Talk:Athlon 64 X2

Cool'n'Quiet
"One issue that is not immediately obvious until you start using a dual core or processor system is that Cool'n'Quiet is somewhat incompatible with performance. Cool'n'Quiet works by checking how active the processor is while running and adjusting the speed and voltage up or down appropriately. If the processor is idle it slows it down, and if it is busy it speeds it up. With X2 cores this is actually detrimental to performance as both cores are not treated independently by Cool'n'Quiet but rather as a single unit. In the typical case where one core is busy and the other is idle you end up with a bizarre ping pong effect as the cores are continuously sped up and slowed down, resulting in an overall performance loss rather than the expected gain. To reap optimum performance one has to turn Cool'n'Quiet off and forgo the benefits in power saving and heat reduction."

I have CoolnQuiet enabled and constantly monitor my processor speed and voltage both in windows and linux. I have yet to experience this "ping-pong"-effect.


 * I removed it, it was unsourced and if I remeber correctly Cooln' q has no effect on performace. Martin  15:44, 19 October 2005 (UTC)


 * In theory it doesn't. CnQ reduces processor speed when it's not being used to it's maximum so it has no actually effect on performance. However if what the above says is true in that the dual cores are treated as a single unit then it's possible I guess that they could both be slowed down when one is close to maximum use resulting in performance issues. However I doubt it and as you said, it's unsourced Nil Einne 01:19, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Picture
Hmm. The picture says that it is of a 3800+ Athlon X2 E6. However, the text says that all Manchester cores are E4. If all 3800+'s are E4, then how is this picture possible? --Roguelazer 03:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Either Toledo with partially disabled L2-Cache, typically too much defects to be sold as 2x1MB Toledo so it's sold as 2x 512KB Manchester or AMD is moving their complete Athlon64 line to E6 stepping. --Denniss 04:10, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Development time

 * Due to the nature of their application, most 3D games cannot be effectively multithreaded without disproportionate development time. There are exceptions, the most famous being the Quake III engine on which r_smp = 1 may be set, enabling multithreading support. The benefit is slight, but present.

This is a bit confusing. I guess what's it's trying to say is that 3D games can't be effectively multithreaded without disproportionate development time so most games are not multithreaded. The Quake III engine is multithreaded however it's not really done that well/effectively multithread (or perhaps it's not possible to do it well) so it doesn't provide that much of a benefit. I.E. Some time was spent making the engine multithreaded but not as much as is necessary for it to work very well (but more time then most other games.

At the moment, it sounds like it's saying the Quake III engine was effectively multithreaded without a disproportionate development time Nil Einne 01:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

While this is probably true, could some provide a reference? Also, perhaps this needs to be clarified. Is it really always going to require a lot of development time or could it be partially just that game programmers have never had a need to make multi-threaded game so they haven't and so learning how to do it is going to take a long time but once they start to get the hang of it, it'll be a lot simpler? Nil Einne 01:02, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree, it should be clarified a bit, and sourced - it seems to me that it's a bit of both, that it's been unnecessary and difficult, so multithreading hasn't been implemented in most games, but this should be clarified a bit, as the way it is worded now implies that it is nigh-impossible to multithread a game, which seems to be exaggerated. It should also be stated that games may benefit from additional cores, even though the game is not multithreaded, from things like background processes and other operations that are not necessarily part of the game. Fiskars007 00:12, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Dual core responsiveness
Many users I've seen have commented on the improved responsiveness of a computer in normal, everday multitasking use. This isn't really mentioned/clear since it only suggests intensive multitasking scenarios and only performance (not responsiveness) which perhaps makes it seem like your decompressing an archive, while compressing a video and playing a game all at normal priority (or maybe having 50 FireFox tabs/windows along with Photoshop, Acrobat, Illustrator open)... Of course, this may be related to Windows scheduling code but it needs to be mentioned. Nil Einne 01:07, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't believe it should be necessary to literally mention that. After all, it is clear to anyone that separate applications run on different processes. --Mecanismo | Talk 10:06, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Mention of Energy Efficient X2's?
the energy efficient X2s.. eg 3800+ @ 35W..?

