AMD Athlon II X2 240: Which slot? Wrong lshw output?

AnarKEY · 05-06-2011, 04:54 AM

Hi all,
i wanted to find out which slot my cpu uses.
So I did a "lshw"-command which produces the following output:

Code:

[...]
     *-cpu
          description: CPU
          product: AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 240 Processor
          vendor: Hynix Semiconductor (Hyundai Electronics)
          physical id: 4
          bus info: cpu@0
          version: AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 240 Processor
          serial: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
          slot: AM2
          size: 800MHz
          capacity: 3200MHz
          width: 64 bits
          clock: 200MHz
          capabilities: x86-64 fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp 3dnowext 3dnow constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc extd_apicid pni monitor cx16 popcnt lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs skinit wdt npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save cpufreq
          configuration: cores=2 enabledcores=2
        *-cache:0
             description: L1 cache
             physical id: 5
             slot: L1-Cache
             size: 256KiB
             capacity: 256KiB
             capabilities: pipeline-burst internal varies data
        *-cache:1
             description: L2 cache
             physical id: 6
             slot: L2-Cache
             size: 2MiB
             capacity: 2MiB
             capabilities: pipeline-burst internal varies unified
[...]

Seem's that I has a AM2-Slot cpu, but the amd specification at their homepage says something else, namely AM3:
http://www.amd.com/us/products/deskt...omparison.aspx

Maybe some more lshw-output would be usefull.

Code:

 *-core
       description: Motherboard
       product: M3A76-CM
       vendor: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
       physical id: 0
       version: Rev X.0x
       serial: MF7098G04401055
       slot: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
     *-firmware
          description: BIOS
          vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
          physical id: 0
          version: 1105
          date: 10/14/2009
          size: 64KiB
          capacity: 960KiB
          capabilities: isa pci pnp apm upgrade shadowing escd cdboot bootselect socketedrom edd int13floppy1200 int13floppy720 int13floppy2880 int5printscreen int9keyboard int14serial int17printer int10video acpi usb ls120boot zipboot biosbootspecification

My motherboard has a AM2+ Slot, so both, AM2 and AM3-cpus should work.
I'm considering if i should upgrade my hardware to use DDR3 memory instead of DDR2, but if I'm right i should use a AM3 cpu to benefit from DDR3?!

Thanx for every hint.

PS: I'm using Gentoo and the nearly most recent kernel v2.6.38.4.

rizzy · 05-07-2011, 02:05 AM

DDR3 memory won't fit into DDR2 slot. You'll need AM3 motherboard for that.

To you question, M3A76-CM motherboard has AM2+ slot. the list of supported CPUs is here: http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD.../M3A76CM/#CPUS

I found myself in similar situation then upgrading AM2+ M2N32-SLi, so i got Phenom X4 9850BE very cheaply. There is little point getting Phenom2 as the new features, like on chip memory controller, can't be used on AM2+ motherboards.

cascade9 · 05-07-2011, 06:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AnarKEY

Seem's that I has a AM2-Slot cpu, but the amd specification at their homepage says something else, namely AM3:
http://www.amd.com/us/products/deskt...omparison.aspx

My motherboard has a AM2+ Slot, so both, AM2 and AM3-cpus should work.
I'm considering if i should upgrade my hardware to use DDR3 memory instead of DDR2, but if I'm right i should use a AM3 cpu to benefit from DDR3?!

rizzy is right, you cant just put a DDR3 stick in a DDR2 slot. To use DDR3 you would need to get a new DDR3 AM3 motherboard. Not worth it IMO.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rizzy

I found myself in similar situation then upgrading AM2+ M2N32-SLi, so i got Phenom X4 9850BE very cheaply. There is little point getting Phenom2 as the new features, like on chip memory controller, can't be used on AM2+ motherboards.

The DDR3 on-chip memory controller cant be used with DDR2, but thats just fine, it will use the on-chip DDR2 controller with DDR2 motherboards.

DDR3 wasnt the only improvement they made to AM3 Phenom IIs. I could type it all out, but its easier just to link-

Quote:

If you're wondering where the Phenom II's additional transistors come from, look no further than its L3 cache, which has grown in size from 2MB to 6MB. This larger L3 cache is the centerpiece of AMD's effort to improve the clock-for-clock performance of its quad-core processor architecture. This cache isn't just larger, though. It's also faster, with what AMD claims is a two-cycle improvement in access latencies versus the 65nm Phenom's L3 cache. Since the L3 cache in this architecture runs at a lower clock frequency than the CPU cores themselves, the improvement in access times may be more substantial than this claim might first seem to suggest. The cache hierarchy is smarter in various ways, too, with more aggressive data prefetch algorithms, twice the bandwidth for L1/L2 coherency probes, and 48-way set associativity for the L3 cache. AMD has made quite a few changes to improve per-clock performance. If you'd like to read about them in more detail, I suggest checking out my review of the 45nm Opterons, which discusses this same silicon in more depth.

One specific I should mention here, though, is a nifty new power-saving feature. The cores on the 65nm Phenom were clocked independently of one another, so that any core could enter a lower-frequency, lower-power state when not in use, but they couldn't shut down entirely because the contents of their L2 caches needed to be kept available for other cores to check and possibly access. The Phenom II introduces another possibility: the contents of a core's L2 cache can be transferred into the L3 cache, and the core may then shut down entirely. AMD claims this feature can enable the Phenom II to achieve much lower idle power usage.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16147

AFAIK, apart from the possibility that some manufacturers have bodged the BIOS update for AM3 support, all those advancements with AM3 should work on AM2/AM2+ motherboards.

rizzy · 05-07-2011, 09:45 AM

@cascade9 Sorry, i didn't think about faster cache on Phenom2. I stand corrected.
Another possible issue could be the maximum power that AM2+ socket provides and CPU demand. Some am2+ boards provide 95W max to the cpu socket and high end Phenom2 X4 can draw up to 125W.

TobiSGD · 05-07-2011, 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rizzy

Some am2+ boards provide 95W max to the cpu socket and high end Phenom2 X4 can draw up to 125W.

Same on AM3. By the way, the high end Phenom I processors (9850 and 9950) and the AM2+ high end Athlon X2 (6000+ and 6400+)where also available as 125W CPUs.

cascade9 · 05-08-2011, 06:30 AM

Actually, Phenom 1 and Phenom II both go up to 140watt TDP. Some Phenom X4 9950s are 140watts TDP, and some Phenom II X4 965s are 140watt TDP as well.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AM...AGHBOX%29.html

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AM...BGIBOX%29.html

Also, TDP is not power draw- TDP is 'thermal design power'. There is a relationship between TDP and max draw, but its not as simple as TDP = max power draw. BTW, things have changed slightly over the years, but in the old P4/Athlon 64 days, intel tended to use TDP figures under the max draw, AMD tended to use TDP figures over the max draw-

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article169-page3.html