AMD Athlon 64 to Receive Dual-Channel Memory Controller Next Year

by Anton Shilov
06/19/2003 | 09:14 AM

Since Intel constantly strengthens its Pentium 4 and Celeron processors by boosting clock-speeds, PSB speeds, adding more techniques like the Hyper-Threading and so on, AMD also needs to gain the performance of its existing and upcoming chips. Obviously, the company always considers different ideas of increasing the performance of its products, but never announces them publicly before the actual release as no one wants to be blamed for ineffective execution.

Asian web-sites PCWatch and DigiTimes have managed to find out AMD’s latest plans concerning the Athlon 64 chips.

According to the most-recent reports, the first batch of Athlon 64 processors for desktop computers will be supplied in August. It does not mean that the actual announcement will happen earlier than expected originally, but it means that the formal announcement to take place in September will not be another paper-launch and the 64-bit CPUs from AMD will be available immediately.

The first Athlon 64 chips to make it on the market will be Athlon 64 1.80GHz and Athlon 64 2.0GHz with 3100+ and 3400+ model numbers respectively and 1MB of L2 cache. Later AMD will release its Athlon 64 2.20GHz (3700+) chip based on 0.13 micron fabrication process. Apparently, the 2.40GHz Athlon 64 processor with model number 4000+ and 1MB L2 will emerge only in middle-2004 or later and will be made using 90nm technology.

What is the most interesting about all the 90nm Athlon 64 chips code-named San Diego is that they all will support dual-channel memory access, just like Opteron CPUs. It means the Athlon 64 processors starting from 4000+ will utilize a different Socket (presumably, Socket 940) and all mainboards for the Athlon 64 chips coming out this year will not be able to support the new CPUs unless mainboard makers think about compatibility with future processors now. Theoretically, we will be able to use those new 90nm processors with mainboards based on NVIDIA nForce3 Pro intended for Opteron microprocessors, however, this is not yet confirmed.

For mainstream desktop personal computers AMD will release the Athlon 64 CPUs with 256KB of L2 cache. Initial chips will be based on Paris core made using 0.13 micron fabrication technology, but next year 90nm microprocessors powered by Victoria core will be available. Victoria will not support dual-channel memory, hence, it will be possible to use such CPUs on older Socket 754 mainboards.

In case AMD implements dual-channel memory controller in its Athlon 64 processor next year, it will not be a really critical task for them to integrate DDR-II controller earlier than in middle-2005. On the other hand, DDR-II version of the Athlon 64 will once again require a new CPU Socket.

Keep in mind that the whole bunch of information comes from unofficial sources and may be misleading in some cases.