Veridian3

"The FX-55 is essentially the same chip as the FX-53, the only difference being the move from 2.4ghz to 2.6ghz (through a multiplier change from 12x to 13x). The core is still based on the 0.13 process, 0.9 is for a future chip as is dual core. Also as the FX-55 and FX-53 are based on the same design all of the features of the A64 remain such as the HT speed sitting at 1000mhz and the additional virus protection that the chip provides (in conjunction with XP SP2) is also still enabled. Support for the FX-55 should happen out of the box on most socket 939 motherboards, our MSI 6702 motherboard for example doesn’t even need a bios update to the original retail bios to support the new chip, just plug n play. This is also the case for other boards such as the Gigabyte GA-K8NSNXP-939."

Full Review

Chaos

Nice to see AMD still cranking out fast chips, how do they compare to the Intel beast that Zardon runs?

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Zardon

Well at 3700mhz the extreme edition is running the photoshop bench in around 40 seconds, over 20 seconds faster than the FX55. In pcmark04 it scores around 6,000 - due to the higher caches and the HT. the game tests are slower on the EE but IMtoo encoding is higher.

In certain areas the FX chips are faster, but the photoshop figures alone mean ill certainly not be replacing my main designing rig with an AMD cpu for the time being. 20 seconds doesnt seem like much but over the course of a few days work, its hours of a difference and thats without even taking into consideration the benefits of Hyper threading. The EE right now is the ultimate artists CPU.

Ev!L-aLphA

Very impressive review n cpu

nice guys

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R.I.P
8/8/04
4/21/08

Chaos

Very interesting

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El Kapitano

My retail FX55 does ~2.9Ghz relatively easily but no more than that.

The HSF that comes with it is certainly an intersting piece of thermodynamic engineering. Quad heatpipes and all.

Unfortunately I fubared my X800xt and until the next victim err I mean my new one arrives I'm stuck with a Sapphire OEM 9800xt which I'm keeping stock cos I've a buyer waiting.

krips

Poor you, stuck with that crappy 9800xt.

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Judas

I can't wait to get my stuff together......

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Warpy

Funky Monkey looks at his wallet and grins...

I think it's time to upgrade and overclock the crap out of a new CPU!!

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knuth

We all know these chips are incredibly high priced, they're pretty much a lot like Ferrari's are to most cars in terms of attainably. Zardon, i know ive read about it before, but i cant quite recall, are you running the LGA-775 or Socket 478 for that EE?

There's another thing i'm wondering about the concluding statement, namely the following:

Why is that ? AGP is under no strain in terms of the capacity it still has.

Zardon

Ive EEs on both setups, the one I mention is on slot 775 (the older 800fsb model, I do have the 1066 fsb model as well, waiting on a good ocing mobo for that one).

As for the comments on AGP, yes right now I agree with you, but hey "right now" moves quickly in the pc enthusiast world. PCIe is the future, much higher scaling and more futureproof. I even see some minor increases in professional level apps on PCIe, and thats with first gen hardware.

knuth

That was a really quick reply.

That's interesting though, if i recall AGP 2X was hardly saturated at this stage let alone AGP 8X and (relying on even further re-collection here) through the various AGP standards, AGP capacity has Quintupled since their introduction, that really says something about the expandability the standard still has left.

I know about some of the other PCI-Express advantages, but as you've stated above you've noticed a difference. Does PCIe solve or improve on bus latency in anyway? I dont see how its increased bandwidth has any impact right now. (or until very far in the future for that matter)

EDIT: oh yes, you sure dont waste any time getting new hardware, i think the 1Ghz FSB is a big disapointment. Why Intel's debut for it was left up to a CPU that most of all doesnt require the increase, i really dont know. That and the fact that their roadmap doesnt hint in anyway that they plan to bring this increase to somewhat lower end CPUs is an even further let down. (i'll save that thought for the respective review though )

Veridian3

There are a couple of reasons to move to PCI Express in the near future, the first is video work where the PCI express interface will allow a much larger volume of data between components. I know a lot of people wont do video editing as such however i'm beginning to think that games will include a lot more real time video rather than recorded FMV as PCI express takes off.

Additionally the same people who buy the top of the range CPU's such as the ones reviewed here are the same people that buy the top of the range video cards. I believe in the next generation (or refresh of this) the top end cards will be PCI express only (with the chance of a bridged version coming out at a later date). You can already see the move to PCI express only happening with the X700 and GF 6600. If you want the latest and greatest card to go with your latest and greatest chip then a move to PCI express is inevitable.

bug77

I think that PCIe is really meant to replace the old PCI bus. That's its primary target. Replacing the AGP bus in the process is just a side effect (I mean, who cares about duplex traffic on a video card?), but since you had to be convinced to replace your video card, that needed advertising as well...

knuth

Yes, you're dead right, AGP was developed to solve 2 problems primarily, 1 was limited PCI bandwidth and the other was the very high cost of VRAM at the time.

AGP was designed solely with integrated video in mind (and to work around the high cost of Video RAM by providing video acsess to system RAM). Obviously down the road AGP was a solution to a few problems no-one actually had anymore, VRAM prices sharply dropped and the need for integrated video was less desperate as memory acsess was no longer an 'essential' as far as video went, VRAM was now cheap enough to be "massively" (than ever thought) put to use.

I think PCI-E is a smart move overall, but once again there was no inherent problem with the AGP standard, it solves problems relating to PCI more than it does AGP.

I dont see PCI-E as a reason to upgrade by any means and no-one was suggesting that, but i think the numbers are such a jump that they're mis-interpreted, what it can do is very different to what it will do or is doing. The increase PCI-E brings can be compared to one widening an empty highway albeit for future traffic, and in this case i think it's safe to say very-far-in-the-future traffic.

CDsDontBurn

the benchmarks i've seen between an x800xt AGP vs. x800xt PCI-E have almost no difference in performance between the two. The way i see it is that gamers should go to A64 based systems, and people in the video editing business and so fourth, should go LGA-775. As of right now, Intel's 775 chips are doing nothing more than breaking ground work for future development of the chip and its derivatives. While AMD w/the A64s out on the market are still using the low latency DDR 1 modules vs. DDR 2, the performance is a pretty wide gap when playing games or benching systems between the two types of systems out there.

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Zardon

DDR 2 performance now is exceptional, check out the OCZ review front page.

RVachon

I like reading those CPU reviews/comparisons. One program you guys that do the CPU reviews should consider is NASCAR Racing 2003 Season...yea yea I can hear it now...damn redneck in the forum..lol. But, even though this title is over 2 years old, it uses one of the most advanced physics to this day for racing sims. I did a benchmark using my old 9700 Pro and x800XT and with 40 cars on the track, wether your running 800x600 or 1600x1200, the FPS were basically the same meaning the CPU was the deciding factor. It was a different story if you were the only car on the track, then the FPS difference was huge between video cards.

How about sending me those FX cpus so I can do benchs with the game?..LOL

Is there somewhere I can see benchmarks comparing my ol' barton 2500 @ 3200 and the AMD64s and or/FX?

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Monkeyboy

Damn this is fast