S
spinlock
You know what they say,
"two Eds are better than one"
"two Eds are better than one"
939 boards are also cheaper to make, 4 layer instead of 6.
Oh geez, now we got two Ed's, and they're gonna carry on a confusing debate
amongst themselves.
KR Williams said:@twister01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com>, (e-mail address removed)
says...
Nope. Same Ed, just a different moniker (look at the headings).
KR said:Why? I don't see the memory differences as significant.
Rupert said:Same question crossed my mind. My guess is that they weren't *too*
bothered about Opteron boards being costly so they didn't put much
effort into keeping the layer count down. I'll bet that some bright
spark spotted an alternative pin-out that would allow 4 layer
boards sometime after S940 was released, hence the magic new S939
that allows 4-Layer boards.
Rob said:No. Socket 940, 939, and 754 were all announced at the same time.
Manufacturers were ready to start cranking out Socket 939 boards
more than a year ago but AMD just wasn't producing the chips.
As well, PDF illustrating the pin-outs for all three sockets were
available at AMD's site early last year and I would expect they
are still there if you are interested.
person Rupert Pigott said:Same question crossed my mind. My guess is that they weren't *too*
bothered about Opteron boards being costly so they didn't put much
effort into keeping the layer count down. I'll bet that some bright
spark spotted an alternative pin-out that would allow 4 layer
boards sometime after S940 was released, hence the magic new S939
that allows 4-Layer boards.
Rupert Pigott said:Must admit I'm curious to see what kind of differences exist between
939 and 940.
from the wonderful said:Read that last sentence again. ;-)
The reality is that you need the ground/power planes for electrical
reasons, other than the *MASSIVE* power these things dissipate.
Think about 60W at ~1.25V. That's a wee bit of current. In
addition the impedance of the power distribution must be kept as
low as possible to reduce noise. The planes are also necessary to
keep the impedance of the signal lines constant. Two of the four
planes were power planes in the 486 days, without the massive
currents we now see.
Yes, you can theoretically wire anything using two layers, with an
infinite wiring space, infinitely long wires, and an infinite
number of vias. To make everything work, there are restrictions on
all of these as well as the differences in these from one wire to
another.
Yousuf said:If they are the same Ed, then why is one asking a question of the
other?
This has the potential of making the Tony vs. Tony Hill
debates look comprehensible.
Rupert said:Same question crossed my mind. My guess is that they weren't *too*
bothered about Opteron boards being costly so they didn't put much
effort into keeping the layer count down. I'll bet that some
bright spark spotted an alternative pin-out that would allow 4
layer boards sometime after S940 was released, hence the magic new
S939 that allows 4-Layer boards.
Yousuf said:From a purely end-user perspective, the biggest difference between
939 and 940 is that 939 is for unbuffered DDR, while 940 is for
server-class buffered DDR. I assume that since 940 uses buffered
DDR, the potential exists to outfit 940 board with well over two
DIMMs per processor.
GSV said:Bitstring <[email protected]>, from the
wonderful person Rupert Pigott
I'm not sure you can blame the pinout - I can't see why you can't
route anything with 4 layers (actually, iirc, with 2 .. in theory,
for constant width wires), unless/until you start needing massive
power distribution and ground planes?
Rupert said:Eeek, I hadn't twigged 939 & 940 were launched at the same time. Seems
a bit odd that the 4/6 layer difference exists in that case.
K said:Yousuf Khan wrote:
But, but... Why would a 940 board that *only* supports four DIMMs
be more complicated than a 939 board that only supports 4 DIMMs?
DIMMs is Dimms (at least on this level).
GSV said:Yes I know .. I spent 20 years working on / managing IC CAD
software, including routers, and I haven't quiet forgotten all of
it yet. 8>.
You still haven't explained to my satisfaction why a =pin-out
change= can suddenly force the requirement for another two wiring
planes.
I can see why an =additional= power requirement, or need
for =additional= signal conditioning (like you're running on the
hairy edge, which is why you needed buffered DIMMS in the first
place) could up the wiring planes needed, but a pinout change
which magically needs two extra board layers seems like something
you could hardly devise if you worked at it.
K Williams said:But, but... Why would a 940 board that *only* supports four DIMMs
be more complicated than a 939 board that only supports 4 DIMMs?
DIMMs is Dimms (at least on this level).
K Williams said:My news server has a "Grumble" post threaded in between.
;-) That one got me!
K Williams said:The only possible difference I can see is that the S939 boards won't
be pretending to do more than one processor, so may be somewhat
simpler that way. However that would assume the HT links aren't
being used for anything else. So why all the pins?