Athlon 64 X2 6400+ ----> "Black Edition" ???

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Sniper

My Q is: I am beginning to 'piece' together a new PC. This Athlon XP 3200+
(Barton), Soltek board, & Crucial RAM have served me very, very well.

I am/was lurking around Newegg & TigerDirect in oder to make a proc choice &
purchase.

I've figured I am pretty much being 'driven' to Socket AM2. That seems to
be what the 'top-end' AMD procs use (?). Yes, that was a question.

Checking AMD company info, I cut & pasted this directly from AMD.com ---->
"Athlon 64 X2 6400+ 'Black Edition' (3.2GHz, 125W, & 2MB total dedicated L2
cache, 2000MHz HyperTransportT bus, socket AM2)".

I will attempt to ask my questions as simple as I can.

According to the above proc, can anyone give me more information on it?
What is 2000MHz HyperTrans Bus? Is that a different/new way of saying FSB
these days? What is w/this 'Black Ed.' deal?

As I am reading/learning, could someone add some light to the difference(s)
between Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core(s) & Athlon FX(s)-64 & 70? (FYI: I am not a
power user nor a hard-core gamer, nor a gamer in general, @ least not on a
PC; I am just someone who wants to have the very BEST from the company(s) I
choose.

Additionally, knowing that my XP 3200+ (Barton) was 'un-locked', I never
tried, or cared to, OC it. So I am looking for something that is blazing
fast out-of-the-box. Also, what is the deal with the numerous names of
'cores' (?), such as:
Barcelona,
Brisbane,
Denmark,
Egypt,
Italy,
Manchester,
Manila,
Orleans,
Palermo,
San Diego,
Santa Ana,
Santa Rosa,
Sparta,
Taylor,
Toledo,
Trinidad,
Troy, &
Windsor (s) ?!?!?!

ANY info any of you guys, & gals, could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Jason (Sniper)
(e-mail address removed)
NY

..


PS: NOT to sound argumentative, but would anyone argue that any other RAM
is HEAD & SHOULDERS above Crucail? (I have just really had great luck
w/them. From 4 separate PCs, a laptop, & their SD (MP3 player & DigiCam) &
MicroSD (2GB for my cell phone). Again, any info / constructive criticism
would be greatly appreciated.
 
My Q is: I am beginning to 'piece' together a new PC. This Athlon XP
3200+ (Barton), Soltek board, & Crucial RAM have served me very, very
well.

I am/was lurking around Newegg & TigerDirect in oder to make a proc
choice & purchase.

I've figured I am pretty much being 'driven' to Socket AM2. That seems
to be what the 'top-end' AMD procs use (?). Yes, that was a question.

Checking AMD company info, I cut & pasted this directly from AMD.com
----> "Athlon 64 X2 6400+ 'Black Edition' (3.2GHz, 125W, & 2MB total
dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransportT bus, socket AM2)".

I will attempt to ask my questions as simple as I can.

According to the above proc, can anyone give me more information on it?
What is 2000MHz HyperTrans Bus? Is that a different/new way of saying
FSB these days? What is w/this 'Black Ed.' deal?

As I am reading/learning, could someone add some light to the
difference(s) between Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core(s) & Athlon FX(s)-64 & 70?
(FYI: I am not a power user nor a hard-core gamer, nor a gamer in
general, @ least not on a PC; I am just someone who wants to have the
very BEST from the company(s) I choose.

Additionally, knowing that my XP 3200+ (Barton) was 'un-locked', I never
tried, or cared to, OC it. So I am looking for something that is
blazing fast out-of-the-box. Also, what is the deal with the numerous
names of 'cores' (?), such as:
Barcelona,
Brisbane,
Denmark,
Egypt,
Italy,
Manchester,
Manila,
Orleans,
Palermo,
San Diego,
Santa Ana,
Santa Rosa,
Sparta,
Taylor,
Toledo,
Trinidad,
Troy, &
Windsor (s) ?!?!?!

ANY info any of you guys, & gals, could offer would be greatly
appreciated.

Thank you,

Jason (Sniper)
(e-mail address removed)
NY

.


PS: NOT to sound argumentative, but would anyone argue that any other
RAM is HEAD & SHOULDERS above Crucail? (I have just really had great
luck w/them. From 4 separate PCs, a laptop, & their SD (MP3 player &
DigiCam) & MicroSD (2GB for my cell phone). Again, any info /
constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

AMD processors don't have front side buses, they have on chip memory
interfaces plus separate hypertransport buses. The hypertransport bus is
used for IO and for interprocessor communication in Opteron systems which
have multiple processor chips on the same board. Intel processors still
use FSBs. A front side bus combines the functions of a memory bus and an
IO bus. Although an FSB is less efficient the Intel Core2 processors make
up for it by using much larger caches. In fact the Intel Core2 is faster
than the AMD X2s on a clock for clock basis. The Core2 is the best choice
for new systems today. Intel will be releasing a new generation of
processors in early January, if you can wait I'd get one of those. The
code name for the new Intel part is Penryn, it uses a 45nm process and
has 6M of cache for the dual cores and 12M of cache for the quad cores.
You will want a dual core, you don't need a quad core.
 
