Platform
The processors themselves in the 4x4 system are slightly modified Socket 1207 AMD Opterons. According to current reports, their memory controller is designed to accept non-ECC/non-registered memory, which reduces fault tolerance, but it also increases overall system speed. The need for registered RAM was one of the pitfalls of the first generation FX-51/FX-53, since this type of RAM is slower and more expensive. This still holds true today, so the move to make it compatible with unregistered RAM is defiantly an enthusiast/power-user bonus; it also won’t break your wallet. So this sounds like a typical Athlon 64, why not make it AM2? Mainly, AM2 fundamentally isn’t designed for two chips. Socket 1207 has all the proper pins in place (and many more than won’t even be used!) for a processor capable of interfacing with its chipset, its memory, and its twin processor. Additionally, it has been rumored that AMD had a heck of a time convincing motherboard manufacturers to create a dual socket AM2 board from the ground up, so they’re going with a slight modification on the socket 1207 boards that are already tried and proven. The processors, as they’re currently SKU’d, will be called the FX-70, FX-72, and FX-74. Each item will come as two processors in one box so there’s no need to order two. The highest model FX-74, will be two 3.0GHz/1MB cache dual core processors, for a total processing power of 12GHz/4MB cache. Though originally slated at $1500ish, recent reports say that AMD has reduced that price to $999 to compete directly with the new Intel QX6700 Kentsfield. Each will have two dedicated HyperTransport links; one to its memory bank, and one to the other processor. According to AMD documents, they will share an interconnect to the chipset. While the processors are certainly important, that’s only half the system.

Now let’s turn to the chipset behind it
For the launch of 4x4, AMD has turned to NVIDIA, oddly enough, to supply a chipset. Not a whole lot is officially known about this chipest, but rumors and “leaked” information from AMD do exist. For starters, it will be called the nForce 680a. The basic premise is that it is a Northbridge/Southbridge design, and each of the chips is actually an nForce 590 SLI chip with an extra connection so that they can interface together. Ironically, this implementation is yet another doubling-up that this platform is using. The two chip design does what you’d expect it to do; it doubles the specifications of the nForce 590. It will offer four Gigabit ethernet ports as well as a dedicated network processing chip so that it can act as its own router, for starters. While the network processing won’t be on par with the overpriced KillerNIC we reviewed earlier, it’s reasonable to expect it to perform better than most onboard network devices found elsewhere. The chipset will also offer 4 PCI-E graphics slots, two of which run at x16 and two that run at x8. We are not sure as to why they’re not all running at x16 since it’s just a combination of two nForce 590 SLI chips, but there’s probably some good reason, such as the ridiculous amount of wiring 64 PCI-E lanes would require on a motherboard. Moving right along, another offering will be 12 (that’s TWELVE) SATA ports, divided up into batteries of 6. Each will have its own nForce 5-series RAID 0/1/5/50 controller. OK, so you’d have to be pretty friggen' nuts to run 12 hard drives, but then again, it is a possibility. I personally run 8, which would put me beyond the means of many current nForce boards, but this guy would be perfect. It is unknown if the two groups of six have any ability to interface with each other, but if they could, that would be an additional bonus. All the other nifty features that we love about the nForce 5 series will be there as well.

Gaming Advantages
Due to the unpredictable nature of how games benchmark on various platforms, this section is completely speculative. Our review of Intel's Kentsfield showed that quad core computing doesn’t do much of anything for the majority of games out there. Of course, this isn’t much of a surprise to many of us who have been following hardware for a while, since games that use dual cores aren’t even common yet. One factor that is missed, though, is that Windows Vista will soon be the operating system standard. Vista is much more friendly to multi-core computing, and we might actually begin to see major advantages from quad cores. Even though the 4x4 will house two chips on two completely separate sockets, they will be able to exchange information through the extremely zippy HyperTransport connection. Fast movement of data between cores is a must for gaming; it’s one of the reasons why the native dual core AMD was so much more powerful than the non-native Pentium D. The main fault of the Pentium D processor was that it simply couldn’t move the information between cores fast enough. We feel that once a game and operating system are well suited to function in a 4 core environment, a 4x4 system will be cutting edge. Seeing as this is a gaming site, we wish we could say more about the gaming aspect of this platform, but honestly, there’s nothing more to be said until games and operating systems evolve.