Here comes Quad FX: AMD's 4x4 platform gets "official"

Sure, we knew 4x4 was on the way, and we had an idea AMD was prepping a fancy new "Quad FX" moniker for the spankin' new chipsets, but we were still waiting for the stamp of legitimacy, which just came in the form of an AMD unveil this morning in Japan. The new chipset integrates NVIDIA's nForce 680a SLI chipset with AMD's fresh Athlon 64 FX-70 dual-core processors to great effect, with clock speeds hitting 2.6, 2.8 and 3.0GHz for the FX-70, FX-72 and FX-74 processors. The 90nm chips include 2MB of L2 cache, consume no more than 125W of power, and can support 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM, all based on AMD's Socket F workstation infrastructure. Of course, all this integrated action doesn't come cheap -- or tiny, as the picture above proves -- since the CPUs will run you $599, $799 and $999 respectively. By the time you buy two of 'em, plus 4 NVIDIA cards and a motherboard to hold 'em all, your bank account will be hurting mightily, but if cost is no concern, there's no arguing with the power potential here.

[Via El Reg]

[jay.viz @ Nov 29th 2006 11:18AM]

Being part of the FX line seems a bit strange, you'd think they'd be Opterons instead. Dual socket quad cores seem more suited as servers and workstations instead of high end desktops.

[ct06033 @ Nov 29th 2006 11:26AM]

Ya, but now with intel's quad cores out, what used to be "server class" is now "consumer grade" just like its always been through computer history.

on another note, that thing is gigantic. and here i thought my mother board was cramped. i like the support for 12 sata drives.

as nice as it is to see these, its still just there to compete with intel while AMD releases their true quad-cores.

[Dallas @ Nov 29th 2006 11:41AM]

Just 3 wheels ?
You would think for the money it would come with the 4th wheel included. Who in the right mind would buy this 1.5K Watt, obsolete in 6 month, behemoth?

This is a terrible example of pushing a rediculous design just to show 2 benchmark wins against Intel's Core2 Duo/Quad chips. Good grief. Just say Intel won this round and you'll have something much better very soon.

[four? @ Nov 29th 2006 11:40AM]

4 nvidia cards? I only see two PCI-E slots on this or maybe my coffee hasn't unblurred my vision yet ...

[Rick @ Nov 29th 2006 2:52PM]

you only see 2 pci-e slots because the "4x4" has been simplified. it should really read:

(2^2)x(2^2)

meaning 2 dual core processors, and 2 dual core video cards. as far as pci-e goes, we have a long way to go before we start to see pci-e mobo's with 4 x16 slots.

remember kids... keep New York beautiful... litter in New Jersey....

[bobjim @ Nov 29th 2006 12:12PM]

Why aren't AMD promoting their ATI Crossfire system? Surely an AMD platform would be all about the 4 ATI cards?

[saq @ Nov 29th 2006 12:54PM]

I think AMD is sticking with the NForce line due to NVIDIAs HUGE support for their platform and their motherboard line being vastly superior.

The NForce chipset put AMD on the map. Back when the Athlon first launched (the first time AMD had product parity/superiority to intel) they had a very rocky reception because the VIA chipsets sucked major ass. Both performance but more importantly reliability.
Then in came nvidia with their new NForce line, the first product of its type they had EVER made, and quickly ate up nearly the entire AMD motherboard market. They went from 0% of the AMD motherboard market to 80% within 8 months.
Some of the reasons for this was they introduced nearly every groundbreaking feature AMD had been cooking up, AND added on some killer features of their own while at the same time being solid as a rock.

I also have a feeling the 4x4 platform has been in the works longer than the ATi acquisition, and ATi is a little new in the motherboard game in comparison.

[Nossy @ Nov 29th 2006 2:09PM]

Just Curious, but why isn't AMD using any ATI technologies (Crossfire, etc) but choose to use Nvidia? Didn't AMD just acquired ATI? Does this indicate that Nvidia's SLI is superior (not that everyone already knows that).

[UFgatorsean @ Nov 29th 2006 2:48PM]

How many of these setup do you think they will sell? 10? 20?

What a complete waste of R&D time and money. Go AMD!

[Max @ Nov 29th 2006 1:15PM]

so..why did they buy ati?

[Porkchop Flavored Cupcake @ Nov 29th 2006 8:25PM]

If they didn't, intel was going to.

[strider_mt2k @ Nov 29th 2006 12:38PM]

Needs more fans.

[Elliott @ Nov 29th 2006 12:41PM]

Pfft it doesn't look THAT great, it doesn't even have any ISA slots.

[Matt B @ Nov 29th 2006 1:20PM]

*Drooling*

Give me one of these and a pair of 8800's and I'd never leave the house.

[Baffled @ Nov 29th 2006 2:28PM]

My god that thing is huge!

[four? @ Nov 29th 2006 3:01PM]

@ Rick
That's what I assumed, two 7950s or whatever ... however the article says 4 cards.

Anyone else notice the abundance of SATA ports? i didn't think any case manufacturer made a case large enough to hold that many drives/devices...

[Donielle @ Nov 29th 2006 2:48PM]

has anyone notice all the heat that thing is going to push out look where the memory is at come on AMD i love your product but you can do better than that that's garbage when you bring something intel will be sorry but they have this round

[chase @ Nov 29th 2006 3:23PM]

amen. i will be getting one asap.

[sandrahiltz @ Nov 29th 2006 3:11PM]

It has 3 PCI-E slots, the black ones and the blue ones are PCI-E 16x slots, unfortunatly the layout is poor since the bottom two are right next to each other and all high end video cards heatsinks take up the slot next to them so you can really only fit 3 cards even though there are 4 slots.

[lizard.boy @ Nov 30th 2006 7:33PM]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are indeed 4 PCIe slots, 2 black and 2 blue.