February 07, 2006

AMD AM2 Socket Change Details

Anandtech has the low-down on what the change to AM2 really means. It's more than just a move to DDR2 memory.

The new AMD technology refresh, now called AM2, will bring DDR2 memory to the Athlon64 on-processor memory controller. Many in the industry have speculated about the impact of this low latency memory controller on DDR2 performance, which to this point has suffered under the impact of the higher latency Intel Netburst architecture. We are looking forward to the opportunity to take a closer look at DDR2 performance on AM2 - which is everyone's big question.
There will be more than just new memory with AM2, however. We now have details on the new Socket 940 for AM2. It has been widely reported that the new Socket 940 will not be compatible with the existing Socket 940 used for Opteron and early Athlon 64.