AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350: Mainstream X2s with 45W TDP
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 5, 2007 4:09 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Eeech, Model Numbers
Although all current AMD processors retain their original names, the two being introduced today are the first to use AMD's new model numbers. As announced during its Phenom introduction, AMD is dropping the 64 from its product names - the new chips are simply Athlon X2s. The 64-bit race is over now that both AMD and Intel have 64-bit support on a majority of their processors, and now it's time to move on. All previous X2s will still be called Athlon 64 X2s and AMD isn't changing the logo just yet, but eventually it will phase out the old names/model numbers in favor of the new system.
What exactly is the new system? It's a slightly more complicated version of Intel's model number system. Here's the explanation of the new system straight from AMD:
The introduction of the AMD AthlonTM X2 dual core processor BE-2350 and BE-2300 brings the first opportunity to learn about AMD's new model methodology. The goal with the new system was to better inform processor choice and utilize a methodology that be long lasting. Existing products will retain their current model numbers. Our customers are familiar with the current models and we will continue to utilize that system until it is phased out over a period of time by new product introductions.
Let's look at a sample model number: BE-2350 (This is the AMD Athlon X2 dual-core 45-watt desktop CPU you have for review)
Format:
The new AMD desktop processor models have an alpha numeric format of A A - # # # #.
First two characters: BE-2350
The first and second alpha indicate the processor class. The second alpha character indicates the TDP of the processor. The "BE" class is comprised of sub-65W processors. This chip's TDP is 45 watts. As additional products are introduced, new classes will also be introduced and these new classes will distinguish between key attributes of the processors.
First numeric digit: BE-2350
The first numeric digit after the dash is the processor series and indicates reflects major increments in processor attributes. The "2XXX" series is currently contained within the AMD Athlon X2 family of processors.
Note that we have dropped the "64" from the Athlon X2 name. AMD pioneered simultaneous 64/32-bit x86 processing. Now that 64-bit processing is ubiquitous and AMD is recognized for its leadership, maintaining a "64" in our desktop product naming methodology is not necessary, and the shortened name simplifies product references.
Last three numeric digits: BE-2350
The last three numeric digits after the dash indicate the relative position of the CPU within its class series. Increasing numbers within a class series indicates increments in processor attributes.
In summary:
Please note that the actual assignment of letters and numbers are intentionally arbitrary, but these digits are combined in such a way as to avoid confusion between models while indicating major and minor processor increments. Just by reading the "BE-2350" model number, you know that it is a mainstream desktop CPU. You know its power consumption level is below 65 watts. You know that it is in the Athlon X2 family. And you know its position relative to other CPUs. As new processors are introduced, the combination of class and models should be of increasing value in identifying and distinguishing AMD processors. Previously, our model numbers indicated relative performance but were unable to capture the step function performance multi-core processors in many usage scenarios and were unable to capture additional processor features or attributes.
Normally we don't quote manufacturer emails to us verbatim, but this one just seemed so appropriate. To break it down for you, we'll compare AMD's new naming scheme to Intel's.
The first letter in Intel's naming system indicates processor class, for example the E6600 vs. X6800. With AMD's new system, we have two letters that describe the class, with the second one being used to indicate TDP. The following four digits in Intel's system simply indicate performance of the processor relative to others in its class; e.g. an E6600 is faster than an E6320, the first digit indicating major performance differences between chips (e.g. E6600 has 4MB L2 cache 1066MHz FSB, while the E4300 has a 2MB L2 cache and 800MHz FSB). AMD's system is similar, the first digit is reserved for major differences in performance, while the latter three digits are used for minor differences (think speed bins).
All in all, AMD's system is a response to Intel's system, neither of which is perfect. We liked Intel's naming system on the Core 2 lineup back when it was simple and each model was separated by increments of 100. The introduction of the E6420 and E6320 made the system a bit more messy and the upcoming 1333MHz FSB CPUs will only further complicate the lineup. AMD appears to be starting in a period of disarray and if recent articles on the forthcoming lineup are correct, we'll absolutely hate talking about CPUs from both manufacturers.
