Socket AM2 will in a few months replace Socket 939 as AMD will transfer all of its processor series to Socket AM2, also making it the first AMD platform with DDR2 support. We will have to wait until June 6 before we will know for sure how AMD’s new platform performs compared to the current one, but already some interesting previews have arrived and among these are our Asian colleagues at HKEPC that have managed to acquire a Socket AM2 system and compare it to a Socket 939 system to see what we might have to gain from the new platform. The AM2 system use DDR2-800 memory specified at 5-5-5-15 while the 939 use DDR400 with 2.5-3-3-7 latencies. Not the optimal memory settings for either platform, should still be enough to supply a decent comparison.
The processor used is an Athlon 64 X2 4800+ for both platforms (2.4GHz, 2 x 1MB L2 cache), in short it’s mainly the memory and motherboard that is different (both are based on the nForce 4 hipset though). The performance of the Socket AM2 platform will be improved until the launch, but the tests at HKEPC show that the DDR2 system perform well already, in general the difference is at most tiny between the two and Socket 939 is still faster with a number of tests. But Socket AM2 does conquer the most of them.
A hint of what Socket AM2 can do, but as always with these early previews there is truck loaded with salt standing outside the door and AMD may still have a lot coming. All in all things are looking mighty promising though.
:: See the results at HKEPC
:: Read from the start (babelfish’d)