I was under the impression that the 35W X2's had different model numbers. This should be added in another paragraph - the model numbers and technologies should be researched and sourced. Also, isn't the 35W feature part of Cool'N'Quiet (which also seems to be absent from the article since the edit mentioned at the top of this talk page)? Fiskars007 00:12, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * As far as I can tell, those 35W processors are nothing but vaporware. You cannot find them for sale and as far as I know no one has ever bought one. The only place I ever saw one of those being advertised for sale was in one of those sites which compiles the offerings from other sites and even then it was due to faulty labeling (it was advertised as a 35W processor but it's ordering part number was ADO, not ADD. --Mecanismo | Talk 09:56, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It seems they are available in larger numbers right now, at least in Germany. Several shops have it listed as in stock. Even the 45W Athlon X2 (BE-xxxx tyxpes) are in stock (but not in large quantities). --Denniss 11:38, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Multi-core pros/cons
Removing this paragraph, as it's not specific to the Athlon 64 X2, it's about multi-core processors in general: Stevage 04:29, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Due to the nature of their application, most 3D games cannot be effectively multithreaded without disproportionate development time. There are exceptions, the most famous being the Quake III engine on which r_smp = 1 may be set, enabling multithreading support. The benefit is slight, but present. It's left to easily parallelizable tasks (image manipulation, media encoding, etc.) where different parts of the workload can be worked on independently to properly extract the power of a multi-core processor.

Product reviews
At newegg, many of the product reviews state that the Intel version is superior. I checked, but they are also $100 more. Is the Intel equivalent of the same price actually superior? --Can Not 15:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Talk pages are not for general discussion on the article's topic. You might consider visiting a forum such as Anandtech. —  Aluvus   t / c  01:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I was just thinking that if the acusations were true, it should be mentioned. It could simply be "Intel Fanboy bantur", but I wasn't sure.--Can Not 23:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Prices are super volatile at the moment. AMD knows that Intel's got the better chip now, so they're cutting their costs to keep up in sales. What I don't know is if they've dropped them enough to real price/perfomance parity with the Core 2 Duos. Also, what does the DC in the recently announced 64 X2 DC 6000+ chip mean? 66.36.131.228 10:30, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Athlon 64 X2s are more price-effective than the Intel counterparts, until the 4400+ mark, where Intel starts to take the lead. At least from what I can remember. The X2 3600+/3800+ compete primarily against the Pentium Ds, which helps AMD's results. (Pentium Ds were craptastic.) 74.101.127.217 00:15, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Ordering P/Ns?
I believe that AMD attributes their Athlon X2 processors with something called "ordering p/n" which points out the chipore 2 Duos. Also, what does the DC in the recently announced 64 X2 DC 6000+ chip mean? 66.36.131.228 10:30, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Athlon 64 X2s are more price-effective than the Intel counterparts, until the 4400+ mark, where Intel starts to take the lead. At least from what I can remember. The X2 3600+/3800+ compete primarily against the Pentium Ds, which helps AMD's results. (Pentium Ds were craptastic.) 74.101.127.217 00:15, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Ordering P/Ns?
I believe that AMD attributes their Athlon X2 processors with something called "ordering p/n" which points out the chip's characteristics (core type, power consumption, stepping, etc...) Unfortunately I can't find a single reference to that naming scheme. Can anyone point it out and add a section to the article? --Mecanismo | Talk 09:58, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * update silly me. It was smack right in AMD's site. For anyone curious enough about this issue, here it is. NOnetheless, I believe the article would benefit if a section covering this info was added. --Mecanismo | Talk 10:01, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Page is plagiat ?
Looks suspiciously similar to http://www.answers.com/topic/amd-athlon-64-x2 --Xerces8 13:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Answers.com = Wikipedia mirror --Denniss 16:40, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Also, says at the bottom of the page: "This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors" --M.A. 13:27, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

RDTSC counter issue
There's nothing on the article about the RDTSC timer/counter issue. Anyone willing to point that out somewhere and maybe that there's a solution in form of a resident program provided by AMD (the dual-core optimizer) that occasionally syncs the counters, and a hackish solution from Microsoft (they just instruct you to limit the application to single core). --M.A. 13:33, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Laptop version?
This makes no sense since AMD's laptop processor at the moment is the Turion, but there is a 15.4" screen Compaq Presario notebook, model F572US, that says it has an Athlon 64 X2 TK-53 processor. That sounds like a Turion, but it bears an Athlon 64 X2 sticker on the laptop itself and its specs (see link) say it has a "1.7 GHz AMD Athlon ™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TK-53"? Is this something like the Intel Pentium Dual Core (a rebranded product, IOW)? 205.157.110.11 21:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The TK-53 is indeed sold under the Athlon brand. AMD has done something similar for some time, usually pitching the Athlon-branded parts as "desktop replacement" processors.  The real-world differences from the Turion are not large. —  Aluvus   t / c  22:12, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Link to AMD hijacked.
The following link at the bottom of the page no longer links to AMD


 * 1) AMD Athlon 64 X2 technical specifications

Regards Bill —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.51.86 (talk) 16:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Clarification needed
From the "Athlon X2" section: "'64' was omitted from the new Brisbane 'BE' series as the 64-bit marketing campaign initiated by AMD became insignificant with "64-bit compu

Athlon II X2 250
So, what exactly is to be done with this new CPU? A new article for the Athlon II or make it part of this existing one? Semi-Lobster (talk) 17:21, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

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