Athlon 64 939/940 Socket Mystery

Dom · Aug 2, 2003, 04:28 AM

AMDZone had the following to say about this socket 939/940 question:

The 940-pin Athlon 64 will be the variety at launch. The extra one pin is required to work on the 6-layer Opteron motherboards. The 939-pin Athlon 64’s aren’t ready for shipping yet so they will be out a little later on. As for the Opteron situation, that little extra one pin is required for SMP support due to the necessary HyperTransport links.

Let's look at this:

As for the Opteron situation, that little extra one pin is required for SMP support due to the necessary HyperTransport links.

This seems to say that turning SMP (and the required HyperTransport links) on and off depends on that one pin. That implies AMD is going to this 939-pin layout just to prevent people from taking Athlon64s and treating them like 2XX series Opterons. It also implies that doing just that is doable with the initial Athlon64.

The 940-pin Athlon 64 will be the variety at launch. The extra one pin is required to work on the 6-layer Opteron motherboards.

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Aug 2, 2003, 04:28 AM	#1
Dom DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 12,940 Rep Power: 0	Athlon 64 939/940 Socket Mystery AMDZone had the following to say about this socket 939/940 question: The 940-pin Athlon 64 will be the variety at launch. The extra one pin is required to work on the 6-layer Opteron motherboards. The 939-pin Athlon 64’s aren’t ready for shipping yet so they will be out a little later on. As for the Opteron situation, that little extra one pin is required for SMP support due to the necessary HyperTransport links. Let's look at this: As for the Opteron situation, that little extra one pin is required for SMP support due to the necessary HyperTransport links. This seems to say that turning SMP (and the required HyperTransport links) on and off depends on that one pin. That implies AMD is going to this 939-pin layout just to prevent people from taking Athlon64s and treating them like 2XX series Opterons. It also implies that doing just that is doable with the initial Athlon64. The 940-pin Athlon 64 will be the variety at launch. The extra one pin is required to work on the 6-layer Opteron motherboards. Read More...