X-bit labs

AMD Athlon 64 FX to Receive Faster Bus Next Year.

Category: Chipsets

by Anton Shilov

[ 11/13/2003 | 03:31 PM ]

Silicon Integrated Systems, the world’s third largest chipset developer, today disclosed some details about its next-generation SiS755FX core-logic and consequently leaked some facts about AMD’s future Athlon 64 FX processors in Socket 939.

In early October we published a news-story telling you about SiS’ chipset roadmap. As we reported, the company had plans to increase the speed of the HyperTransport bus used by AMD Athlon 64 family of processors. Today the company officially confirmed SiS’ intentions to pump up the frequency of HyperTransport bus used as FSB for AMD’s eighth generation of microprocessors to 1000MHz.

Officially confirmed plans of SiS may possibly reflect AMD’s preparations to increase the rate of the bus for its 64-bit processors next year. HyperTransport bus clocked at 1000MHz would result in 8GB/s aggregate bandwidth for AMD’s next-generation processors’ FSB, a 25% increase over the current 6.40GB/s aggregate bandwidth.

SiS755FX chipset only brings higher-clocked PSB as well as officially claimed support for Socket 939 processors expected to come only next year. Currently no mainboard maker has announced Socket 939 platforms, as there are no AMD Athlon 64 FX CPUs in 939-pin packaging at this point in the market.

According to unofficial information, SiS will add SiS756 and 761 chipsets into its plethora of core-logic sets in 2004. Both newcomers will have PCI Express x16 graphics busses and will support AMD Athlon 64 processors for Socket 754/939 and Socket 754 respectively. The SiS761 will also sport a DirectX 9.0-compliant graphics core from SiS, it was said in early October.

SiS will also offer two new I/O controllers in 2004. The new SiS965 will offer 8 USB 2.0 ports, PCI and 2 PCI Express x1 connectors, 2-channel integrated Parallel ATA-33/66/100/133 controller and 4 Serial ATA-150 connectors with RAID support. Among standard features we should mention 10/100/1000Mb/s Ethernet, Home PNA 2.0, 6-channel audio-solution, MC’97 Modem and AC’97 Audio. In addition, it will boast with FireWire (IEEE1394) support. SiS966 adds yet another pair of PCI Express x1 ports as well as Intel’s Azalia audio.

Besides 939-pin AMD Athlon 64 FX CPUs, the Sunnyvale, California-based chipmaker will also sell 940-pin Athlon 64 FX next year. There is no information about PSB change for processors in 940-pin packaging.

Representatives from AMD were not available for comment at press time. We may update the story once we receive official words.