Athlon 64 X2

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Athlon 64 X2 Logo

Athlon 64 X2 E6 3800+

The Athlon 64 X2 is the first dual-core desktop CPU manufactured by AMD. It is essentially a processor consisting of two Athlon 64 cores joined together on one die with additional control logic. The cores share one dual-channel memory controller, are based on the E-stepping model of Athlon 64 and, depending on the model, have either 512 or 1024 KiB of L2 Cache per core. The Athlon 64 X2 is capable of decoding SSE3 instructions (except those few specific to Intel's architecture), so it can run and benefit from software optimizations that were previously only supported by Intel chips. This enhancement is not unique to the X2, and is also available in the Venice and San Diego single core Athlon 64s.

In June 2007, AMD released low-voltage variants of their low-end 65 nm Athlon 64 X2, named "Athlon X2".^[1] The Athlon X2 processors feature reduced TDP of 45 W

Multithreading

The main benefit of dual-core processors like the X2 is their ability to process more software threads at the same time. The ability of processors to execute multiple threads simultaneously is called thread-level parallelism (TLP). By placing two cores on the same die, the X2 effectively doubles the TLP over a single-core Athlon 64 of the same speed. The need for TLP processing capability is dependent on the situation to a great degree, and certain situations benefit from it far more than others. Certain programs are currently only written with one thread, and are therefore unable to utilize the processing power of the second core.

Programs often written with multiple threads and capable of utilizing dual-cores include many music and video encoding applications, and especially professional rendering programs. High TLP applications currently correspond to server/workstation situations more than the typical desktop. These applications can realize almost twice the performance of a single-core Athlon 64 of the same specifications. Multi-tasking also runs a sizable number of threads; intense multi-tasking scenarios have actually shown improvements of considerably more than two times [2]. This is primarily due to the excessive overhead caused by constantly switching threads, and could potentially be improved by adjustments to operating system scheduling code.

In the consumer segment of the market as well, the X2 improves upon the performance of the original Athlon 64, especially for multi-threaded software applications. The overall increase in performance of the entry level Athlon 64 X2 chip (the Athlon 64 X2 3800+) over the single-core Athlon 64 3800+ chip is almost 10%. The spread between the latter and the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ is almost 40% ^[3]. One can interpret from these numbers that the majority of applications (at least in the benchmark test) are still largely single thread-dominated, hence the absence of a larger gap between the two 3800+ processors. As software programmers begin to take advantage of multi-core processing, the spread between single- and multi-core processors will increase.

CPU cores

[edit] Athlon 64 X2

[edit] Manchester (90 nm SOI)

• CPU-Stepping: E4
• L1-Cache: 64 + 64 KiB (Data + Instructions), per core
• L2-Cache: 256, 512 KiB fullspeed, per core
• MMX, Extended 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, AMD64, Cool'n'Quiet, NX Bit
• Socket 939, HyperTransport (1000 MHz, HT1000)
• VCore: 1.35 V - 1.4 V
• Power Consumption (TDP): 89 Watt
• First Release: 1 August 2005
• Clockrate: 2000 - 2400 MHz
  • 256 KiB L2-Cache:
    • 3600+: 2000 MHz
  • 512 KiB L2-Cache:
    • 3800+: 2000 MHz
    • 4200+: 2200 MHz
    • 4600+: 2400 MHz (110 Watt TDP)

[edit] Toledo (90 nm SOI)

• CPU-Stepping: E6
• L1-Cache: 64 + 64 KiB (Data + Instructions), per core
• L2-Cache: 512 or 1024 KiB fullspeed, per core
• MMX, Extended 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, AMD64, Cool'n'Quiet, NX Bit
• Socket 939, HyperTransport (1000 MHz, HT1000)
• VCore: 1.35 V - 1.4 V
• Power Consumption (TDP):
  • 89 Watt: 3800+, 4200+ and 4400+
  • 110 Watt: 4400+, 4600+ and 4800+
• First Release: 21 April 2005
• Clockrate:: 2000 - 2400 MHz
  • 512 KiB L2-Cache:
    • 3800+: 2000 MHz
    • 4200+: 2200 MHz
    • 4600+: 2400 MHz
  • 1024 KiB L2-Cache:
    • 4400+: 2200 MHz
    • 4800+: 2400 MHz

