Phenom II X4 950 On The Cards

[btarunr]

In all past roadmaps, AMD told us that its DDR3-supportive CPU lineup would begin with the Phenom II X4 945. Evidently that is not the case. From a recent DigiTimes report, there was hint given that all's not well with AMD's DDR3 plans, with the company toiling hard to get DDR3 memory run smooth and stable on AM3 socket CPUs, with integrated DDR3 memory controllers. The same report also highlighted the larger issue of both AMD and Intel being reluctant in orchestrating an industry-wide transition to the newer DDR3 memory standard across all market-segments. Amidst all this, AMD seems to have a small change of plans with its entire Phenom II lineup, with several processors earlier thought to be based on AM2+, emerging now as DDR3-supportive AM3. Also, it is known that AMD's first DDR3-supportive flagship quad-core chip will be the Phenom II X4 925, which arrives before the 945 and the newer SKU that has come to light.

Enter Phenom II X4 950, AMD's next flagship desktop CPU that succeeds the Phenom II X4 940. This one surfaced on the most recent roadmap slides. Slated for Q2 2009, this processor tentatively releases when AMD issues last-order notices to channel vendors for the Phenom II X4 920 and 940, in Q2. The processor releases alongside, or within the time-frame of the Phenom II X4 945's release. From whatever the slide tells, the 950 is merely a 100 MHz clock speed increment over the 945, with a 0.5x multiplier increase, sending its clock speed to 3.10 GHz. It is not known if the 950 comes in a Black Edition SKU with unlocked bus multipliers. Speculation is already rife that there should be a Phenom II X4 930/935, to give the 920/925 a similar 100 MHz clock speed increment, sitting on to 2.90 GHz point. All other specifications seem standard with the 950. The slide also sheds light on the company's Phenom II X4 800 series, that feature 6 MB of total cache, against the 8 MB (2 MB L2 + 6 MB L3) the 900 series chips come with. There are models running at stock speeds of 2.5 GHz, 2.6 GHz in place.



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[Chicken Patty]

oh man this is good!!!!

 

[1Kurgan1]

Interesting, so a 950 will be released for the AM2+ platform at that sametime the AM3 CPU's are going to be released? And Will there be a 955?

 

[btarunr]

Interesting, so a 950 will be released for the AM2+ platform at that sametime the AM3 CPU's are going to be released? And Will there be a 955?

950 is an AM3 chip. Confusing, isn't it?

 

[cdawall]

it should be AM2+ it ends with a 0

 

[btarunr]

it should be AM2+ it ends with a 0

Look at the roadmap slide. The 950 is marked with the deep-purple bar, which, the index below shows as an AM3 chip.

 

[cdawall]

Look at the roadmap slide. The 950 is marked with the deep-purple bar, which, the index below shows as an AM3 chip.

i bet its just like the 945 is a DDR2/3

 

[btarunr]

i bet its just like the 945 is a DDR2/3

...which makes it an AM3 chip.

AM3 chips support both DDR3 and DDR2, AM2+ Denebs (such as 940) won't support DDR3, won't run on AM3 motherboards.

 

[Soparik2]

im pretty sure they will rename it to 955 instead of 950 because 940 was the last Am2+ to be released (no more AM2+ cpu's)

if everyones excited about the 950/955 then why not get super excited about the Phenom2 FX line that will follow thats gonna be some fast stuff and even better overclockers

 

[MAGMADIVER]

I think the biggest thing to consider is since the transition to DDR3 is so hard for AMD this could be a real problem. We all know that the transition to DDR3 only represents a 5%ish bump in performance over DDR2 1066+, however as DDR3 speeds increase the margin will increase with it...so now as AMD is losing the fight on Performance/clock and performance in general this is just one more hill to climb and the longer they wait the more ground they will lose and it seems that the only way AMD can combat it is with clock increases. JEDEC isnt going to release anything faster than DDR 1066 as this is just an overclock of the DDR 800 speeds....

