AMD 4×4 is the simple yet informative name of what AMD calls the “ultimate enthusiast platform.” AMD presented its new platform during its technology analyst meeting yesterday and summarizing it is a platform that makes it possible for users to use two dual core Socket AM2 Athlon 64 FX processors with one motherboard. This system with its four physical processor cores, two per processor, can then be paired with either ATI Crossfire or NVIDIA’s SLI technology. To make it a genuine 4×4 system you need Quad SLI through, as you then get four processor cores and four graphics cores in one system.
The 4×4 platform will thus not rely on AMD’s server processors, the Opteron family, but the enthusiast series Athlon 64 FX which can be paired with unbuffered DDR2 memory, which equivalent Opteron platforms does not support. According to ExtremeTech the first 4×4 systems are expected to appear sometime during the second half of 2006, and not surprisingly, through Alienware.
That AMD’s Direct Connect technology using the HyperTransport bus is a great tool for the development of 4×4 is hardly a surprise either as it as AMD says is “just to throw in another processor and it gets the bandwidth required.” Each core will get in direct contact with a memory channel and this will result in better performance with 4×4 than regular multi processor platforms.
That the technology we’re looking at is very promising is pretty obvious, also the fact that a 4×4 system will cost more than most can imagine. Dual Athlon 64 FX processors and dual-GPU graphics cards on top of that …
