Socket 754 question.

So why doesnt Socket 754 mobo support Dual Channel. Is it a CPU thing or a chipset problem.

 

I don't believe it's a socket design problem, more a feature or not of the motherboard and how it uses memory.

 

ok

while looking for mobos I couldnt find a single mobo that supports dual channel with a socket 754. I thought that I read somewhere that no 754 mobo supports dual channel anyone know one that does.

 

Might be the case. Still don't know why the socket design for the CPU would mean that the board couldn't be designed fro dual channel memory. Must be something to do with the chipset on these boards?

I'm running dual channel (2x512) on my Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro2 board. Can't say I notice much improvement with dual channel. But it looks better during the BIOS boot when it says "Memory running in dual channel" rather than single channel.
If I was a gamer it may make a bit of difference.

 

Frow what I understand, the memory controllers for Athlon64s moved from the motherboard to on-die, right in the chip...754 pin chips have single channel controllers, but 940- and 939-pin chips have dual channel controllers.

This week is the first chance to buy an affordable AMD 939-pin 90 nm 'Winchester'.Here's an AMD Zone Article from yesterday...Monarch sells the Winchester, but they're the only vendor with stock so they pretty much name their price (whoa! the 64 3200 is up $50 in the first week!) Still, there's no longer any reason for me to buy a 754-pin processor unless I'm looking for a deal on closeouts, because 939 is the roadmap.

For the record, I still get great results from a dual channel Asus A7N8X-Deluxe and an Athlon XP2500.

 

Also....

The 939 have the 512k L2 and the 754 have the 1mb L2. Is there a real performance difference between the two?

 

Yes there appears to be a difference. AMD lowered the clock frequency on the new Athlon64 3000 from 2.0 to 1.8, but both parts have the same 512k cache. The difference is the SOI technnology supposedly runs faster, so the performance is comparable. The dual channel does make a difference, but you have to use at least two dimms.

The 3200 'Newcastle' part has a 1MB cache, but the newer 'Winchester' part has only 512k. This is the trend for AMD, and lots of people who use it for gaming want the larger cache. Here's AMD's reference chart.

The Amdzone link in my previous post has a benchmark comparison if you're interested. I plan on getting the 3200 part when the price comes down and the NForce4 chipset comes out.