AMD Athlon 64 & Athlon 64 FX - It's Judgment Day

Socket-939: Athlon 64 FX DOA?

As we've already mentioned, AMD is planning on releasing a 939-pin version of the Athlon 64 FX sometime next year. We're hearing rumors that it will be very early next year, which would leave early FX adopters in a not-so-great situation.

Unlike previous situations where a chip manufacturer has switched sockets, the 940 situation won't leave users completely abandoned as the Opteron uses the same socket and thus you can always upgrade your CPU or motherboard to an Opteron down the road. AMD is planning on making 940-pin CPUs for a while so that shouldn't be a big problem, the only issue will be that the number of performance enthusiast boards available in a 940-pin version will eventually decrease over time; the boards you find for Opterons will obviously not be made with the enthusiast in mind.

The Socket-939 Athlon 64 FX will most likely have unbuffered memory support from the start (it doesn't make sense for AMD not to offer the support as they're redoing the package anyways, unless they simply chop off a pin with this part) and will be shipping at higher initial clock speeds than the current FX, so it makes sense to wait.

Combine the launch of a 939-pin version with the outstanding performance of the Athlon 64 and you will see why we are fairly negative on the FX at this point in time. If you want our advice, stay away from the FX for now.