AMD Socket AM2 – the first DDR2-667 performance tests

Socket AM2 will arrive on June 6, just a few months left. The reason for this was that the first version of the AM2 processors had problems with the memory controller that simply didn’t live up to the expected performance. Whether this was a bug or because it only sported DDR2-667 is hard to say. Anyway, it seems AMD wanted to wait with launching the platform until DDR2-800 had been accepted by the market. Over at TomsHardware they’ve come across a Socket AM2 platform and an early test processor for the platform. Namely an Athlon 64 X2 4800+ AM2 with support for DDR2-667. These engineering samples has been sent out to motherboard manufacturers already in December 2005 and are not the ones that we the consumers will be able to purchase after June 6.

First of all this test processor doesn’t sport DDR2-800 but only DDR2-667 which makes it hard to estimate what the final processors will be like. Anywho, they’ve dissected the platform but also run a number of benchmarks. It is pretty obvious that DDR2-667 isn’t enough to make up for the relatively high memory latencies that is being used. DDR400 with aggressive latencies is still performing better. Whether there is a performance hog in the memory controller it is even more possible that the final version of the processors will be even better and we are truly looking forward to testing these babies later this year.

:: Read on at TomsHardware