Athlon64 and Athlon64 FX?

[hukarez]

Anyone happen to know the difference between the AMD Athlon 64 FX, and the regular AMD Athlon 64??

I checked the charts, and they seem to have the same specifications (transistor wise, cache wise, etc...)

[Draft Dodger]

I thought that FX was faster -
similar to the P4 EE vs regular P4.

not quite sure HOW it was faster.

[hukarez]

Hmm. I'm curious about that too. Apparently, the Athlon64 is designated as the 'ClawHammer', while the FX version is 'SledgeHammer'. Still...looking at the specs, they seem completely identical.

FX being a Socket 940, with the regular 64 being 754...
Both are 105.9 million transistors, L1-L3 cache being: 64+64/1024, 200 mhz FSB. Here's where I get confused:

For Core clock speed, the FX is: 51 (2200 Mhz), with the 64 being: 3200+(2000 Mhz).

I can't translate this table well...and I had to magnify the thing to compare...
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/2003...istory_big.gif

[Bonegavel]

Are you just confused because of the name 3200+ and the 2000Mhz core? If so don't fret, AMD's processor names never match any numbers that seem relevant.

[Draft Dodger]

two tidbits from anandtech...

"You'll remember from our initial coverage that the major difference between the Athlon 64 and the Athlon 64 FX that the latter boasts a 128-bit memory controller as opposed to the 64-bit interface of the regular 64. The only other differences (other than price) were that the Athlon 64 FX was available at 2.2GHz (compared to the fastest 2.0GHz 64 offering) and the FX ships without a multiplier lock"

"When we first looked at the Athlon 64 and FX we realized that the performance difference between the two was negligible at best,..."

another link
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...on64-3400.html

the memory controller seems to be the key difference (besides the price, that is)

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by Bonegavel

Are you just confused because of the name 3200+ and the 2000Mhz core? If so don't fret, AMD's processor names never match any numbers that seem relevant.

It's basically marketing.

The structure of the AMD chip is different than Intel's chip. The MHz of the two are off. Basically, an Intel 3.2 GHz chip is as fast as AMD's 2.0 GHz chip. But AMD realizes that most people look at the Hz of the chip as an indication of speed (which it really isn't when comparing two chips. But they know people will do it anyway). So AMD calls their 2.0 GHz chip 3200, so that people know the speed of this chip is comparable to an Intel 3.2 GHz chip.

So people see "Pentium 3.2 GHz" and "Athlon 3200".

[jeff061]

Athlon 64 3400 is pretty much equal to the FX-51, and $300 cheaper. AMD is cannablizing their own line.

[Mr. Wednesday]

The FX has higher memory bandwidth, which may be important in some applications. For execution-bound applications, though, an Athlon64 and 64FX both running at the same frequency would give you the same performance.