[edit] Windsor (90 nm SOI)

• CPU-Stepping: F2, F3
• L1-Cache: 64 + 64 KiB (Data + Instructions), per core
• L2-Cache: 256, 512 or 1024 KiB fullspeed, per core
• MMX, Extended 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, AMD64, Cool'n'Quiet, NX Bit, AMD Virtualization
• Socket AM2, HyperTransport (1000 MHz, HT1000)
• VCore: 1.25 V - 1.35 V
• Power Consumption (TDP): 35 Watt (3800+ EE SFF), 65 Watt (3600+ to 5200+ EE) , 89 Watt (3800+ to 6000+) , 125 Watt (6000+ to 6400+)
• First Release: May 23, 2006
• Clockrate: 2000 MHz - 3200MHz
  • 256 KiB L2-Cache:
    • 3600+: 2000 MHz
  • 512 KiB L2-Cache: (often mislabeled as Brisbane core)
    • 3800+: 2000 MHz
    • 4200+: 2200 MHz
    • 4600+: 2400 MHz (F2&F3)
    • 5000+: 2600 MHz (F2&F3)
    • 5400+: 2800 MHz (F3)
  • 1024 KiB L2-Cache:
    • 4000+: 2000 MHz
    • 4400+: 2200 MHz
    • 4800+: 2400 MHz
    • 5200+: 2600 MHz (F2&F3)
    • 5600+: 2800 MHz (F3)
    • 6000+: 3000 MHz (F3)
    • 6400+: 3200 MHz (F3)

[edit] Brisbane (65 nm SOI)

• CPU-Stepping: G1, G2
• L1-Cache: 64 + 64 KiB (Data + Instructions), per core
• L2-Cache: 512 KiB fullspeed, per core
• MMX, Extended 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, AMD64, Cool'n'Quiet, NX Bit, AMD Virtualization
• Socket AM2, HyperTransport (1000 MHz, HT1000)
• VCore: 1.25 V - 1.35 V
• Die Size: 126 mm²
• Power Consumption (TDP): 65 Watt
• First Release: Dec 5, 2006
• Clockrate: 1900 MHz - 2900MHz
  • 3600+: 1900 MHz
  • 4000+: 2100 MHz
  • 4200+: 2200 MHz (G1&G2)
  • 4400+: 2300 MHz (G1&G2)
  • 4600+: 2400 MHz (G2)
  • 4800+: 2500 MHz (G1&G2)
  • 5000+: 2600 MHz (G1&G2)
  • 5200+: 2700 MHz (G1&G2)
  • 5400+: 2800 MHz (G2)
  • 5600+: 2900 MHz (G2)

[edit] Athlon X2

'64' was omitted from the name of the Brisbane 'BE' series; the 64-bit marketing campaign initiated by AMD became insignificant once essentially all consumer CPUs became 64-bit processors.

[edit] Brisbane (65 nm SOI)

• CPU-Stepping: G1, G2
• L1-Cache: 64 + 64 KiB (Data + Instructions), per core
• L2-Cache: 512 KiB fullspeed, per core
• MMX, Extended 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, AMD64, Cool'n'Quiet, NX Bit, AMD Virtualization
• Socket AM2, HyperTransport (1000 MHz, HT1000)
• VCore: 1.15 V - 1.20 V
• Die Size: 118 mm²
• Power Consumption (TDP): 45 Watt
• First Release: June 1, 2007
• Clockrate: 1900 MHz - 2300 MHz
  • BE-2300: 1900 MHz
  • BE-2350: 2100 MHz (G1&G2)
  • BE-2400: 2300 MHz (G2)