AMD Athlon II X4 ''Propus'' 600 Quad-Core Chips Include 45W Models

[btarunr]

AMD's 45 nm desktop processor lineup involves three basic core designs codenamed Deneb, Propus, and Regor. Deneb is the flagship design, which features four cores, two 64-bit DDR2(/DDR3) memory controllers, and a large L3 cache of 6 MB. When one core is disabled, the Phenom II X3 "Heka" processor is yielded, when 2 MB out of the 6 MB of L3 cache is disabled, Phenom II X4 800 series processor is yielded, and when two out of four cores are disabled, Phenom II X2 500 is yielded. To cater to sub-$100 market better, AMD needed to cut the manufacturing costs while maintaining a reasonable level of performance, and substantially low TDP ratings. Hence the company designed the Propus quad-core chip, which physically lacks an L3 cache. The lack of L3 cache chops the transistor load on the die, as well as its TDP. AMD further plans to yield a triple-core Athlon II X3 "Rana" processor using this die, by disabling one of the four cores. The third die design, Regor, features no more than two cores physically, and lacks an L3 cache. As an added bonus, the L2 cache per core is doubled to 1024 KB (2 MB total L2 cache), and HyperTransport multiplier set high (10 x 200 MHz).

Some of AMD's first products based on Propus have surfaced thanks to a leak from a motherboard manufacturer. It reveals an initial lineup of four models, including two low-wattage ones. Enter Athlon II X4 600e, 605e, 620, and 630. These chips' clock speeds range between 2.20 and 2.80 GHz. Unlike with Regor, each core on the Propus keeps 512 KB of L2 cache, which makes it 2 MB of total L2 cache. The most surprising part of the specs is the TDP of the low-wattage chips, with the 2.20 GHz 600e and 2.40 GHz 605e, is 45W. In comparison, it took a clock-speed of 2.00 GHz for the previous-generation 65 nm Agena core to reach a TDP rating of 65W. The 2.60 GHz 620 and 2.80 GHz 630 have TDP ratings of 65W. We reckon these chips to hit shelves in this quarter. Below is a die-shot of the Propus core. It bears quite some resemblance to its 65 nm ancestor.



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[Breathless]

How about they stop giving us this kaka and give us a 3.5GHZ Pentium stomper. Good grief:shadedshu

 

[lemonadesoda]

To cut a long story short, AMD has taken the Deneb design, verbatim, found that there were too many problems in the L3 Cache, and not the cores, and therefore have released "Phenom II X4 600" as 4 core and no L3 cache (numbering goes 900 for 6MB, 800 for 4MB, 700 for 2MB...oh couldnt use that one since that number was used for one faulty core), 600 for 0MB L3 cache.

0MB L3 cache shows either:
1./ OMG, they have fab problems down at the shop, and L3 yield is a disaster. Oh dear. Or,
2./ Point 1 isnt true, but they underclocked the CPU and cut all the L3 cache out so that they could claim "TDP parity" at 45W with Intel. Had they left 2MB L3 cache in or kept clocks high they couldnt get under the TDP envelop and would have been at 55W or higher.

I bet the Intel 45W CPUs walk all over 0MB L3 AMDs. :shadedshu

 

[Flyordie]

L3s may unlock... ;-\
Remember, its still being blocked by the EEPROM, not cut.

Aha- they gated the L3... so yeah... it may be unlockable...

 

[btarunr]

0MB L3 cache shows either:
1./ OMG, they have fab problems down at the shop, and L3 yield is a disaster. Oh dear. Or,
2./ Point 1 isnt true, but they underclocked the CPU and cut all the L3 cache out so that they could claim "TDP parity" at 45W with Intel. Had they left 2MB L3 cache in or kept clocks high they couldnt get under the TDP envelop and would have been at 55W or higher.

I bet the Intel 45W CPUs walk all over 0MB L3 AMDs. :shadedshu

3./They want to simply cut manufacturing costs by reducing die area and transistor counts. The benefits of that will be handed over to you, with a sub-$150 quad-core processor.

L3s may unlock... ;-\
Remember, its still being blocked by the EEPROM, not cut.

Aha- they gated the L3... so yeah... it may be unlockable...

L3 is physically absent on the Propus core lol

 

[lemonadesoda]

Sorry, I missed the comment in your newspost about a reduced die size, physically excluding L3. (I read all the stuff about diasabled cache). If the die size is chopped in half (approx), due to no L3, then prices should be well below $100. $150 isnt price/performance competitive in any way. $90 might be

 

[btarunr]

The $87 Regor is outperforming Intel E5000 chips, so, do expect these to be competitive, at least with the upcoming Q7000 and existing Q8200 and Q8300.

 

[ShadowFold]

Mmm I want the X4 to play with I can see these being good clockers for some reason.

 

[boomstik360]

To cut a long story short, AMD has taken the Deneb design, verbatim, found that there were too many problems in the L3 Cache, and not the cores, and therefore have released "Phenom II X4 600" as 4 core and no L3 cache (numbering goes 900 for 6MB, 800 for 4MB, 700 for 2MB...oh couldnt use that one since that number was used for one faulty core), 600 for 0MB L3 cache.