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bob4432 - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
maybe i missed it, so are those power readings w/ the 8800gtx?Justin Case - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
Article says "are architecturally no different <b>than</b> the Athlon 64 X2s" when it should say "are architecturally no different <b>from</b> the Athlon 64 X2s".joex444 - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
As far as our language is concerned, the two are interchangable. Compare with "before surgery" and "pre-surgery".Justin Case - Wednesday, June 6, 2007 - link
No, they're not. They mean different things. "Different than" means "different from that which" (and is generaly deprecated in writing). In other words, you can use "different than" in situations like "He was a very different John than I used to know".Here:
http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxdiffer.htm...
http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000202.htm">http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000202.htm
In the sentence in this article, it would make no sense to say "are architecturally no different from that which the Athlon 64". It's clearly a distinction between two things themselves, therefore the only correct form is "different from". Things are different _from_ each other, they are not different "than" each other.
Your comparison with "before" makes absolutely no sense; you're comparing an adverb to a preposition. A lot of people also use "then" when they mean "than" or "it's" when they mean "its", but that does not make them "interchangeable". Not if you're literate, anyway.
TA152H - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
I read this article, and I'm wondering why AMD is releasing this product. It's a mediocre product by any measure. The power isn't that great, it's good, but 45 watts is still a lot, and the performance is poor to mediocre. It's inferior to the existing 3800, by and large, and it costs more. I'm just not understanding them at all.Why not go single core with this product, and go really low power? How many people really need dual core? If they do, don't they generally want better performance than this? It's amazing how well we did without dual processors for so long, but now they even release "energy saving" processors with dual cores. If they had half a brain, they'd halve the brains of these chips, offer them at 22 watts or whatever, and they'd have a killer CPU for the masses, and they could sell it even more cheaply. The vast majority of people don't need dual processors, or 2.8 GHz, and would love to save 22 watts, and $30 to $40 on the processor and not have it. If you're going to do something, do it right, instead of mediocre at everything. Hector has to go, he's a moron.
Kim Leo - Wednesday, June 6, 2007 - link
That comment tells us quite a bit about you, first of all 45W is not a lot, and the way that AMD makes Dual core processors you probably won't magically go 22W down in consumption, more like 10W. People usually buy what is cheapest, but they are not entirely stupid, some people will understand when the salesmen tells them that 2 processors=better performance that you can feel while using the machine, that it is a better bargain.for anyone not playing oblivion, cell factor, or anything as requiring as those games, or editing videos proffesionally, these are top performers, hell, i'm using a A64 3400+ @ 2.4 and i have no problem playing oblivion, a little with cell factor, but i think that is because of my Geforce 7600Gt, but still. You don't need Core 2 Duo's to do anything that a Athlon(or BE 2XXX)Can't do too.
you made a comment before this wich once again, tells us who we are dealing with..
on the technology side you claim that P7(or the Pentium 4 design) is ahead of the K8 design, it's different, much different.. but i wouldn't say superioer in any way, the only smart thing P7 delivered was QDR bus, and even that is pretty absolete compared to HTT in the K8 design, Hyperthreading might be advanced, but it dosn't work well in any way, so if anything it is a broken advance technology(i use HT dayily in my laptop). i think that most people with some insight will know that the K8 is a wonder when it comes to technology with HTT, and IMC, and K10 will be even more wonderous looking at the power management of each core, and Memory controller, seperatly other than that it looks a lot like what intel did to the Core design, making it "bigger" with more cache and some arch changes that essentially is just making the old "bigger".
AMD did release a 9 W singel core sempron by the way..
TA152H - Wednesday, June 6, 2007 - link
OK, a few things, that say something about you. You have really poor reading comprehension, and I don't like being misrepresented.I never said 45 watts is a lot, I said it isn't that little. There's a big difference. When the point of a product, the only selling point really, is it's low wattage, and it isn't particularly low, it's not that great. 45 watts is just not very low. With regards to halving it, if you halve the transistors, you halve the power draw. Now, one thing is, you don't have two memory controllers, but considering everythning else, you'd come pretty close to losing half the transistors, but not completely half. So, let's say you'd lose 40% power instead of 50%. Now, you could probably run the processors at lower voltage, since you don't need BOTH processors to run at that lower voltage/speed, so, you'd still come pretty close to 50%. It would be way more than 22% or so. It's transistors that use power, and the power doesn't magically disappear into the air. If you halve them, you halve the power use if it's a carbon copy you're eliminating. Of course, as I said, it's not completely half, but it's pretty close.
