AMD One-Ups Intel With Cheap Desktop Chips 362
CWmike writes "Advanced Micro Devices on Tuesday announced inexpensive desktop microprocessors with up to six cores to put pricing pressure on rival Intel. AMD's new chips include the fastest AMD Phenom II X6 1075T six-core processor, which is priced 'under $250' for 1,000 units, AMD said. AMD also introduced a range of dual-core and quad-core Athlon II and Phenom II desktop microprocessors priced between $76 and $185. By comparison, Intel's cheapest six-core processor is the Core i7-970 processor, which is priced at $885 per 1,000 units, according to a price list on Intel's website."
Re:Their ULV processors are pretty impressive, too (Score:1, Insightful)
Legacy Implementation (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:That would be all nice and dandy if only... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, so you've already got a hand on and benchmarked these new chips?
No, you haven't. We'll have to see.
Re:And 3 hours after reading this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Intel could compete on price... but..
Someone has to pay for intels retarded quasi-futuristic commercials playing on tv all day long.
And it won't be me.
Re:That would be all nice and dandy if only... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not completely true, it depends on the application. In highly threaded tasks, AMD's 6-core will handily beat that i7 running at 2.4GHz (and even the higher clocked models without HT). Just check the latest benchmarks at Anandtech or Tom's hardware. In apps that are not heavily threaded, yes, Intel may win. But more and more apps are becoming multi-threaded and this will only increase in the future. AMD's current 6-cores are more future-proof than Intel's current platform. Not to mention that Intel loves to switch sockets every fucking generation, while AMD is able to keep sockets the same across many generations while staying competitive.
I use both AMD and Intel, so I am not terribly biased one way or the other, but AMD deserves a lot of credit for keeping the processor market competitive. Without AMD or another strong competitor, we would all be paying $1000 for our CPU's form Intel and we would still be stuck with Netburst.
It's not just about tech-savvyness... But time (Score:1, Insightful)
When selling to a non-tech person, though, such things make little difference. Most aren't savvy enough to know the difference and mostly look at the number of cores and speeds as final arbiters on performance.
I'm a software engineer who has taken several courses on computer/processor architecture, etc... So I could look into the subject, read manufacturers' datasheets, google forum discussions and be able to distinguish what is brand evangelism and who actually seem to know what they're talking about and so on...
But am I really going to go through all that trouble? No.
When a friend asks me "Which one of these processors should I choose?", I'll look at the clockrates and the number of cores and make a suggestion based on how much multithreading I think he needs. If he is the type of a person who I should recommend to overclock (which does have its downsides, too) I might also do a quick google search about "[the model] + overclocking" to see if I see anything special.
It takes a lot of effort to keep up with the latest series from each brand in each area of hardware (display adapaters, processors, etc.)... So unless you actually need the $800 processors, work with them or they're your geek-specialization... You are most likely not going to care enough. ("Okay, the $300 processor wasn't the most optimal one? Damn. Well, it's probably good enough for the next few years, anyways.")
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:cache difference (Score:2, Insightful)
I would agree, 5 to 10 years ago. Alas, I don't anymore. We are at a performance plateau, where the user (normal, we're not talking special-case) can be perfectly happy with 5 year old machines (I'm a dumpster diver, good P-IV or AMD XP machines can be found there). Any machine in the 2.0GHz range (give or take) will cover the needs of users.
CPU makers are at the point where people who need more CPU power will have to be willing to pay for it. All the rest can go with whatever is cheapest. Intel knows this, hence the Atom. I built an Atom desktop based on the D410PT motherboard for my mother in law running Ubuntu 10.04. At no point performance has been a problem.
Tomorrows "desktop" CPUs won't be the "top-of-the-line" of today. They will be the scaled-down, power-efficient CPUs that won't deliver as much power, but enough for the end-user. All other will have to pay premium to get more power.
Unless we suddenly get a big craving for extra CPU power, that's how it's going to go.
Re:And 3 hours after reading this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally i prefer AMD for that reason (not to mention i got into PC building in the amd 64 days, which might have contributed to my AMD preference)
Ah yes, the very same reason I like Lotus for office productivity software and FoxPro for databases; once a computing great, always a computing great, and you've got to stay loyal of course.