I've figured I am pretty much being 'driven' to Socket AM2. That seems to
be what the 'top-end' AMD procs use (?). Yes, that was a question.
Click to expand...
For desktop, yes.
Checking AMD company info, I cut & pasted this directly from AMD.com
----> "Athlon 64 X2 6400+ 'Black Edition' (3.2GHz, 125W, & 2MB total
dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransportT bus, socket AM2)".

I will attempt to ask my questions as simple as I can.

According to the above proc, can anyone give me more information on it?
What is 2000MHz HyperTrans Bus?
Click to expand...

The standard HT IO bus speed (2 way).
Is that a different/new way of saying FSB these days? What is w/this
'Black Ed.' deal?
Click to expand...
There is no FSB like you're used to. They split the memory bus out when
they put the memory controller in the cpu. So basically, it's a FSB not
sharing the memory bus. Some now call it the system bus, which really
isn't very specific, but what can I say... Black edition is just a
marketing name for the faster X2's and they don't come with a cooler IIRC.
As I am reading/learning, could someone add some light to the
difference(s) between Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core(s) & Athlon FX(s)-64 & 70?
(FYI: I am not a power user nor a hard-core gamer, nor a gamer in
general, @ least not on a PC; I am just someone who wants to have the
very BEST from the company(s) I choose.
Click to expand...

The diff is simple, 1 core or 2. And 2 cores is better than one. Best is
relative. Your best bang for the buck would be the X2 3800+ and it would
be twice as fast as your current XP 3200+. They have more than enough
power for anything you want to do.
Additionally, knowing that my XP 3200+ (Barton) was 'un-locked', I never
tried, or cared to, OC it. So I am looking for something that is
blazing fast out-of-the-box. Also, what is the deal with the numerous
names of 'cores' (?), such as:
Barcelona,
Brisbane,
Denmark,
Egypt,
Italy,
Manchester,
Manila,
Orleans,
Palermo,
San Diego,
Santa Ana,
Santa Rosa,
Sparta,
Taylor,
Toledo,
Trinidad,
Troy, &
Windsor (s) ?!?!?!
Click to expand...
That's what yahoo and google are for.
PS: NOT to sound argumentative, but would anyone argue that any other
RAM is HEAD & SHOULDERS above Crucail? (I have just really had great
luck w/them. From 4 separate PCs, a laptop, & their SD (MP3 player &
DigiCam) & MicroSD (2GB for my cell phone). Again, any info /
constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

Ram is ram, with few exceptions. Since the memory controller is in the
cpu, bandwidth isn't really a problem.
 
Wes

How can one compare CPUs? You say below one is twice as fast as the other. I
guess it very much depends upon what application is being used, right?

But what is (in general terms) the speed difference (faster than, twice as
fast, whatevver you think best describes it) between an AMD Duo Core Athlon
2.2 Ghz 64X2 and an AMD Duo core Athlon 64X2 6000 ? I guess that is 3.Ghz,
right?
 
Wes

How can one compare CPUs? You say below one is twice as fast as the
other. I guess it very much depends upon what application is being used,
right?
Click to expand...
There are many factors to determining which cpu is best for a particular
job.
But what is (in general terms) the speed difference (faster than, twice
as fast, whatevver you think best describes it) between an AMD Duo Core
Athlon 2.2 Ghz 64X2 and an AMD Duo core Athlon 64X2 6000 ? I guess that
is 3.Ghz, right?
Click to expand...

The only difference is the MHz. If one was 2000, and the other 3000, then
the latter would be 50% faster. But that only considers internal
operation. There are many more factors than just the cpu speed that
determine overall performance.
 
The only difference is the MHz. If one was 2000, and the other 3000, then
the latter would be 50% faster. But that only considers internal
operation. There are many more factors than just the cpu speed that
determine overall performance.
Click to expand...

There is a common misconception that increasing clock speed gives you a
proportional increase in perfomance. The only time this is true is when you
increase the clock of identical cpus, such as when overclocking, and even
then, as you said, there are many more factors. Increasing clock speed 50%
does not ususally give a 50% increase in cpu performance because many
components of the cpu can't scale upwards proportional to the clock speed
increase. Intel learned that lesson the hard way when they ramped the P4 up
to 3.8 GHz. Surprise surprise, it didn't even come close to giving a
proportional increase in performance.

OTOH - going from 2 GHz to 3GHz should give some noticable improvement :)
 
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