AMD has released its first dual-core Athlon 64 FX processor, the FX-60. The Reg puts it through its paces, and concludes: “AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 is the best consumer processor AMD has ever produced. With effectively a pair of FX-55s sat in the same socket, sharing an efficient memory controller, it’s close enough to FX-57 in single-threaded apps that the multi-threaded advantage makes that slender gap moot. Targetted at the well-heeled enthusiast, the new dual-core processor should be a shoo-in for those with FX-57s already, and those with the required readies to drop on the latest and greatest.”
I’d love to have one of those babies
I’d prolly overclock them to fx-57 speed (2.8), but even without overclock it is a sweet proc.
I don’t think it’s worth the upgrade cash though for me. I have a 57, not gonna shell another grand for a 60. Unless someone is willing to “help” me out with the bill
I read someplace (I beleive at theinquirer.net), that the FX-57 is still more performant than the 60. Slowing the clock down 200MHz really affected the gaming performance such that it doesn’t surpass the fx57. Correct me if I’m wrong though.
Still nice to have around though, can’t deny that.
–ZaNkY
Almost all games are single threaded, for gaming you would want an FX-57 if you are trully “hard core”.
This is changing, in no small part due to the nature of the XBox 360 and PS3. Expect future engines that target consoles and PCs to make use of multithreading. There was also a recent Quake 4 patch that provided impressive gains on multicore processors.
The processor is fast enough for current games, and future CPU intensive games will be multithreaded. It offers 93% of Athlon 64 FX-57 single-threaded CPU performance, and almost twice CPU performance for future multicore optimized games. Also, the bottleneck for current games is the graphics card, not the CPU.
The processor is fast enough for current games, and future CPU intensive games will be multithreaded. It offers 93% of Athlon 64 FX-57 single-threaded CPU performance, and almost twice CPU performance for future multicore optimized games. Also, the bottleneck for current games is the graphics card, not the CPU.
Certainly, but that doesn’t stop “hard core” gamers going out and buying the absoloute top of the line gaming CPUs.
This is changing, in no small part due to the nature of the XBox 360 and PS3. Expect future engines that target consoles and PCs to make use of multithreading. There was also a recent Quake 4 patch that provided impressive gains on multicore processors.
Certainly, but the target audience of this CPU is “hard core” gamers who will buy top of the line now and top of the line again when it becomes neccesary. Atm. no major LAN tournament games need a multithreaded CPU (that’s Counter Strike: Source, Age of Empires 3, .etc.).
From
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_60…
AMD Athlon™ 64 FX-60 $1,031
AMD Athlon™ 64 FX-57 $827
Why pay $200 more for worst performance ?
why pay over a couple hundred dollars for a CPU! Those prices are nutts! Especially when i have no trouble playing the latest games with a decent Video card and a 2 year old 2.4Ghz HT Pentium 4.
Hmm, try playing FEAR on that thing. I played it on my brother’s 2.2 GHz Athlon64 with an X800XL, and I definitely had to turn down a lot of the setttings to get things smooth.
OT: FEAR is an awesome game! First program in years that made me wish I a Windows machine. Is it too much to hope for a Mac port?
FEAR is almost completely GPU bound even with the newest generation of graphics cards, so getting a faster CPU isn’t going to help much.
When Mactel’s come out, get Cadega.
http://www.transgaming.com/products_mac.php
I don’t see Jupiter EX being ported, so yes it’s probably too much to hope for a Mac port.
You obviously have a weak understanding of processor performance. Multi-threaded applications = close to 2x the speed of the FX-57. Multi-threaded, dual-core optimized games (like UT 2007) = significant performance improvements.
Multi-threading/dual cores are the future. UT2007 is the first of many games that will show up to take advantage of dual cores, and eventually require dual cores,
How can you “require” dual cores? It’s not like it’s impossible to run multiple threads on the same CPU. Sure it won’t be true concurrency, but it’ll still operate.
Also, let’s assume the game needs two threads to run in true concurrency. These threads will be able to run well on dual processor systems too.
You can “require” dual cores because a single-core processor will not be able to provide sufficient performance at some point in the future. Even if you have a 3.0 GHz Athlon 64, and the game requires ~5.0 GHz of processing power (it will happen, not soon, but it will), no single-core CPU will be capable of it, thus in essence saying “you need dual cores”.
Single-core performance has more or less peaked for the forseeable future. That’s why there’s such a push for dual cores and multithreading now.
