The Architecture - Turbo Core - DDR3 1866 - Scorpius - AM3+
The Turbo Core
The processor Turbos have now also been revised as a new Turbo mode has been added. There are pretty much three elements and states. You get your base frequency at say 3600 MHz. The processor can then Turbo all cores towards 3900 MHz when the overall load stays within a specified TDP. Pass that TDP say with a Prime95 stress test (really heavy) then the cores can fallback to 3600 MHz again.
New is a Max Turbo state; with the less threaded applications a Max Turbo can kick in. Two cores and thus threads can be boosted towards 4200 MHz. So that will help out greatly with single threaded applications and thus the overall per core performance.
The Dual channel DDR3 1866 system memory
It is interesting to cite that the new FX processors support a DDR3 clock frequency of 1866 MHz, this will greatly help out with memory bandwidth. That doesn't mean you have to throw away your current DDR3 memory, slower memory is obviously supported. We actually expect everybody to use DDR3 1600, which is absolutely a sweetspot price/performance wise anno Q3/Q4 2011. As you'll notice in the benchmarks, overall memory bandwidth has increased quite a bit, though albeit still 'only' dual-channel.
What is Scorpius?
It's marketing. Scorpius is the 'codename' for a PC platform that consists of three AMD components, namely a 9 series chipset based motherboard, an AMD FX series CPU and then an AMD Radeon HD 6000 series graphics card.
Socket AM3+
The FX series processors will be based on Socket AM3+, the 900 series chipset based motherboards will obviously be 100% compatible. But that doesn't meant that certain series 800 motherboards won't work with Bulldozer. Several motherboard manufacturers have already announced mainboard compatibility with "future" AM3+ multi-core processors. So check with your motherboard manufacturer and see if your AMD 800 series mainboard with AM3+ CPU is supported (BIOS update), then you could enjoy the benefits of the new 32nm processors with 2nd generation Turbo Core technology as well.