Re:And 3 hours after reading this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Intel will have an offering which provides equal performance for approximately the same price.
You're joking aren't you? Intel currently owns the highest performance segment of the Desktop chip market. AMD doesn't produce any Desktop chips that can match Intel's best in any impartial benchmarking. But AMD has been confidently out competing Intel on "bang for buck" for some time now. I doubt Intel will suddenly lower prices to AMD's levels. If Intel are going to lower prices to compete, they've had just as much reason to do so for some time already. And don't forget motherboard support. AMD has traditionally been friendlier to separate motherboard and CPU upgrading than Intel which is a hidden cost.
Re:? Do you really think Intels are 4x faster (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that:
1- The top AMD six core is actually $275, not $300.
2- The AMD motherboards are cheaper, you can easily save at least $100 on that.
3- The AMD motherboards are more likely to work with future CPUs (Intel has already changed sockets between Nehalem and Sandy Bridge... again).
3- A 6 core CPU is probably more future proof than a 4 core one (even if those Intel cores are more powerful individually than the AMD ones, not arguing that).
I agree with you that the AMD advantage is smaller at this price point than at the $100-$200 one, but the advantage is still real.
Re:And 3 hours after reading this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Have there been any real innovations in word processing software in the last ten years?
I mean sure they've gotten shinier and bloatier, but I haven't seen any real groundbreaking features.
Re:nothing new (Score:1, Insightful)
The same holds true in the high end.
Except AMD doesn't compete with Intel's high end. They simply don't offer product in the same category as Intel's best performing (and most expensive) processors.
Re:And 3 hours after reading this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And 3 hours after reading this... (Score:5, Insightful)
how often do you really load up *all* cores at once running multiple desktop applications.
Lets see:
I've got three Java background apps running and unlike the Folding Client, they do not back off when I want to do something else. This means Firefox, Word, Outlook, One Note, XMPlay all have to fight them for any ticks on the CPU though I rarely see more then 50-75 avg. cpu loading. That's on an E6300 (1.8GHz) Core 2 running Win7-64 on 8GB and this is a typical situation for my system.
My system is 3 years old and I've just started looking at upgrading but I have a problem. There are no CPU's now available from Intel that are compatible with my board and no a Bios update wont solve the problem. They changed the damn socket 6 months after I built it. Intel has a habit of changing things ever 6 months so you can't upgrade you CPU to gain the performance boost needed when the time comes. In my case, the only option if I could find one is a Q6600, which has already been discontinued (18 months ago) so I'm now forced to look at building a new system.
Due to Intel's policy, I'm looking at AMD for my next system because they don't obsolete Sockets and Chips 6 months after you build the system, forcing you to buy the most chip you can afford and then replacing the entire system in two or three years when it can't keep up with demands. That's right. It's Intel that drives the business upgrade cycle because they can get more money from companies selling all new chips such as north/southbridge, nics and everything in between unlike AMD who prefers to see you buy more CPU's and gives us a gradual upgrade path by simply ensuring their new chips can run in at least the "+" series of sockets even though you may not have access to all features.
Re:That would be all nice and dandy if only... (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't help that Anandtech has become intel and Nvidia-biased of late.
Re:And 3 hours after reading this... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's for sure.
From TFA:
Somebody is marking those things way up by the time they get to my local store.
$899.99 through newegg.
With a free piece of shit game no one cares about.
$15 / $885 = 1.7%.
So it's pretty obvious - INTEL is the one marking up these prices. No major shop pays anywhere close to that $885 figure. And no smaller shop has to either if they "just sign here" and agree to flog only Intel chips.
My last few purchases have been Intel chips, because of the whole "Core 2 Duo > Anything AMD has" thing. But the prices have been jacked up sky fucking high, the sockets have changed way too often with no backwards compatibility, and the performance difference isn't all that great.
And don't forget Intel's latest rapejobs:
"Yes this chip has virtualization instructions. No you can't use them."
"Download an upgrade to your CPU today! Only $49.99!!!"
I'm going back to AMD, and I'm taking everyone I build / recommend for with me.
If I really want my encodes to go faster, I'll buy a dual-socket mobo and drop 2 AMD cpus in there, and still save money.
Re:nothing new (Score:1, Insightful)