it on my server, all I had to do was upgrade the Celeron to a Pentium D.

        If I had gone
        • One would argue that if you had gone with an AMD system, the processor would've been cheap enough for you to have just bought the better processor in the first place.
          • Amen! As a shop tech I hate Intel for NOT diversifying their sockets. For the most part, each chipset is tied to a specific series of processors. It doesn't matter that it fits in a socket 478, if the chipset doesn't like the CPU it's not gonna boot PERIOD. Instead we have to worry about families like Prescott, Northwood, Willamette.. or even worse their friggin product numbers that you have to break down to figure out the speed and features of the cpu. Try telling a relative on the phone to buy a Pen
            • Try telling a relative on the phone to buy a Pentium 672.. much easier to say "Get an Athlon 4000!".

              Yeah, I know what you mean. I always tell people to get a "Sigglewatter 2468" because it's just so much easier to say over the phone than "Bagglerister 42".

            • As for the upgrading issues, it's very rare that you'll swap just a CPU, unless you bought a crappy CPU to begin with. Most people who want to future-proof their PC will buy the best kit they can afford and make it last. They won't get a budget CPU that they know will be obsolete within a year or two.

              I dunno. I bought a pair of Opteron 240s and a Tyan S2885 motherboard soon after they were released. It cost a pretty penny, and the performance is still good compared to what's on the market now. If I wait

      • Re:Too many sockets!!! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Saeger ( 456549 )
        Not once has it made sense to upgrade the processor.

        Usually you'd be right that it makes no sense to upgrade the CPU in leu of building a completely new system around it, HOWEVER one CPU upgrade that does make a significant difference for a lot of people these days is going from single to dual core -- if your motherboard supports it (via bios upgrade or not).

        I just upgraded from a uni AMD64 3000+ -- that I built with my MSI Neo4 Platinum system a little over a year ago -- to a dualcore AMD64 X2 3800+ (b

      • I always end up buying a new mobo regardless of socket too, because the old mobo can't support the speed of the new cpu I want when I'm ready to buy anyway.
    • Socket 754 has benn phased out. Semprons are now socket 939. I'm not clear on how AM2 affects this situation, though.
      • The irony is the 754 will outlive the 939 since that is what the pin count the mobile CPU's use. Go figure. If things go like the last time, the AM2 and 939's will be priced about the same with a small performance lead for the latest greatest. As time goes on, the 5G+ whatever will be offered for the 939, but it will cost at least one limb more than the AM2 version.
    • The difference between socket 754 and 939 was quite legitmate. They needed the pins for the second memory channel. The difference between 939 and 940 was pointless and served to segment the market, much like Intel does between P4s and Xeons.

      I seem to remember that AM2 was going to be their new socket for everything for a while on. Both budget and performance processors are going to use it (I think).

      As another reply pointed out, this particular gripe only affects a tiny portion of the user base. I've been

      • The difference between 939 and 940 was pointless and served to segment the market, much like Intel does between P4s and Xeons.

        No, there were very good reasons! Socket 940 sacrificed signal return pins (power and ground) for memory ECC pins. ECC made the memory vastly more reliable. However, losing the return pins hurt electrical signal integrity, requiring that higher-latency registered memory modules be used. The ECC capability made AMD a lot of sales in the finance, medical, and industrial markets, wh

    • Re:Too many sockets!!! (Score:5, Informative)

      by forkazoo ( 138186 ) <<wrosecrans> <at> <gmail.com>> on Sunday April 23, 2006 @11:13PM (#15187618) Homepage
      Personally, I feel AMD has been a bit more reasonable with sockets. Pentium 4's have at least 423, 478, 775, and Pentium M has 478 and 480. Socket A lasted a long time, overlapping with Socket 370, IIRC. Since then, we've had 754, 939, and now AM2. (I'm ignoring 940, but also ignoring the Xeon sockets...) Since AM2 isn't actually out yet, that's two sockets that have been released in the same time frame that Intel released five.
      • Socket A lasted a long time, overlapping with Socket 370, IIRC.
        Nope -- you forgot Slot A. (I got bit by that one...)

