Really bad news for AMD owners

[drvarunmehta]

Source
AMD is killing off the socket 939 processors (except X2 4800+) by the end of the year. So anyone who wants to upgrade their socket 939 rig to dual core has to do it by the end of the year.
This really $ucks. Why should I have to have to buy a new AM2 mobo and DDR2 RAM to go dual core when there's enough life left in my socket 939 mobo?

Well it is competition between Intel and AMD. If both have to survive they have to do it.

See what is happening to GPU. Direct 9.0c is ending soon and directx 10 is coming.

[gary4gar]

thanx for info

[godsownman]

Sad, but luckily I dont have an AMD yet. But my friend will find this useful.

[mayanksharma]

hmm..my frnd is gonna kill me for sure.but why the hell are they doing this?Too bad.

[plsoft]

does this mean there won't be any warranty on the discontinued products even if we buy it before they actually withdraw them from the market? and will the price of the X2 processors come down with this development? Otherwise i don't see how AMD plans to fight INTEL.

[cyrux]

I dont think there is any thing bad in this. A socket cannot remain in operation for a life time . It ofcourse reached an end when ever a better and more effecient conunter part is launched. Same applies for S939.
I still dont get the bad news for existing customers. They shouldnt be feeling bad at all. They (inclduing me ) have one of the most successful socket around which i dont think is worth upgrading for atleast for the next 2-3 years (atleast for me). There are still people using older sockets like socket A and socket 370 ...

[vaithy]

Yes!

I still use the Socket A but waiting for the processor + mobo war finalised.. then one of them will come victorious!!
-Vaithy

[Ankur Gupta]

Well are X2 processors also being discontinued???....they were not introduced not long ago...and well then will only AM2 processors remain for desktop...also wat is the cost of AM2 supporting mobo right now...
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20060622PR211.html
are these prices correct...

[samrulez]

Very soon they will also be killing the AM2 and...then we have to upgrade to a AM3....This is really bad news..

[martian]

AMD's killing off the socket 939 processors (except X2 4800+) by the end of the year was initially rumoured... But now, it seems that AMD is not ending all the Athlon 64 lines. It affects only a total of 16 individual CPUs, the 3000+ and 3200+ Socket 939 likes... but not all! AMD will no longer be offering them for sale for they'll be halting manufacture. So, you folks need not weep for eternity!

[Ankur Gupta]

well then is AM2 also going to be discontinued?...it was introduced recently....now for upgrade FX seems to be my only option...hope tht is not going to be discontinued...
@martain
can u pls tell which all 16 will be discontinued?

[JGuru]

It's not only your PC, but AMD that's also going to suffer. AMD needs to fight back the battle of the
processors with Intel, so AMD is developing new faster processors. But killing of Socket 939
processors by the year end is really too bad.

[martian]

I'm not sure @ ankurgupta.me of all those 16 models... But this is what I heard: "Athlon 64 X2 chips that will be shut down include the 4800+, 4400+, and 4000+ models for Socket AM2 and 4400+ and 4800+ models for Socket 939. Single core chips for the 4000+, 3700+, 3200+, and 3000+ models will also be discontinued. For the Sempron, I think AMD is stopping almost all of them".

This is being done because of two reasons:

The 2 x 1 MB of L2 Cache of an Athlon64 X2 occupies about 45% of the die surface. The number of 2 x 1 MB Cache that can be engraved on the same wafer is significantly less than the number of 2 x 512 KB Caches, and this is something to consider for a possible upcoming price war!

Future AMD architecture is another reason because in the upcoming AMD's QUAD Core, each of the four cores will only have 512 KB of L2 Cache with an additional unified L3 cache of 2 MB. And so, the absence Athlon 64 with 1 MB of L2 Cache per core will not attract any criticism when AMD's Quad Core gets released!