Should AMD Have Kept 939 Going?

[AngelfireUk83]

I read on the inquirer a message from a reader to the author of some future AMD news he states that AMD should have kept the 939 CPU going a little longer. In some terms I agree I mean after reading that AM2 only increased perfromance by 5% maybe less. And yeah you have a wider bandwidth in memory didn't really make me want to upgrade from my (at the time) AMD Athlon XP 2500+ system.

I decided that 939 would be best for me and 939 CPU's with them not in production where going at decent prices. I was going to get a 3700+ but my mate who I bought it from his company sent me a 4000+ instead since it was the last 1. On overclockers.co.uk there selling AMD 939 3000+ for £19 and 3700+ for £35 thats a drop from £68 when I was intrested in getting it for there.

Now many are still on 754 systems some have upgraded from that to AM2 I suppose from that your getting the wider bandwidth and dual channel memory. So should AMD of let 939 live a little longer or was it right to kill it off then and there I used my head and saved over £150 buy going 939 and not AM2 most of that was of DDR1 pricing over DDR2 (at the time).

 

[LeAd_Poisoning]

i think your neglecting the high end AM2 chips which are a fair bit better than the 939s. The 5000+ and beyond are quite a lot more powerful with integrated DDR2 controllers. The X2s were merely transferred over to give the AM2 socket a broad product base. Its controller is native DDR1 so it fails to truly utilise the bandwidth of DDR2, hence the small increases. Still i would personally hold on for Socket F and DDR3, my spec is good enough to play games nicely until then with the addition of an 8800GTX

 

[FlahsMemory]

The 939 was pushed and ended on that note because mainly the x2 and opterons werent recieving any competition in performance. The competition that intel threw at AMD was based on technology advances and is still today. They mainstreamed ddr 2 and forced other major companies to produce it. So AMD was force to push it out early and therefore performance wasnt all that much better at then. Intel has been driving the tech higher forcing AMD to do the same and the industry will mainstream whatever they need to control the market. If Intel controls 80% of the market and is pushing DDR2 regardless if the thing performs a tad better than DDR1 the chip industries arent going to support DDR1 tech because it isnt mainstreamed and is a waste of resources to produce. AMD has been trying to play catch up for a long time now. And intel has been beating them on the tech front for quite sometime. I just hope that AMD decides to work futher ahead into the future and get along side intel instead of this cat and mouse game.

 

[AlabamaCajun]

The Brisbanes and Windsors fully support DDR2 with 8K+ bandwidth higher than the competition on DDR2. The brisbanes are fully mature and worth it for new builds. As for 939 get-em while you can for upgrades as they will be limited to just a few lines. Ram is limited in DDR1 so DDR2 is the ram of choice. As for DDR2, I've seen cheap DDR2 out bench my DDR500 Golds!

 

[||Console||]

I have seen ddr2 have more BW than my DDR1 but i have yet to see a am2/ddr2 @ the same clocks run Super pi as fast .

 

[AngelfireUk83]

Well I bought the 939 4000+ CPU because of the discount I was getting off it and I sold my Socket A parts before X-Mas last year. So it was a big upgrade cos I have never had or built a A64 system before until now and it was still just as easy.

I agree that if your upgrading and want to save some money get a 939 system if you can build 1. But thats if your not a future proof person but if you are go AM2 or Conroe whichever tickles ya fancy.

I am off to a lecture tonight on CPU's and future data transfer we get to test all the current systems and benchmark them. And discuss on what could be done in the future for both AMD and INTEL as a customer user.

 

[piotrr]

They should have kept 939 for a while, yes. Especially because of the success of the Core2Duo.

If I were to upgrade (again) today from my current 939 platform, I could go Intel or AMD at a whim, because I would have to replace my motherboard, my CPU and my RAM either way, so I might as well go over to Intel, won't cost me anything extra for the performance gains.

Same goes for anyone who has a socket 939 currently, maybe an older processor. They'd like to upgrade, but as AMD are phasing out all 939 processors, forcing people to upgrade, they are forcing people to consider that the C2Ds are just as large an upgrade, and are currently the better performers and overclockers.

So yes, they should have kept 939 production up for at least another 6 months.

 

[Gillbot]

They should have kept 939 for a while, yes. Especially because of the success of the Core2Duo.