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Since AM2 isn't actually out yet, that's two sockets that have been released in the same time frame that Intel released five.

        I don't disagree with your point, but your arguments seem rigged to favor AMD. Why would you count Intel's mobile sockets (Pentium M) in your comparison? Very few people, even among Slashdot readers, upgrade their notebook CPUs. Why not include AMD's other budget desktop socket (Socket A), since it's in the same time frame?

        Also, the Pentium 4/D architecture (introduced April 2001

        • Why would you count Intel's mobile sockets (Pentium M) in your comparison? Very few people, even among Slashdot readers, upgrade their notebook CPUs.

          Because a good number of people want to use "mobile" processors in their desktops. Either for overclocking, or for low-power computers. Both particularly popular among Slashdot readers.

          It wasn't uncommon with Socket A, and is much more common now with Socket 754.
    • I've always found myself upgrading the whole kit and kaboodle anyway... I suspect the people who piecemeal-upgrade their system are far in the minority.

      Most people haven't the knowledge to do it themselves, and a good number of us who do built it ourselves are too cheap to be continuously upgrading, so that by the time we spring for a worthwhile upgrade, we also need new slot styles, memory stick design, CPU, maybe even PS or HD.

    • Re:Too many sockets!!! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Spokehedz ( 599285 ) on Sunday April 23, 2006 @11:16PM (#15187626)
      Err... the P4 Comes in two socket styles. The old mPGA and the new 755-socket-whatcha-ma-callit. So right away, your argument is null and void.

      The 'old' 468-pin is just that--the OLD socket. Meaning, it's a completely different chip altogether.

      AMD has had some issues with sockets lately, I will grant you that. But Intel has been behind the 8-ball for a while now. AMD is now the innovator, and they are just playing catchup.
      • These new processors are for servers anyway, so its not worth worrying about the socket. The 939 pin socket was released in 2003, so by the time AM2 is mainstream its going to have had a reasonable lifetime.
    • BAD MODS, NO COOKIE!

      I still stay with intel because their chips are all on one socket.

      Complete, 100% Bullshit. "Insert Forkazoo's post here"

      Semprons & Athlons are different sockets, you can't turn a budget AMD box into something more powerfull without replacing the motherboard.

      Unequivocally WRONG. Entirely ignorant Intel fanboyism.

      There are socket 754 Sempron 64s [newegg.com], Athlon 64s [newegg.com], Mobile Athlon 64s [newegg.com], and Turion 64s [newegg.com].

      Besides, with Socket 939 CPUs starting at $300 or so, the motherboard is only 1/3rd the cost,

  • fake? (Score:5, Funny)

    by muszek ( 882567 ) on Sunday April 23, 2006 @10:57PM (#15187568) Homepage
    The story is fake. Nothing in our industry is released early.

    • Re:fake? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Bin Naden ( 910327 )
      This is what we call a paper release as pioneered by IBM in the good old days. When the competitors threaten to release a better product then yours, you claim that you are developing an even better product than them in order to prevent consumers from switching to the competitor. The actual release date doesn't matter, all that matters is that consumers anticipate that you will have an awesome product coming along that they will want to save money for. And as IBM proved, you don't even have to release the

  • 939... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Hyter ( 927004 ) on Sunday April 23, 2006 @11:02PM (#15187578)
    and 939 was suppose to be "future proof."

    • Re:939... (Score:3, Funny)

      by Bin Naden ( 910327 )
      and 939 was suppose to be "future proof."

      And 64k was supposed to be more than anyone would ever need.
    • Hate to say it, but for the average desktop user (developer included) a 4800+ processor should be more than enough juice to last quite a long time. I mean at what point do you "really need" more than 2.4Ghz of dual-core goodness to write a Java applet or C program or whatever...