As for dual-processor systems … yeah, but dual-processor is a lot more expensive than dual-core. Consumers will all be on dual-core sooner or later.
… Because:
A. Newer games (Quake4 (both Linux and Windows), Battlefield 2 (Windows) and others) already added SMP support.
B. If you, like me, rather not stop your daily work just to play Doom3, SMP is the only option. (Hence my dual Opteron machine)
For 200$ you potentially get 80% increase in performance.
sed ‘s/Battlefield 2/COD2/g’
If you, like me, rather not stop your daily work just to play Doom3, SMP is the only option. (Hence my dual Opteron machine)
I’m not quite certain how one does one’s daily work while playing Doom 3. Unless one’s work is sitting about waiting.
Here’s the difference between UNI and SMP.
I don’t need to go take a cup of coffee just because my machine is building.
I don’t need to stop burning a DVD, if I want to play Doom3/Quake4.
I don’t need to leave my machine alone, just because I’m backing it up.
In short,
I can play Quake4, burn a DVD and download the new kernel source concurrently… without suffering from a massive FPS drop.
Can you?
Yes. I have a KVM switch
Yep.
Somehow the idea of have 3 different machines, each with its own set of hardware (video, disk, MB, CPU, memory, etc) and software components (OS/Office/what-ever license if you are using Windows) seems less logical then having a single SMP machine that does everything simultaneously.
But that’s me…
Gilboa
transcoding DVD to x264 or snow maybe (~10 hrs on 3GHz)? compiling latest gnome, firefox, ooo ? Why not, or linux scheduler do not so cool as rumored ?
Its all about FPS and screen resolution.
Let the gamers get what they want. Non gamers could never understand them
You do realize that majority of gamers are not into first person shooters? I do not consider those I know who do not play FPS to not be “real” gamers.
Okay, I’m intrigued. What’s makes a real gamer?
Uber micro
Somebody that play games? Having the latest processor, GPU or console isn’t required. Those who brag about having the newest hardware while dissing the average RPG or sim player are usually posers rather than gamers.
//You do realize that majority of gamers are not into first person shooters?//
Strange. Me wonders why FPS games are such big moneymakers. (Half-Life, Doom, Battlefield, etc.)
Stupid game makers. Nobody buys these things. </sarcasm>
Strange. Me wonders why FPS games are such big moneymakers. (Half-Life, Doom, Battlefield, etc.)
Stupid game makers. Nobody buys these things. </sarcasm>
What he is saying is FPS isn’t everything there are 5 Million subscribers that play World of Warcraft a MMORPG. You do not need a $1000 Dual Core processor in order to play WoW. You do need the latest and greatest CPU/Video Card combo with 8 gigs of RAM and a Terabyte raid if you want to look cool to all your friends running Quake 4 at 200 FPS. I am happy with my sub $1000 Machine that runs Quake 4 at 50 FPS.
Doom 3 wishes it competed with The Sims.
This must be that brilliant re-branding I’ve been hearing about, so far I’d have to say it’s pretty good but is this really the image Intel is looking for?
The Opteron 165 Dual Core, and the A64 3800+ X2 Overclock easy onstock cooling beyond 2.8 Ghz, AMD knows, but they still had to pull a new PR stunt. Gotta lovethose opteron 165’s, the go for about $316 at ZipZoomFly, couple that with a Epox nForce 4 Ultra and some OCZ, and you got the whole thing for under $500… FX is a expensive line of chips for folks that have enough money to trow at the dogs… or to whipe their buts with it…
The linux kernal has multiple threads for a while and can be run single-core.
multi-core won’t be a requirement, it will certainly be a advantage.
doom3 has multithreads without any patches.
Can i have the link for the quake 4 multi-core patch,its proberly a 64 bit patch not multi-core as that does not make sense.
I think know one has understood that multi-core is basically an efficent design in using more than one proccessor, the linux kernal shows dual cores as two seperate proccessors not new technology.
Whenever the new amd socket am2 arrives there will still be single core chips made for it.
http://www.idsoftware.com/documents/readme_update_1050.txt
http://quake4.ravengames.com/
http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/linux/quake4/
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/quake_4_dual-core_performance/
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
//Doom 3 wishes it competed with The Sims.//
The Sims wishes it competed with real life.
Normal folk play games to *escape* reality, not imitate it — or what they wish it was.
“Get a Life”
Yep. The Sims outsells Doom 3 and your retort is a comment about reality. Well done, sir.
http://theinquirer.net/?article=28367
Read the above article
look at the orleans and minilla range there are all single core
Who cares?