If I were to upgrade (again) today from my current 939 platform, I could go Intel or AMD at a whim, because I would have to replace my motherboard, my CPU and my RAM either way, so I might as well go over to Intel, won't cost me anything extra for the performance gains.

Same goes for anyone who has a socket 939 currently, maybe an older processor. They'd like to upgrade, but as AMD are phasing out all 939 processors, forcing people to upgrade, they are forcing people to consider that the C2Ds are just as large an upgrade, and are currently the better performers and overclockers.

So yes, they should have kept 939 production up for at least another 6 months.

I've been thinking the same thing. If I have to get another board, chip and ram anyway I might as well move to intel. The main reason I went 939 was because I had 2GB of DDR1 sitting here and I couldn't see shelling the cash for new ram.

 

[piotrr]

I'm sticking with AMD for a while though, because I got such a good deal on an A8N-SLI and now I'm stuck with three 939 mobos, two 939 processors and oodles of DDR1. I'm not moving!

 

[malvindo]

I'm sticking with AMD for a while though, because I got such a good deal on an A8N-SLI and now I'm stuck with three 939 mobos, two 939 processors and oodles of DDR1. I'm not moving!

i am planning to moving
but to AM2
becos not planning to pay premium for opty dual core

but honestly i tot 939 still sufice for recent gaming
except 8800GTX

 

[malvindo]

i am planning to moving
but to AM2
becos not planning to pay premium for opty dual core

but honestly i tot 939 still sufice for recent gaming
except 8800GTX

what i mean 939 except 8800GTX is any single or dual whose speed not exced 2.7-2.8 ghz
if u manage to near 3.0ghz i dunno do they got CPU bottleneck with 88GTX?

 

[mblue]

My experience with AMD has shown me that you can usually skip a generation without much impact (if any) on your PC experience. For example, going strait from a socket A to 939 and bypass the 754. So in essence, yes I think AMD should have kept the 939 going a little longer.

 

[piotrr]

i am planning to moving
but to AM2

Maybe I'll pick up one of those AM2 adapters for my Asrock 939Dual-SATA2.

 

[Gillbot]

My experience with AMD has shown me that you can usually skip a generation without much impact (if any) on your PC experience. For example, going strait from a socket A to 939 and bypass the 754. So in essence, yes I think AMD should have kept the 939 going a little longer.

That's what I did. I went from A to 939 and shortly after I found out AM2 was here. O-well.

 

[hafa]

It's also possible that the move to AM2 was influenced to a small degree by the RAM market. Remember that Intel still accounted for a majority of market share when AM2 was rolled out and most Intel processors at the time were using DDR2 RAM. With the likelihood of falling RAM stocks and subsequent rising prices of DDR RAM (as we see today), AMD may have decided that the ability to use inexpensive DDR2 RAM would give them a small competitive edge.

A few other reasons why AM2 was likely adopted and 939 sacked:

1. It's less expensive to manufacture a single type than it is multiples
2. AMD had to do something, even a token gesture to counter Conroe
3. Since true next-gen processors were still way down the road, AMD rolled out AM2 as a means of providing a scalable alternative, in the hopes of maintaining their customer base.

All that said, I'd conjecture that economic and associated marketing imperatives at the time drove the decision to discontinue S939 , rather than any technical reasoning.

 

[Saints 26]

I love my 939 set up plus my Mushkin Redline 2gb at 5-2-3-2cas 1t is the best memory I have had ever.

 

[SeasonalEclipse]

Hey! HOW ABOUT SOCKET 754!! LOL 754 was a VERY short lived socket so it seems!

 

[Saints 26]

Hey! HOW ABOUT SOCKET 754!! LOL 754 was a VERY short lived socket so it seems!

True. I really liked the 754 socket. I still have a rig with a 3700 a64 and a 6800 ultra as a backup rig,still kicks butt.

 

[SeasonalEclipse]

Sadly, My main rig is 754.. I really need tog et with the in crowd eh?

 

[Deadbot1_1973]

I wish they would have kept production of 939 going. I bought my current setup in hopes of upgrading to an x2 later. Now, I'm looking to upgrade, and there are no good choices in 939. Sadly, since I have to look at a whole new system to upgrade now anyhow, I'll be going to a C2D. That is unless Green comes out with a new chip that can offer the easy overclocks or just WAY better performance than C2D's. Maybe we'll see just how far the price cuts in the next month go....who knows.