      So really, if you went out and got a decked out FX-60 or 4800+ based box today, it would still be useful 5 years from now. ...

      But if you really must be on the bleeding edge, yeah, I'd hold off for AM2 instead of buying 939.

      Tom
  • i mean with the initial benchmarks out for their new architecture, i think amd maybe trying to reduce the advantage of intel by releasing some products early. :)

    i hope to get a processor wars soon (and hopefully, motherboard, chipset, memory, etc.) so everything will go faster and better while price drops. :)
  • I'm sure that announcements like this make Steve Jobs really happy that he went with AMD. 64-bit dual core? Hey, if intel can make it on time maybe Apple can launch those new desktops in August.

    • Re:Way to go Apple! (Score:2, Informative)

      by goMac2500 ( 741295 )
      Except Intel is launching 64 bit Quad Core in August. Yep, Steve seems to be pretty happy.

      • Re:Way to go Apple! (Score:4, Informative)

        by tomstdenis ( 446163 ) <tomstdenis@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Monday April 24, 2006 @06:05AM (#15188646) Homepage
        No, Intel is releasing a dual-dual-core not a quad-core. It's going to be two separate dies on one chip.

        Intel still hasn't figured out the whole "let's go MP" part yet either. While they are doing things like L2 sharing to speed up proccesses in the same dual-core part (which is a mixed blessing though) they are still using the single-FSB to do MP.

        Tom

  • But how much more money will it cost? (Score:3)

    by layer3switch ( 783864 ) on Sunday April 23, 2006 @11:39PM (#15187690)
    I am not talking about superficial retail madeup price. By past pricing scheme with early release claim, the tendency normally bend toward higher price otherwise cheaper with later release.

    I was looking forward to get it when it came out, but if higher price tag came along with it because of earlier release date, I would just wait.
    • I don't see why the price would be more expensive when released early versus when it would have been released normally. Usually prices start off at some point, and decrease proportionally to the time since release (by which I actually mean proportionally to the number of sales).

      It's not like they're giving a limited amount of people a "special preview". They shifted the release date earlier.

      If anything, now you wont have to wait as long for prices to drop. Since it'll be out earlier, the prices will drop ea

  • What about power use? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Entropius ( 188861 ) on Monday April 24, 2006 @12:12AM (#15187803)
    I've heard power consumption cited as one advantage of DDR-2 over DDR. On laptops that idle around a dozen watts, even a few hundred milliwatts in the memory subsystem can be a signficant change.

  • Memory Capacity? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bill Dimm ( 463823 ) on Monday April 24, 2006 @01:25AM (#15187997) Homepage
    I may buy/build a workstation soon that will need the capability of holding a large amount of RAM (say 32GB - calculations requiring a lot of memory but not a huge amount of CPU) at some point down the road (I can probably put off fully populating the memory for a while). I came across this post [aceshardware.com], which seems to say that motherboards for DDR2 will allow more DIMMs (16 2GB sticks is a lot cheaper than 8 4GB sticks right now, at least for DDR). It is talking about DDR2 with Opterons. Is there a launch date for DDR2 on Opteron? Is the capacity actually greater with DDR2? Is DDR likely to become scarce down the road, causing DDR2 to be a cheaper option for future expansion? Any opinions are appreciated (I haven't had an excuse to buy hardware in a long time, so I haven't kept up on such things).

    Sidenote: Yes, I am aware of the iWill DK88 [iwill.net] (16 DIMMs DDR) - anybody have any experience with it (especially with Linux)?
  • It sure looks like AMD is socking it to Intel with the lawsuit and now this release.

    It doesn't help either that HP/Intel's Itaniums aren't taking off and the AMD Opterons are doing well. Plus, as others have mentioned, AMD seems to backing Linux pretty tough. And I was looking @ alot of embedded devices and I see more AMD based ones than Intel.

    It's interesting how far AMD has come in the last 10+ years.
  • http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=31096 [theinquirer.net]

    Old news. Old old new.

                -Charlie

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