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

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 order 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)

sutliff.RemoveThis@gmail.com

NY

..

PS: NOT to sound argumentative, but would anyone argue that any other RAM is
HEAD & SHOULDERS above Crucial? (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.

Sniper wrote:
> 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 order 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)
>
> sutliff.TakeThisOut@gmail.com
>
> NY
>
> PS: NOT to sound argumentative, but would anyone argue that any other RAM is
> HEAD & SHOULDERS above Crucial? (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.
>

Hypertransport is the bus that connects the processor to the Northbridge, and
a separate bus connects the Northbridge to the Southbridge. The "2000MHz" number
is virtually meaningless (i.e. they're all the same for AM2), and is easily confused
by users with the CPU core clock. Which is why it is a stupid thing to put in
advertising copy. In fact, you can tell a shabby retailer, by whether they put
that in the adverts or not

A Hypertransport interface, has two separate unidirectional busses. The processor
has a 16 bit input bus and a 16 bit output bus. The clock is actually 1000MHz, and
data is transferred on the bus twice per clock cycle. If you do the arithmetic,
this amounts to 4GB/sec input and 4GB/sec output. And those bandwidth figures
exactly match the figures for the interface on a single PCI Express x16 video card,
which is also 4GB/sec on its input bus, and 4GB/sec on its output bus.

There is also a Hypertransport bus interconnect between the Northbridge and Southbridge,
but this may have different dimensions and speed. Depending on what I/O is going
through the Southbridge, it may not need as much performance. An exception might be
a Northbridge/Southbridge duet designed to do SLI with two x16 video card slots, in
which case the Northbridge-Southbridge link would be as fat as the one the processor
uses.

There are currently two "black edition" processors. Some of the tech review sites
will tell you it has an unlocked multiplier, but that may not be stated in the
advertising copy. The retail box also does not contain a heatsink/fan, which is
also a significant difference if you were looking for a bargain. The 6400+
probably doesn't have a lot of overclocking headroom left, which means the
other lower speed "black edition" processor may make more sense if you're after
"something for nothing". You don't need an unlocked multiplier to overclock, as
people have been happily overclocking by changing the CPU input clock frequency.

Potentially, each time a different silicon die is produced, it could be given a
name by the developers. Some of the names in your list above, are all part of the
same family of parts. Some of the entries in your list are quite different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_Athlon_64_microprocessors

Barcelona is a quad core, in a server socket. It was tested here.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3092&p=3

Phenom is a quad core, to be available in an AM2/AM2+ socket. The
presentation here is very confusing, thanks to what passes for a
labeling scheme. This represents the future, and nothing to worry
about. These will likely match similar Intel processors, pricewise,
so won't necessarily be a bargain. Whatever performance they give,
will help set the price.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenom_%28processor%29

The one on the left here, is an example of the upcoming AMD quad cores.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Amd_cpu_die_compare.jpg

The FX-70/FX-72/FX-74 were socket 1207 processors, intended for use in
the "4x4" motherboard. Imagine having two 130W processors, plus some
hot video cards, in your computer. This product doubles as a room heater
in winter. These processors are dual core, and using two of them was intended
to compete with an Intel quad core.

http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=1530&l1=3&l2=136&...486&l4=

The "4x4" product was invented, so AMD could have an entry in the chart here,
near the top. You can see that the two FX-74 processors manage twice the
performance of a single 6000+, which means the FX-74 is very similar, but
there are two sockets on the motherboard so you can double the performance
under some conditions.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2006.html?modelx=33&model1=609&model...94&char

Paul