That means it would be possible, in a Socket 939 system with two memory channels, to plug in two pairs of DIMMs that are different sizes without gravely compromising performance.
Five of them are aimed at complex math operations like fast Fourier transforms (often used in scientific computing), while another four allow for better data organization in software vertex shader routines for graphics. Pioneered by Intel in its Pentium 4 “Prescott” chips, these 11 instructions are targeted at speeding up certain types of computation.
Ask AMD, and they will give you a short list of enhancements made to the revision E core that looks like this:
You do want to pick the right one, by the way. Fortunately, most of the better online vendors will tell you which version of the K8 core you’re buying, so you can pick the right one. These cores sell under some of the same model names, including 3200+, 3500+, and 3800+, depending on clock speed. If you go buy a new Athlon 64 with 512K of L2 cache at an online vendor, you may well get the new Venice core, or you might get one of its two predecessors: the “Winchester” core, also built on AMD’s 90nm fab process, or the older “Newcastle” core built on a 130nm fab process. In fact, they’re not really advertising the changes at all, and we had to goad them into sending one of these puppies out for review. One of the first things you need to know about the Venice core is that AMD isn’t selling it as anything new or special. Hop into our gondola and come take a brief tour of Venice with us. We’ve also attempted to overclock the thing into oblivion. We have on the bench the 3800+ model of the Venice Athlon 64, and we’ve compared it against everything from its direct predecessor, the Athlon 64 “Newcastle” 3800+, to the highfalutin’ new dual-core processors from Intel and AMD. Also, through a magical amalgamation of techie terms like “90nm SOI” and “strained silicon,” the Venice core delivers one especially elusive quality: heart-stopping overclocking potential.
The Venice core brings with it a number of enhancementsincluding SSE3 support, a revised memory controller, and a clear, cream-like substancein order to achieve even better clock-for-clock performance than previous versions of the Athlon 64. I’m talking, of course, about the new revision E versions of the Athlon 64, and more specifically about the new core code-named “Venice” that has been (ahem) making waves of late. N OW THAT THE INITIAL WAVE of dual-core CPU previews is over, we have some time to focus on a new processor that you can actually purchase today.