Two processors are better performance you can feel? Does one processor control a hand that massages you or something? Very, very few applications require more CPU power than one processor can deliver, and the bottlenecks in performance are more I/O like hard disks, internet access, etc... A second processor doesn't help this, but it sure uses up some power. When it speeds up surfing, text messaging, and printing then I'd say the world needs it. It doesn't.
You completely missed my point on games. I"m not a simpleton that plays games all day, so it's not important to me, and I mentioned in a previous message that AMD processors are fine for most people, and their so cheap they are worth it. But, this particular model is confusing. It's worse than the 3800, and not very different. What's the point? They should have made something a little more interesting, instead of making a processor that's not particularly good at anything.
Again, your reading comprehension fails you. I said the P7 was more ADVANCED than the Athlon, not superior. And, of course, it is superior is some ways, you only need to look at clock speeds for that. But, overall, it's a perfect example of a very advanced design that just didn't work well. So, again, don't put words in my mouth.
Point to point technology is nothing new, integrated memory controllers are very old and if you don't know this you probably should read more and post less. Even in the x86 world the NX586 that was out in the mid 1990s had an integrated memory controller, so there is nothing at all advanced in the Athlon. It looked fine when Intel had the crappy and bizarre P7, and all the idiots of the world swore how wonderful the IMC was and thought Intel couldn't do it, without realizing it had severe tradeoffs too. Now the Core 2 has destroyed the Athlon and AMD, and people magically see the IMC wasn't the panacea everyone thought, at least not on the current lithographies. Intel could have done it any time they wanted to, it's nothing new or novel, but they decided it wasn't the best way to go yet. In a few years, they'll do it, finally, when it makes more sense because of smaller lithographies.
You clearly are confused about the Core 2. It was wider, and I guess that's what you mean by bigger, but it also had memory disambiguation which is very helpful for increase scheduling. The instruction fusing and the enhanced SSE is nice too, and neither would fall under bigger. AMD is doing some interesting things with Barcelona, and the incredibly primitive load scheduling of the K7 is being upgraded to something similar to the P6 (of 1995) so that should help some, although they still trail Intel. I wouldn't call that bigger at all, actually, very little of the Barcelona is just more of the same. It's wider in terms of getting data in and out, but the processing cores are quite similar. It's more tweaked and optimized than bigger, and I'm not saying that as a negative. The primitive scheduling of the K7 is a huge handicap that even allowed the much better designed/smaller P6 to compete with it clock normalized, despite having serious disadvantages in many areas. It's still behind the Core 2, but it's narrowed the gap a lot, and should be the most important change.
strikeback03 - Friday, June 8, 2007 - link
Here on my desk at work is a system with a A64 3500+, which is 2.2GHz, 512L2, and 1.5GB RAM. Down the hall in another of our labs is a system with an A64X2 4200+, which is 2.2GHz, 512L2 X2, with 4GB RAM installed though XP cannot address all of it. The dual core system is noticeably quicker in application loading and web browsing. So not something vital, but nice to have.Also, a number of laptop processors would seem to meet the criteria you have set (single core, TDP ~25W) though they are not cheap.
TA152H - Saturday, June 9, 2007 - link
That's probably got more to do with other things than dual core. Don't forget the extra memory is used as a disk cache, and anyone that tells you surfing is CPU based is a buffoon.I have several of each, mainly dual processors rather than dual cores, and the differences in every day stuff isn't there. Consequently, my main machine is a single core processor because dual wouldn't make any difference for the simple stuff I do on it. Naturally, my development machine is not a single processor, but what percentage of people are programmers?
The problem with Intel's laptop processors is that they don't use the same motherboards, so it's not that helpful. I think Aopen makes some desktop parts that will use them though, but you're stuck with an obsolete chipset if you do that. So, it's an option, but there are some tradeoffs with it beyond just the lower clock speed and cost of the processor.
SiliconJon - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
This is the first big disappointment I've come across here at Anandtech in the way of an article. Generally I find the articles to be very precise and technical, but I feel the comparisons are quite useless in this test setup just looking at the power consumption graphs. I really think this should have been more thorough, or at least much more precise and accurate in comparing technologica counterparts. Though it was interesting to see how far behind AMD's performance bar has fell. Where the heck are they going?