Why am I not surprised the usual Intel fanboys are all over this discussion?

Anyways, so long as it's cheaper than a dual opteron setup then bring it. C2D will still be my main system but a cheap 4 or 8 way setup would be a cheap (comparatively) folding machine.

Of course Intel's quad core will be out next year and possibly six months later one from AMD again. Still, so long as it is "cheap" then who cares, other than the couple of fanboys anyways ;)

Ahhh the gimmick of the week from AMD to fight off the Intel hordes.

Combine this new setup with a Quad SLI, and a RAID5 array of raptors and you will need dual 1gigawatt power supplies....or to keeping with the whole 4 way theme quad 500watt power supplies in their own case with glow in the dark cables going from the power case to the computer case.

With all of the software that can actually use this setup it will be a huge success among the rich AMD fan girls that run nothing but benchmark software.

I'll admit to being more cynical than most, but this "4x4" stuff doesn't seem like a good idea to me at all. I'm still waiting for availability of the Core 2 w/ NForce 590 to finally make the leap to dual core, but I'd guess that most of my performance-critical apps (games) are single-threaded. Heck, the Athlon 3800+ single core scores about the same framerates as a X2 4600+ because they have the same clockspeed. By extension, a Quadfather using 2 X2 4600+'s won't have framerates much higher than the single 3800+, which is way cheaper.

Instead of selling them as sets, it'd be the same price to slap a 3800+ and a X2 3800+ on the same MB (theoretically speaking). This would get you more bang for your buck in single threaded apps and still have plenty for multi threading. It would be slower in multi threaded apps than 2 X2's, but what's more important?

And how about apps which use more I/O than CPU cycles? (DVD writing, video capture).

Here's my el-cheapo solution: as an enthusiast, you probably already have a ninja computer. Invest in a KVM switch and then build another computer around a fancier CPU. Then I'd set up 3 displays, hook 2 up to one, and one to the other... Maybe even go crazy and set them both up as dual display. One keyboard and mouse to the KVM switch to swap between either.

Advantages over 4x4:
1. Cheaper (~$500 vs. "well under $1000" for the CPU)
2. Faster single threaded apps.
3. You can hook up a 2nd keyboard / mouse set on the other computer in case someone comes over for a little LAN gaming.
4. I like to have firefox open on one screen to entertain me while I'm waiting for the Counter-strike round to time-out because the last guy remaining is camping and the other is AFK at spawn... You don't have to worry about running it in a window and wondering if the game or the vid card will freak if the window loses focus.
5. You can use Linux on one and Windows on the other, which is actually what gave me the idea 4 years ago.

Disadvantages:
1. Not as fast in multi threaded apps.
2. Have to flip a switch to control the 2nd computer.

So we gonna get sempr0n versions of FX so people can actually afford 4x4?..well part of it. And is "under a grand" CPUs only? Also fun they avoided the GPU part.

Also 4 vs 8 DIMMs seems abit scrooge, but I guess thats due to motherboard space.

I would love to see all CPUs turn into SMP capable CPUs atleast.

I liked the idea of a second socket for a co-processer. It opens alot of windows for customization. Just adding another FX while it will give more cores isn't anything special as this is already available in the server market.

Still they're planning on doing this with the FX series. It would be prime if it wasn't locked up at all and it was totally up to the user as to what processers they want to put in to it. Buying a cheaper sempron then later getting a FX for example and it would be smart enough to assign tasks based on the kind of cores available.

It would also be cool if the memory was shared. Both sockets access the same dimms. As it stands now AMD 64's dont even come close to exploting DDR2 let alone DDR3 which is just on the horizon. Those extra sockets they you would need to fill with dimms when it isn't shared is money you could be spending on a faster CPU or the like.

Extreme, as in stupid, but I feel that way about SLI too so.... Don't get me wrong, I'm a dual CPU fan, but I can't think how I'd keep 4 cores busy let alone 8 considering their current preformance. Not as a home computing enthusiast.

Hmmm... The VP of Marketings name is Pat Moorehead. Say that out loud a couple of times.

Is it just me, or has TR been invaded with fanboy trolls lately?

If they are not using castrated FX'es but close-enough ones, can I get someone else to buy the kit and split each processor for 2 systems? Hmm....

At the moment AMD is losing everything at the high end in reviews against the top end Conroe.

This will regain the lead in half of those applications, and over time as games and other apps multithread better, and synthetic benchmarks become less single-threaded, it'll win more.

In terms of consumer viewpoint, this is a good thing for AMD to create and sell. It will mean a rough draw at the high end, via different methodologies but at a similar cost. That's far better than being beaten every which way. Enthusiasts have been at the heart of AMD for a long time, and helped them get to where they are now. They'd be foolish to lose them all. I bet a lot of them would get hard at the though of a four core system under their desk.

Sounds promising -- I certainly like the idea of making two socket systems mainstream, and dropping the artificial premium that you have to may for SMP-capable processors. This is a great example (assuming it works out as well as this optimistic forecast) of the benefits of competition -- there's no way AMD would have done this if Intel hadn't come out with Core2.

