14 DAY TRIAL // So Quad FX platform is officially out. And by that I mean that both 1207-pin FX CPU and Asus L1N64-SLI (Nvidia 680a) motherboards are ready for the customers. AMD will offer three new Quad FXes: The FX-70 (2.6 GHz), FX-72 (2.8 GHz) and FX-74 (3.0 GHz). Agena FX - AMD's future native quad core will also use the 1207 socket, translated into a maximum of 8 cores that could populate a 680a motherboard. 680a chipsets were redesigned in order to sustain a heavy power load due to the huge amount of power drawned by the chips. And it seems that Nvidia's platform is so good that AMD doesn't think that an Ati motherboard could do better. For now.
All CPUs use 90 nm process have the same 2GHz HTT, 2 x 1 MB L2 cache and produce a maximum power draw of 250 watts for 2 CPUs. AMD will probably also introduce an Athlon 64 FX-76 (3.2 GHz) early in Q2 2007. From the market point of view it seems that Quad FX is a good deal since AMD prices two FX-70 chips at $599, two FX-72s at $799 and two FX-74s at $999 (about the same as a Kentsfield QX6700)
According to AMD, Quad FX as a "megatasking" platform. Coupled with a 680a motherboard, you can do Quad SLI and install a maximum of 12 SATA hard drives resulting in some 9 TBs (12 x 750 MB) of storage. But you'll have to be prepared for impressive power consumption with a typical Quad-FX PC needing a 750W PSU, maybe even more if you need Quad SLI and more hard drives.
I must point out that such a platform is not suited for all consumer or enthusiast applications. For example, running two CPUs can create problems with some applications resulting in less performance than when using a single core CPU. Also, two sockets are supported only by Windows Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate. And adding Vista Ultimate software to your rig will cost you $400 for a full license.
I must say I am impressed with the product. However, I'm not that happy when it comes to the performance and the power consumptions. Early testing has shown that although Quad FX is faster than older FXes using AM2, it still lags behind Kentsfield in many applications such as encoding and rendering. AMD officials stated that there are still some problems with NUMA memory configuration due to the fact that a final BIOS for the Asus boards is still under development. I hope that will change some numbers since the ones that already came out prove nothing.