 

[jbunch07]

Looks like I might just settle for an AM2 CPU, seeing how they are having problems with their ddr3 memory controller.

 

[Steevo]

I wasn't aware they had problems.



Kind of unfortunate to see the last order of the brand new processor I just bought in a few months.

 

[WarEagleAU]

Oh yeah baby loads of good news. Couple one of these bad boys with the new Asus M4A79-T Deluxe and all is well

 

[HolyCow02]

Hmmm... interesting. I don't like that is says they are having trouble with the DDR3 memory controllers. Hopefully they will have it all figured out before they release the 925. I plan on waiting for a 945 anyways, but this 950 might also be an option. I just don't get the naming if it's an AM3 chip

 

[1Kurgan1]

I wasn't aware they had problems.



Kind of unfortunate to see the last order of the brand new processor I just bought in a few months.

I don't think there is any major issues as people out there already have 925 and 945 chips. I think the bigger deal is the abundance of AM2+ boards that are left over that the mobo manufacturers need to get rid of. I believe this was also mentioned in yesterdays news. Now real difference either way as it shows the 945 slated for Q2 which is what it was set for in the beginning.

And about the 940 being axed, that was known right off the bat. It's a place holder for people who wanted the PII's right now. Since the 945's will be backwards compatible with AM2+ boards no reason to continue making the 940's. But there might be some very attractive price cuts when people are looking to clear inventories, we'll see.

 

[newtekie1]

EOL'd after only 6 months...that sucks.

 

[spearman914]

Good news, hope they clock well!

 

[1Kurgan1]

EOL'd after only 6 months...that sucks.

Not really, the 945 and 925 run the exact same clocks, and most likely will fill in at the exact same price. They just have an added feature. Don't see how that sucks, just a better revision, it's a good thing to see, I know Intels done the same things, E0 and g0. Always nice to see improvement.

 

[suraswami]

anyone know if the 800 series PII going to come in next month? I am hoping since its 95w and less cache it might clock better than the current 920.

I want one of the 800 series chips.

 

[ShadowFold]

They rushed the 940 and 920 so they could get some money so they didn't have to rush AM3. I am guessing AM3, DDR3 and 9X5's are going to be rock solid. I am going to wait for that.

 

[rozienzia]

that was awesome!!
hope we can grap cheaper DDR3 on Q3.

 

[eidairaman1]

Hmmm... interesting. I don't like that is says they are having trouble with the DDR3 memory controllers. Hopefully they will have it all figured out before they release the 925. I plan on waiting for a 945 anyways, but this 950 might also be an option. I just don't get the naming if it's an AM3 chip

well to look at stuff, HTT/QPI are low latency bus architectures, meaning they dont need all the clock speed in the world, hence why the CPUs are coming with L3 cache to compensate for the slowness of DDR2/3, and thus brings in some troubles implementing the higher clocked memory. im pretty sure DDR1 if it was shrunk down process wise would still be faster yet doesnt require all the clockspeed to get the same amt of work done that DDR2/DDR3 does, to me the JEDEC is Milking the DDR tech which to me DDR2/DDR3 is not true DDR so to speak.

 

[cdawall]

we just need to jump to QDR which allows double the work of DDR in the same clock


ie GDDR5 which is in fact QDR memory

 

[eidairaman1]

we just need to jump to QDR which allows double the work of DDR in the same clock


ie GDDR5 which is in fact QDR memory

thus they will try to Milk that and it falls on the same fate as DDR does instead of truly improving it. Might aswell go back to SIMMs and 486SX.

 

[cdawall]

thus they will try to Milk that and it falls on the same fate as DDR does instead of truly improving it. Might aswell go back to SIMMs and 486SX.

my highend DDR fails to beat my high end DDR2 could do CL2 up to ~550mhz was beaten out by my DDR2 pushing 1200 CL4 (this set is in another PC they are D9's)