Athlon 64 FX-53: end of the waiting game?

AMD has recently been busy capitalising on Intel's stumble with its new series of Pentium 4 chips, codenamed Prescott. Intel still struggling to scale its new 90nm CPUs beyond Northwood speeds (3.2GHz), whereas AMD already has a Pentium 4 3.4GHz competitor out in the shape of the Athlon 64 3400+ (Clawhammer core) desktop variant. Even so, the new Athlon 64 FX-53 isn't without competition. Intel's own enthusiast-orientated processor line-up, the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, was revved up earlier this year when the company added a 3.4GHz version. Should you jump onboard the 64-bit wagon, though? It's no secret that AMD's Hammer cores are faster clock-for-clock when compared with Intel's Pentium 4, and any clock speed ramp will bring news of good yield rates, maturing manufacturing process and scalability. This means we can expect more good things from AMD in the not-too-distant future. But, strange as it may sound, that's where the problem lies.

Enter Socket 939
AMD is currently preparing a new processor packaging for its Hammer cores, called Socket 939. The current FX chip line (with dual-channel memory controller) has 940 pins, while the desktop variety (with single-channel memory controller) has 754 pins. One of the earlier criticisms of the current FX chips has been the performance penalty that arises through the use of ECC memory normally reserved for the server market. The new packaging eliminates this, and AMD appears confident of the performance improvements, recently re-labelling its 2.2GHz Athlon 64 3400+ as 3500+, despite halving the L2 cache to 512KB with the updated 'Newcastle' mainstream desktop core. So if the grapevine's right, around mid-year, that spanking new Socket 940 FX-53 will itself be spanked by a much cheaper Socket 939 (with dual-channel memory controller) Newcastle processor. Despite what AMD wants you to believe, the current FX line isn't heaps and bounds better than its desktop variants in games. In fact, we've found the performance of the 2.2GHz Athlon 64 3400+ to perform just as well as the 2.2GHz FX-51, even gaining a few victories in some games -- a fact that other enthusiast sites confirm. Here, the encumbrance of ECC memory cannot be more pronounced, especially for a chip whose crosshair is sighted on high-end gamers. With the Athlon 64 3400+ retailing at less than half the price of the FX-51, we think this is an important fact that isn't widely appreciated.

The state of 64-bit play
What about 64 bits? Supplies of AMD64 processors have been a little tight, causing prices to remain high and prohibitive. In addition, with Microsoft still dragging its feet over a 64-bit version of its OS, one really has to wonder whether 64-bit will make much of an impact in the near future. However, we're not saying that 64-bit is a lost cause. Even Intel had to eat some humble pie by putting out its own compatible version of x86 64-bit extensions for its IA32 (Intel Architecture 32-bit) processors -- a move that departs from the chip giant's former policy of leaving 64 bits for its IA64 Itanium servers. What we are saying is that buying a CPU for 64-bit computing should not be a major consideration -- at least until next year. By then, we'll have seen a handful of 64-bit processor choices, ranging from later steppings of Intel Prescotts and Tejas to AMD Clawhammers and Newcastles for the desktop space; for the high rollers, there's always Intel's 'Gallatin' and possibly 'Nocona' for the Extreme Edition line, along with AMD's Sledgehammer and San Diego FX chips. We know you're tired of waiting, but we're almost at the end of the proverbial tunnel. The lower clock-speed Newcastle-core Athlon 64s will be worth every penny.

Processor cores, present & future
Core name	Details
Intel Prescott	A revised Northwood core with an expanded 1MB of level 2 cache, built on a 90nm process.
Intel Tejas	Next-generation Intel core with 64-bit extensions; may possibly come with multiple cores.
AMD Clawhammer	Current generation of AMD Socket 754 Athlon 64s, with single-channel memory controller and 1MB L2 cache.
AMD Newcastle	Revised Clawhammer core with 512KB rather than 1MB of L2 cache. Socket 939 versions will have a dual-channel memory controller for unbuffered RAM.
Intel Gallatin	Intel's Xeon core repackaged as a 478-pin Extreme Edition Pentium 4. It has 2MB of L3 cache in addition to the 512KB of L2 cache of normal Northwood Pentium 4s.
Intel Nocona	Next-generation Xeon core with 64-bit extensions. With no news of a new core for the Extreme Edition line, we're expecting a repackaged Nocona to take the place of the 478-pin Gallatin.
AMD Sledgehammer	The Sledgehammer core was initially intended to be used as a server CPU (Opteron), but was renamed as the Athlon 64 FX to offer something to the enthusiasts.
AMD San Diego	Next-generation core to replace the Sledgehammers.