Should I upgrade to a Barton?

[ColdFlame]

It seems that by the time I'm back in this thread the spirited discussion about dangers of FSB has died down Good.

As far as why people fold with AMD it is because AMD is cheaper. I paid $60 or $65 for my Thorton 2000+ and overclocked it to 3000+ speeds simply by increasing the FSB. I want to see a p4 3.0 Ghz for $60 Yes, a p4 3.0 would outfold my Thorton but not by the price ratio (around 3.0-3.5 I think), maybe by 20-25% (guess).

[unregistered]

Actually, I believe AMD will soon be adding a whole slew of new chips to the Athlon XP line--after all, isn't Socket 754 ultimately supposed to become AMD's new XP platform?

Actualluy the barton is a socket 7 along with the t-bird, tbred. The 754 is for 64 bit processors. Check out AMD's website, take a look at their processor roadmap. The 3200 is the end of the line for socket 7.

[Buddabing]

Actually, I believe AMD will soon be adding a whole slew of new chips to the Athlon XP line--after all, isn't Socket 754 ultimately supposed to become AMD's new XP platform?

Actualluy the barton is a socket 7 along with the t-bird, tbred. The 754 is for 64 bit processors. Check out AMD's website, take a look at their processor roadmap. The 3200 is the end of the line for socket 7.

Socket 7 ended with the K6-2+ and K6-III processors. Socket A (for Athlon, I guess) is for the Thunderbird/Duron/Palamino/Thoroughbred/Barton/Thorton/Applebred cores.

Socket 940, 754, and 939 are for Athlon 64. It gets confusing telling which socket is for what processors, but the socket 939 is the socket of the future.

[zuperdee]

Actually, you people are both wrong on a couple points:

1) It appears AMD is planning to move the Athlon XP to Socket 754. Here's the story:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/displa ... 60723.html

2) Even after Socket 939 is released, Socket 940 is supposed to remain the Opteron platform.

[haysdb]

Actually, you people are both wrong on a couple points:

1) It appears AMD is planning to move the Athlon XP to Socket 754. Here's the story:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/displa ... 60723.html

2) Even after Socket 939 is released, Socket 940 is supposed to remain the Opteron platform.

This is the information I have gotten from AnandTech also.

Not sure I completely understand all of it though. Between all the different sockets, and the new "model names", customers are going to have a harder time than ever.

David

[ColdFlame]

How about not upgrading for about a year and let AMD and Intel figure out their socket troubles? My AMD 3600+ is plenty fast for whatever I do

[zuperdee]

How about not upgrading for about a year and let AMD and Intel figure out their socket troubles? My AMD 3600+ is plenty fast for whatever I do

1) No socket is forever. I figure if you wait, you'll be waiting forever. After all, if you just wait long enough, ANY socket, be it 370, 462, 478, 775, 754, 939, 940, 1200, 1578, or 32768 pins, will ultimately be replaced by something else. I see no point in waiting for whatever the latest Socket-of-the-Day is.

2) I think AMD's roadmap is fairly simple: Socket 754 for 32-bit Athlon XP's and low-end 64-bit Athlons with single-channel memory controllers, Socket 939 for dual-channel non-ECC desktop-oriented platforms, and Socket 940 for ultra-reliable ECC dual-channel server-oriented platforms. I don't understand how it could be any simpler. It sounds like ultimately, ALL with have DDR2 support.

3) Where did you get a 3600+? I didn't know AMD made one.

[unregistered]

Socket 7 ended with the K6-2+ and K6-III processors

I knew that, another brain cramp. My point is, Amd is not,"offically" planning to make any processors beyond the 3200 barton for socket A motherboards. Thats what I meant by:

With the 3200 at least you will have extended your MB as far as it will go (unless AMD adds another chip to the Barton line).

[ColdFlame]

How about not upgrading for about a year and let AMD and Intel figure out their socket troubles? My AMD 3600+ is plenty fast for whatever I do

1) No socket is forever. I figure if you wait, you'll be waiting forever. After all, if you just wait long enough, ANY socket, be it 370, 462, 478, 775, 754, 939, 940, 1200, 1578, or 32768 pins, will ultimately be replaced by something else. I see no point in waiting for whatever the latest Socket-of-the-Day is.

You misunderstood me. AMD released 64-bit CPUs with a new socket only to change it very soon. This was my point. I would not buy a 64-bit AMD today just because they are about to change the socket and kill the upgrade potential for the mobo..

Socket A (or whatever AthlonXP uses) is a great example of how you can have a socket for a long time. I think it lasted 2 years? I'd argue that 3200+ AthlonXP is the fastest (or almost the fastest) AMD CPU today and there is no point to move to AMD 64 _today_ for the extra performance.

[Harry Azol]

I don't understand how you can increase the FSB on a processor without making it super unreliable. My Thoroughbred 2400+ crashes before it gets off the ground if I try to do that. No way would I try to overclock the FSB.

I have read now also that the Thoroughbred 2700+ benchmarks with almost exactly the same results as the Barton 3000+. Methinks it is looking more and more attractive.

to maximize FSB overclocking, you want a slow cpu running on a slow fsb, but that is from the same batch as faster processors..

for example, my Tbred B 1700+ (1.46ghz/133mhz stock) runs nicely at 2.2ghz/200mhz..

[mpteach]

I don't understand how you can increase the FSB on a processor without making it super unreliable. My Thoroughbred 2400+ crashes before it gets off the ground if I try to do that. No way would I try to overclock the FSB.

I have read now also that the Thoroughbred 2700+ benchmarks with almost exactly the same results as the Barton 3000+. Methinks it is looking more and more attractive.

to maximize FSB overclocking, you want a slow cpu running on a slow fsb, but that is from the same batch as faster processors..

for example, my Tbred B 1700+ (1.46ghz/133mhz stock) runs nicely at 2.2ghz/200mhz..

Or you get an unlocked chip like the mobile barton. You set the multiplier lower and then crank up the fsb.

[unregistered]

zuperdee already got his new proc.

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=11956