If it's true that you can buy a Quadfather motherboard and plug in quad-core CPUs later, that's even better.

I think it's REALLY stupid to market this to gamers, but video hounds CAN make good use of this (other other 4 core machines - opterons, dempsey/woodcrest, kentsfield). Video, programmers using virtual machines.

Bottom line is people do use dual cpu rigs even today with dual core cpus, and this is suppossed to bring it to them on budgets lower than opterons or woodcrest, though It not only has to compete with that, but also kentsfield which is coming in q4 this year. as kentsfield works on ordinary boards, it's going to be hard to price 2 "4x4" cpus and a dual cpu board against the single kentsfield.

Memory bandwidth is the BIGGEST sham here. 754 to 939 made little difference, a lot did with core upgrades and you can see it by disabling dual channel mode. ddr400 to ddr2 800 was almost nothing.

I hate the 4x4 name. It should be 2x2, but I guess we've figured out already that they cannot count.

/me fancies the idea of a dual-socket, 4-core CPU based on a £150 motherboard and two £100 X2 3800+'s

I think those "two-CPU bundles for 4x4 with price tags that extend to 'well under $1000'" are going to be the 1MB cache X2s that went missing, the X2 4000, 4400, and 4800, re-branded as FX parts. If the prices for those processors had dropped in line with the others, a pair of 4800s would set a user back $600. That's only $100 more than an E6700. I doubt they would give them unlocked multipliers, but, who knows? Conroe might make them that desperate.

Aside: If the discontinued AM2 X2s do come back, I talked about them being re-branded as FX when the end-of-life news first hit. The fact that all the X2s are technically "4x4 ready" (with support disabled during testing) is a tip off, along with them having FX-like cache.

Just allow all X2 AM2 processors to run in this setup. Remove the restriction of getting these to run in 2x socket configuration and let the "enthusiasts" run them at home with unbuffered memory and less cache per processor.

Opteron's CLEARLY are a different segment than what AMD is targetting with "4x4".

After scimming the latter chapters of Intel's Book of Desperate Moves, especially the one called Catastrophic results call for EXTREME measures, AMD now took a liking to their earlier work on Benching the Improbable or How to find a problem for your solution.

Coming up next: Partners are valuable, paying parters are priceless

If they require Athlon FX processors, even if they sell some that are under 1000 bucks in a two-CPU kit, they'll still be a terrible value in terms of the performance for the money, because they couldn't just release high performance FX processors for "well under" 500 dollars each in a kit, without dropping prices on everything else. They'd have to make the under 1000 kit use really slow FX processors, and make claims about how much better performance the 4 cores are compared to a single dual-core CPU, even though the individual core clock speed is drastically lower than the speeds on cheaper X2's. And of course I'd still point out I could buy two X2s with the same clock speed for less, and give up a little cache maybe, but that shouldn't matter if it's really the 4 cores that make the difference.

The FX line itself is for people who just have money to blow, which doesn't include even most enthusiasts. 4x4 using FXs only will sell to an even smaller niche. Which may be okay, there are plenty of niche products that sell well enough to be justified, but this certainly isn't something that'll have a lot of life in it.

This has the potential of being marketed to value server/workstation segiment where you do not need registered memory and other professional-level stuff that comes with Opteron S940, Socket F platform.

This reminds me of the dual S370 and Socket A motherboard days, where dual-chip solutions were at least affordable to ethusiast.

This is GOLD! :)

Admittedly, I'm probably exactly the niche demographic this is targetted at - mid 20s, not married, high paying job and money to burn - but my current rig was /this/ close to being an opteron 2xx dual core dual socket system and only the lack of enthusiast features on boards like the K8WE put me off.

My next rig - which I don't plan to buy for about a year - will almost certainly be quad cores, quad SLI. The only thing that might tempt me away is single socket quad-core Conroe, but we'll wait for the benchmarks.

I still think "4x4" is a terrible code name... even if I do think it's a fascinating release :)

Interesting indeed.... perhaps it's not for ALL users, for certain, but if the price points are right in the other combinations - this could prove to be a good alternative to the higher end paper-launched intel chips.

If it's based on the FX familly (even a cheap version) then it's going to be a niche of a niche market : aka nothing to see, move along..

But a 4x4 setup with cheap X2 would do it big time !

Unless I missed something and the consumer level software market is about to go radically multi-threaded, this is most certainly "a stunt to distract attention from The Other Guy's shiny new processors."

The Quadfather.

That's a good one. I like that. Any takers on how long it will take for some modder to plaster this moniker, in some industrial font, all over their splendidly-windowed case to compliment the LED-lit fans and UV-reactive SATA cables?

People have been talking about dual-processor dual-core systems ever since the X2 was announced (with a better codename, if I remember right). Good to see they're aiming to make it affordable, or at least more affordable than it could be.

I wonder what the advantages would be over a dual-core system, though. I doubt you get double the creamy smoothness with four logical processors. :(