0MB L3 cache shows either:
1./ OMG, they have fab problems down at the shop, and L3 yield is a disaster. Oh dear. Or,
2./ Point 1 isnt true, but they underclocked the CPU and cut all the L3 cache out so that they could claim "TDP parity" at 45W with Intel. Had they left 2MB L3 cache in or kept clocks high they couldnt get under the TDP envelop and would have been at 55W or higher.

I bet the Intel 45W CPUs walk all over 0MB L3 AMDs. :shadedshu

Actually the 700 series has 6mb l3 cache not 2mb.....

 

[lemonadesoda]

Please read my post more carefully :shadedshu

 

[eidairaman1]

nice, Damn AMD is releasing stuff, Im wondering what i should go for at the end of the year, I mean i want an Unlocked CPU but there are many choices out its hard to decide

 

[Steevo]

This would be perfect to replace a server at work, three users max, and network serving, with a dedicated core for each so the salesmen stop fucking with the system.



Silent, much more power efficient and a still a cheap build.

 

[Kitkat]

nice, Damn AMD is releasing stuff, Im wondering what i should go for at the end of the year, I mean i want an Unlocked CPU but there are many choices out its hard to decide

get 955 dont worry about 965 if u are buget still i say 720

 

[boomstik360]

Please read my post more carefully :shadedshu

Ah my bad I read it too fast lol

 

[Flyordie]

3./They want to simply cut manufacturing costs by reducing die area and transistor counts. The benefits of that will be handed over to you, with a sub-$150 quad-core processor.



L3 is physically absent on the Propus core lol

It would seem odd to do that until a later date (as in all orders for full-scale PIIs are fulfilled)
As in, for the first few hundred/thousand they would just gate the L3... and then transition to removing the L3 all-together. Gating it would remove its power source... making it "not there"...
Alot like the PII 920/940. They use 20W less on avg because of the DDR3 controller not being present but its still "there".

 

[Melvis]

How about they stop giving us this kaka and give us a 3.5GHZ Pentium stomper. Good grief:shadedshu

HUH?

This will be interesting to see when these do come out, id like to see the Athlon X4's benchmarks as i think these will perform well, like the Athlon 250 it performs great almost as good as a E8400 not bad for alot less Cache size.

I just wish AMD would put a lot of L2 cache on there chips, worked for intel....but it is alot more expensive to do so, shame

 

[cdawall]

To cut a long story short, AMD has taken the Deneb design, verbatim, found that there were too many problems in the L3 Cache, and not the cores, and therefore have released "Phenom II X4 600" as 4 core and no L3 cache (numbering goes 900 for 6MB, 800 for 4MB, 700 for 2MB...oh couldnt use that one since that number was used for one faulty core), 600 for 0MB L3 cache.

0MB L3 cache shows either:
1./ OMG, they have fab problems down at the shop, and L3 yield is a disaster. Oh dear. Or,
2./ Point 1 isnt true, but they underclocked the CPU and cut all the L3 cache out so that they could claim "TDP parity" at 45W with Intel. Had they left 2MB L3 cache in or kept clocks high they couldnt get under the TDP envelop and would have been at 55W or higher.

I bet the Intel 45W CPUs walk all over 0MB L3 AMDs. :shadedshu

like was said by btarunr no L3=cheaper chips and intel 45w chips and AMD 45w chips are not the same both companies use different ways of measuring TDP's also if regor is any indicator these chips will compete with the Q8x00 series easily with the 600 series quads and the tri cores should compete with the E8X00 series. the regor based duals already compete easily with the e5X00 series and actually clock very similarly on air water etc.

L3s may unlock... ;-\
Remember, its still being blocked by the EEPROM, not cut.

Aha- they gated the L3... so yeah... it may be unlockable...

nope propus is a new core without an L3 cache

3./They want to simply cut manufacturing costs by reducing die area and transistor counts. The benefits of that will be handed over to you, with a sub-$150 quad-core processor.



L3 is physically absent on the Propus core lol

The $87 Regor is outperforming Intel E5000 chips, so, do expect these to be competitive, at least with the upcoming Q7000 and existing Q8200 and Q8300.

they are clocking pretty close to each thats mine on DICE and most e5200's clock the same on DICE there is an occasional freak e5200 that does like 5.4ghz on DICE but those are rare and are actually cut down E8X00 chips

 

[eidairaman1]

wasnt the L3 there to Compensate for the Lag time DDR3 Produces? I mean ya with every DDR version, bandwidth increases but latencies increase aswell, for DDR 400 it takes DDR2 to be at 800 to produce the same performance but at a cost of Latency.

 

[Flyordie]

wasnt the L3 there to Compensate for the Lag time DDR3 Produces? I mean ya with every DDR version, bandwidth increases but latencies increase aswell, for DDR 400 it takes DDR2 to be at 800 to produce the same performance but at a cost of Latency.

Unless you could get your DDR2 sticks to do 800 @ 4-3-3... the latency was actually less.

 

[eidairaman1]

ya and how often was that happening, not very. Latency does affect the effective performance of Ram. Last i recall AMDs HTT is still a latency intensive system, not bandwidth intensive.