AMD Athlon 64 CG will give better memory performance

ANOTHER Taiwanese mainboard manufacturer, this time Shuttle, has given insight into the next major silicon revision of a forthcoming microprocessor.

A PDF, available for public download at Shuttle's site here, refers to BIOS version FN85S015, for the mainboard within its AMD Athlon 64 based Shuttle SN85G4 Small Form Factor PC.

Right at the top of the supported CPU list for this BIOS is an interesting entry: AMD Athlon 64 3400+ CG…

French, well Canadian, system integrator friends of The INQ tell us that the "CG" revision of Athlon 64 brings greater performance via "2T memory timing enhancements that will enable support of higher density and/or higher frequency memory modules".

Additionally, forthcoming "CG" revisions of the AMD Athlon 64 will not require identically paired DDR DIMM modules for the second and third slots in mainboards with three DIMM slots.

Expect "CG" revisions of Athlon 64 to start rolling from the AMD's fabrication facilities before the start of Q2 this year.

"CG" variants of the Athlon 64 can be identified under the new CPU ID of 0000F4AH and current Socket 754 mainboards should only require a BIOS microcode update to correctly identify the processor.

We might also mention one detail in our earlier story, "AMD turns heat on Intel with Athlon 64 FX", might be subject to change and that is that AMD Athlon 64 FX for Socket 939 will, as we revealed, not require Registered DDR, but it's possible that Socket 940 parts will. Sorry guys - we do our best! µ