AMD's "Black Box" Athlon 64 X2 6400+

MojoKid writes "Rumors of a new high-end AMD Athlon 64 X2 chip circulated in July, but availability and specifics of the chip were unconfirmed at the time. Now AMD has officially taken the wraps off their new Athlon 64 X2 6400+, a 3.2GHz dual-core chipset to compete with Intel's Core 2 E6750 and E6850 series. HotHardware notes that the new 6400+ is still built on AMD's 90nm fab process and has a single 2-GHz HyperTransport link and 2 MB of on-chip L2 cache (1 MB per core), just like its predecessor the 6000+. The new processor is said to be a 'channel only' offering and will retail at $239 or so, in a black retail box (picture here) without a heatsink."

Re:Taken the wraps off?

[ExE122]

Yeah, we like to test our products on Australians to make sure they're not harmful to Americans =P.

Seriously though, America always is behind in technology because there's a lot more red tape, restrictions, and beurocracy involved in American patents. I'm guessing 85% of it is so American lawyers and businessmen can get richer... the other 15% may indeed be for liability.

But if you really wanna see just how behind on the times we are, check out the cell phone technology in Japan or Singapore. I guess they don't have the Verizonopoly over there... They've had a wider range of way cooler phones for as long as I can remember. You usually don't see any of their newest features hit the American markets until at least 6 months later...

I guess that's also the case with computer processors.

Re:Max thermal power = 125 W

[Dan Ost]

Even if the max thermal power is high, there might still be energy savings if the idle power consumption is low and/or if the processor can do more computing per Watt than the CPU it's displacing.

Re:Max thermal power = 125 W

[Calinous]

The increase in frequency comes with a bigger increase in power consumption - and the increase in performance is not linear with the increase in frequency.
      As for low idle power, why this would have lower idle power than a similar, lower rating (5000+ let's say) processor?

      This is not for the power efficient minded persons, but for bragging rights.

Re:Aint Much of a Deal

[Calinous]

If you need FB RAM for Intel, then on AMD's side you need Opteron, not Athlon.
      Fully Buffered DIMMs are only on the server platform (Xeon), not on consumer platform (Pentium/Core2Duo).

Re:Aint Much of a Deal

[michrech]

I was using the OEM cooler that came with my x2 5000+, until the fan died. Then I went out and purchased a CoolerMaster OEM style HSF to replace it (only difference was it had an 80mm fan installed instead of the 60 the OEM came with). It was $18 from a local computer store.

Keeps the CPU somewhere in the 30-45C range, and can barely be heard (the rest of the fans (all two of them!) are 120mm, and quite quiet. There is a variable speed 120mm fan in my PS as well (Thermaltake Modular 500w).

I think people who go out and buy gigantic, noisy-assed, obnoxious HSF's are just wasting their money.

But who does actually use the boxed coolers? Well, maybe those who run semperons or similar but I do hardly believe that those who are buying that kind of processor will use the boxed cooler.

Re:About stocking things

[Anonymous Coward]

that's far different from PC parts.

I buy 100 42" tv's at $1300.00 my cost. 10 days later the distributor drops the proce to $800.00 I dont get to send them back and get a credit of $1300.00 each. I get a credit at the price they are selling at.

No electronics distributors give you any buyback deals on parts or items. If the price drops 3 days after you buy it, then it sucks to be you.

that's why in electronics you MUST buy the minimum you think you will need and use JIT suppliers so that you never have more than a few of the volatile price items on hand.

That's the way it's done here. Gas stations are the same, if the price of wholesale gasoline drops $1.00 a gallon overnight, you cant get a supplier to reimburse you so you can sell your gas at the same price as the guy down the street that bought it at a lower rate. (although you are welcome to jack it up at a moments notice.