Questions about 65 nm processors

[Boe]

Hello,

I see a lot of mentions about the new 65 nm processors that AMD may have out
by the end of the year but haven't heard too much about why I should wait.
They may be something well worth waiting for but haven't seen much about
what they will offer.

First and most important - will they be faster?
I would guess they will use less energy - is that the case?
Will they run cooler under a full load?
Will they have a new chipset that will offer more usb ports or anything
good?
Are there any other benefits?

Thanks!

 

[Wes Newell]

Hello,

I see a lot of mentions about the new 65 nm processors that AMD may have out
by the end of the year but haven't heard too much about why I should wait.
They may be something well worth waiting for but haven't seen much about
what they will offer.

First and most important - will they be faster?
I would guess they will use less energy - is that the case?
Will they run cooler under a full load?

Normally a die shrink allows for faster speeds using less energy. Less
energy means less heat.

Will they have a new chipset that will offer more usb ports or anything
good?

Depends on what MB you buy.

Are there any other benefits?

Manfacturing cost go down, but expect to pay higher end user prices at
first.

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

Hello,

I see a lot of mentions about the new 65 nm processors that AMD may have out
by the end of the year but haven't heard too much about why I should wait.
They may be something well worth waiting for but haven't seen much about
what they will offer.

First and most important - will they be faster?
I would guess they will use less energy - is that the case?
Will they run cooler under a full load?
Will they have a new chipset that will offer more usb ports or anything
good?
Are there any other benefits?

Thanks!

The expectations are that there will be a modest speed increase, nothing
major. The big change comes next year with the four core chips, however
for most users four cores won't be very useful.

 

[Scotter]

I've heard some say they will be shrunk to 65nm but others say they are
staying with that size for one more iteration. So... your guess is as good
as mine regarding die size for the first AM2s coming out.

The more reliable info is that all new AM2 motherboards will support DDR2,
which runs at faster speeds but does have higher latency, but yeah the end
result being RAM that is a bit faster.

Other info is that the CPU sockets will be slightly larger. Not sure on this
one.

Finally, that the 1ghz hypertransport will stay 1ghz for now.

Oh and I heard speculation about the new AM2 chips power usage, that the
FX-?63? running at 2.8ghz would consume more power than the FX-60 (2.6ghz)
currently does, but hey if they are staying with 90nm then that makes sense.
But the lower end X2 chip, 2.6ghz, will consume less power than current
2.6ghz X2 chips so even if they are not shrinking the die yet, apparently
they are doing *something* to reduce power consumption.

--
Scotter
Tyan Thunder K8WE
Dual Opteron 252s (2.6ghz)
6 gig DDR400 RAM
XFX 7800 GTX 256 w/VGAsilencerV3
500 gig SATA2 Hitachi
160 gig SATA1 Seagate
Dual 24" Dell LCDs
550W power supply
X-Fi Platinum Soundblaster
-

 

[Ed]

I've heard some say they will be shrunk to 65nm but others say they are
staying with that size for one more iteration. So... your guess is as good
as mine regarding die size for the first AM2s coming out.

The more reliable info is that all new AM2 motherboards will support DDR2,
which runs at faster speeds but does have higher latency, but yeah the end
result being RAM that is a bit faster.

Other info is that the CPU sockets will be slightly larger. Not sure on this
one.

Finally, that the 1ghz hypertransport will stay 1ghz for now.

Oh and I heard speculation about the new AM2 chips power usage, that the
FX-?63? running at 2.8ghz would consume more power than the FX-60 (2.6ghz)
currently does, but hey if they are staying with 90nm then that makes sense.
But the lower end X2 chip, 2.6ghz, will consume less power than current
2.6ghz X2 chips so even if they are not shrinking the die yet, apparently
they are doing *something* to reduce power consumption.

http://techgage.com/review.php?id=4245
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=850
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/21/a_look_at_amds_socket_am2_platform/index.html