Higher Clock Speeds, No TLB Issues and Better Pricing: The New Phenom
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 27, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
Now this is more like the AMD we're used to seeing. It's not quite the performance dominating AMD of years past, but it's a competitive AMD. The Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition is, despite its lower performance in many cases, an actual competitor to Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600 thanks to its price. The value is even more impressive if you happen to have a Socket-AM2 motherboard that can accept a 9850 as a drop in replacement.
AMD does continue to have some weaknesses, mainly when it comes to DivX and gaming performance and neither of these areas are going to get fixed while remaining on an unchanged architecture. That being said, AMD is standing in a much better space right now and is competitive enough that Intel had better be paying attention.
The Core 2 Quad Q6600 is becoming long in the tooth and could stand a quick transition to the Q9300, which Intel appears to have scheduled for next quarter. The $266 price point, while very aggressive, leaves a lot of room for AMD to come and play in the $175 - $250 space. Intel needs cheaper quad core offerings, especially once AMD starts shipping its triple core Phenom in retail.
If you're building a new system, Intel is still the way to go and once 45nm pricing/availability works out the value proposition will only improve. What's changed is that AMD is now a realistic alternative. Just four months ago there was no point in even considering Phenom, but today it is a viable alternative. If AMD could simplify its lineup a bit and squeeze some extra frequency headroom out of its chips, all while keeping its aggressive pricing we may just have a return to competition in the desktop CPU space.
Exciting times are ahead as well. AMD seems very confident in its 45nm transition, which should bring about higher performance and clock frequencies. Around the same time we'll be seeing the very first Nehalem CPUs from Intel, and before we know it it'll be 2009 and time to talk about Bulldozer. I've always said that AMD had a good roadmap, it just needs to be given the chance to execute on it; these new Phenom processors may able to buy AMD the time it needs to do just that.
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ap90033 - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
What!!!! How darest though speak such blasphemy!AMD is your king! Bow to PHENOM!!! :) LOL
sorry feeling a little silly today.
hvypetals - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
Why are the Intel core 2 duo's outperforming the intel quad core cpus?Is it because the games cant see beyond a dual core?
ap90033 - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
Thats why I got the E8400 and clocked it to 3.6 ghz, it was cheap and it does very well for gamers....ap90033 - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
Oh wait I could have saved 20 bucks and got a much slower AMD. Crap...ap90033 - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
Then I would have had an AWESOME slow CPU instead of a CRAPPY much faster CPU....Roy2001 - Monday, March 31, 2008 - link
Wow, that's superb logic!fitten - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
Most games can't "see beyond" one core, much less two, three, or four.nycromes - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
This is what I expected from AMD and from all of you here making comments. It has always astounded me that people will act like these chips are the equivalent of a 500mhz chip compared to Intel's chips. Its like saying my car has 375hp and yours only has 370, my car is soo much better than yours. The difference is there, but for most people, the difference is quite negligable.The differences amount to almost nothing depending on application. Sure there are better parts out there, but competition drives markets to innovate and will bring down prices. Oh how awful. The intel fanboys can ride their high horses still, but AMD releasing better products benefits us all. Try taking your heads out of that little box and looking at the big picture.
I like to see AMD working on new products and hopefully they can get more competitive. We all need to be hoping for this so we don't see slowdowns in development and skyrocketing chip prices. I mean, look at the GPU industry compared to a few years ago and tell me that the situation is great for consumers. More competition = happier consumers. nuf said.
ap90033 - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
you are right, and you obviously dont game. Intel=FPS=FTWmark3450 - Thursday, March 27, 2008 - link
What a complete strawman. Look at the data, the best Phenom chip is getting beated by the q6600 by 20% in real world performance, not the 1% in your idotic horsepower strawman attack.Yes everyone understands that the lack of competion isn't good. The reason people bitch at AMD is that they want AMD to have a competative offereing, but that data clear says they don't. They know because of that there isn't going to be any competition in the CPU market for a long time. Yes that isn't good, but sticking your head in the sand and denying the reality of the situation doesn't help.