GERMAN HARDWARE Web site Hard Tecs 4U has published one of the first reviews of the AMD Athlon 64 3000+ processor.
This new model runs at the same 2 GHz frequency as the flagship product, but does so with 512 KB of level two cache, which is half of what the 3200+ model has. Cheapest Price Watch price has it for $214, which is $156 less than the $370 3.2 GHz P4.
There are whispers in the air emanating from Sun Microsystems, and while faint, the voices speak of massive things - a deal with AMD.
For awhile now, we've brought you news of an upcoming Opteron-based workstation from Sun. And it now seems that whatever flirtation Sun had with the x86-64bit chip has turned into infatuation. A kind soul in Asia and couple closer to home have brought word that Sun plans to unleash a one- to two-way Opteron server and a four-way Opteron box.
Cray has given AMD's Opteron chip a big vote of confidence, saying it will roll out a new line of supercomputers based around the product.
In 2004, Cray will begin selling systems with anywhere from 64 to more than 10,000 Opteron processors. All of the supercomputer-style systems will have a custom interconnect developed by Cray to deliver the kind of internal bandwidth needed for complex technical computing tasks. The decision to roll out the Opteron-based product line follows a deal Cray won last year to create a 10,000-plus processor system for Sandia National Labs.
Gamer-friendly notebook maker VoodooPC has introduced an AMD Athlon 64-based machine to its line of Envy Pentium-based portables.
The Envy m:855 is built around a VIA K8T800 chipset. Its graphics sub-system is driven by an ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 chip with 64MB of video RAM, hooked up to a 15in screen. Since all of VoodooPC's machines are built to order, the company didn't detail memory, hard drive and DVD-RW optical storage, but the HDD it's offering is Hitachi's 7200rpm notebook-friendly Travelstar, probably a 60GB version.
ONE THING that should have been shouted from the rooftops at the AMD Athlon 64 launch was a simple thing about the FX line of chips, unlocking. There was precious little hard info about the chips given out at the launch, it was more of a 'happy, feel good session', I was happy, and people there felt good.
The hard info was available if you asked, but the audience dictated that shiny things were the order of the day.
Sun Microsystems' flirtation with AMD continues with the Java Desktop System set to make its way onto the Athlon 64 processor.
When Sun releases the Linux-based Java Desktop software later this year, it will run on AMD's Ahtlon 64 processor but only in 32-bit mode. Sun plans to rectify this situation "over time" and create a 64-bit version of the Java Desktop for AMD's AMD64-based desktop chip.
"We want to make sure people understand that there is an alternative out there," said Sun's CTO of software John Fowler.
AMD would like you to know that its mobile Athlon 64 goes very nicely with 802.11 wireless networking. And in a bid to get hacks assembled at its Cannes launch event this week to think 'wireless', the chip maker thoughtfully laid on a WLAN for them to use to quickly file column inches for their respective rags.
AMD today offered the possibility that it will take future Opteron server and workstation chips down the multi-core route espoused by Intel last week, and already well-trodden by IBM.
Speaking at the launch of the Athlon 64 and Athlon FX processors, AMD chairman Jerry Sanders said: "With coherent HyperTransport, it's inevitable that we'll have multiple cores on a single chip. This is a tremendous opportunity because with our architecture the scaling is far superior to anything else that's out there."
RUSSIAN HARDWARE SITE, OverClockers.ru seems to have succeeded in taking an AMD Duron procesor and fiddling with it in order to turn it into an Athlon-alike.
They say that an L2 bridge present on the Duron processor is not locked. If you lock it again, they suggest, you enable the L2 cache of 256KB.
They report that some Durons will crash with the 256KB of L2 cache enabled but thay got at least one working and overclocked it.
They reckon a 1.60GHz Duron with 266MHz EV-6 FSB and functional 256KB L2 performs as fast as an AMD Athlon XP 1900+ (1600MHz, 266MHz FSB).
IF YOU'RE PLANNING to offer an AMD Athlon 64 system, you'll have to adhere to a very strict set of guidelines, according to documents seen by the INQ today.
And you'd better get your skates on too, because Sarah Beck and Jeff Lowe must see them before Tuesday September the 9th.
Jeff and Sarah have some helpful guidelines on writing a release, which may save you the cost of hiring one of those expensive spin doctors you're always reading about.
