RETRO UNBOXING AMD Athlon 64 FX-51 Sledgehammer Processor Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2010-05-08
·
1,402 words · ~7 min read
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so the weather's beautiful and we're finally back to our traditional outdoor
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unboxing location you can see it's bright and sunny in Vancouver today I'm
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going to be doing a retro unboxing I'm going to be doing the Athlon 64 FX 51 I
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actually found a brand new sealed FX 51
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to give you some idea how old this is
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check this out oh yeah there's some dust
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for you and I think the back of it is even worse
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can you you can see the dust buildup you can like write in it it's disgusting and
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we should probably get this in the light to make sure that the we're recording this with the minow HD which I already
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unboxed just to have a look at the HD recording quality of it okay so the FX
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51 is a socket 940 processor but not the
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940 that we know today socket am3 it's the socket 940 that existed at the same
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time as socket 7 754 so back when the Athlon 64 was first
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released it was released on two sockets 754 and 940 which was actually an
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opteron server socket so the FX 51 is I
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believe the only Athlon processor to have ever been released on socket 940 it
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is a single core and you know what
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without getting too much further into this why don't we break the seal on this
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baby so let me see how we can get this open AMD hasn't used pack packaging like
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this in years and I hardly even remember
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how to open these I think there's like there's some kind of a trick to it but
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since I don't really care and I'm just unboxing it why don't we just go ahead
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and slice it open make things simple on ourselves okay so here we
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go this is back like this is like a
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dinosaur heat pipes didn't even like exist back then so you can see that this
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cooler is just like a thin cooler we're going to get this out and have a look so
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inside it's all nice and shiny and new
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this is a brand new processor sort of so let's have a look at the heat syn first
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this is the Athlon 64 FX 51 heat sink it
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has a huge copper base like this thing
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is heavy that is one solid slab of
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copper all the way around the bottom of it it has a densely packed fin heat sink
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for optimal heat dissipation remember this processor does feature a dual
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Channel ddr1 memory controller for
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state-ofthe-art Ultra hyper fastness
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okay it has a three- pin fan connector all right most uh most heat sinks these
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days included with CPUs now have four pin pwm fan connectors AMD actually
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still does use this latching mechanism although it's been updated a little bit
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since then so you use the clip ARM on one side and then you uh you push this
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down and then use this clip to attach uh like it looks a little different but
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it's the same basic idea the bottom is not lapped at all so I'm doing my
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obligatory finger reflection shot even in the bright Sun that is not a very
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smooth base so uh the the manufacturing processes for those were a little bit
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different back then as well let's see what else we've got in here so I okay we
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wow the CPU actually comes with like a a
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motherboard bracket it would appear so I'm guessing that the reason for that is
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that the only motherboard that supported this chip back in the day would have
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been um server opon motherboards so you
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have to put an athlon64 bracket on there
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so there you have it that's a socket 939 back plate the only difference between
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939 and am2 and am3 in terms of the back
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plate is that 939 had two through holes and am X like all the am sockets have
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four so they have 1 2 3 4 so that's a little bit different but this layout is
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actually very much the same they've gotten rid of this fourth clip at this
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point so it includes a couple screws there let's see what else we've got all
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right wow lots of documentation for a processor here we
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go all right so why don't we see okay so
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first of all it comes with a three-year limited warranty which is long up at
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this point that's not even relevant oh let's see what the date on this is so
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2003 Advanced Micro Devices nice so it's
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been quite a while since this is has been on the market oh then we've got
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like a big wow this is going to be really big okay I can I can already tell
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congratulations on your purchase of the
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new AMD aflon 64 FX pib processor in a
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box the best solution uh for to ensure full compliance with AMD's limited
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warranty the heat sink and fan assembly included with the processor must be used
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so just in case the warranty was valid then you know there you go you have to
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use it okay P there we go so they give you
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full instructions in a poster size on
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how to install this processor and holding up this white piece of paper is
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very bright uh they give us so place the
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back plate gently lift the motherboard edges over the back plate push down the
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processor and wow it even goes around to the back step nine step 10 Step 11 this
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is a 16-step program apparently that allows you to install
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this just look at that it has about eight different languages okay connect
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the fan okay so there you go there's the instructions anyway and let me see if I
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can sort of figure out how to get this folded back up it's like going to go
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away in the wind here if I don't do this
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now although I hate doing stuff like this on camera because I realize it's
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very boring for you people all right let's see what else we got in here next
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we have read this first record the serial number of your processor never
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handle the processor with the heat sink fan installed or without it installed
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okay that's in a bunch of different languages so these are some warnings on using your processor properly ooh and
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then we've got an Athlon FX sticker it's like a metallic sticker it has metal
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around the edges and yeah I remember
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there was a time when that sticker having that on your case meant you had
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like a $1,000 processor in your case where now I think the FX 51 wouldn't be
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worth quite so much um
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let me see what I can so instant download of a 30-day trial version of
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the latest video encoding software cool do you think that would still work I
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kind of doubt it oh no there we go offer ends March 31st 2004 nice all right so
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now let's have a look at the Athlon 64
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FX itself so this is not compatible with
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any modern socket whatsoever it's a
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940 and it uh wow it's quite a bit
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different looking than the current chip so you can see that it actually has like
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kind of a a bluish greenish grayish um
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PCB under the heat spreader itself and that you can see wow the heat spreader
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is like shoddy almost it's not even a straight line around the edges can you
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see that on the camera uh it's very hard to say because the minow HD has a pretty
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small screen but there's all the printing that's on the heat spreader and
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uh at the bottom we find 940 pins but
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not in the am2 or am3 configurations this is in the old 940 configuration
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anyway thank you for checking out my unboxing more retro unboxing of the AMD
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Athlon 64 FX 51