AMD's new quad core CPUs....

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/19/the_spider_weaves_its_web/index.html

All I can say is.........looks like a disaster, Intel runs rings around
it....

regards

Thing

 

Somewhere on teh interweb thingy typed:

I read your comment with a sinking heart... only to read the review which is
a lot more up-beat.

It seems that the initial release of AMD quad core CPUs are less powerful
than Intel quad cores sure. However, they're also cheaper and more
backwards-compatible. Dollar-for-dollar it seems like a reasonable deal to
me. <shrug>

 

Once they ramp up speeds and later go to 45nm, their speed will scale
up better than Intels.

 

Somewhere on teh interweb Nighthawk typed:

I hope so. We need AMD to keep Intel honest.

 

There are sort of some pluses....yes, AM2 socketed motherboards will run
these CPUs...so that is an improvement over Intel's "policy" of
releasing new chipsets for new cpus...personally I think Intel's
strategy is a scam.....a way to generate chipset revenue off cpu
revenue....motherboard vendors get to sell more motherboards so everyone
is happy except the poorer consumer.....but RAM and disk controllers
move on....so after say 3 years the motherboard I think there is a
reasonable justification to replace the motherboard/cpu/ram sub-set as

Some concern around the lack of performance against the Athlon64x2 let
alone the Intel Quad...some games clock 100+ frame rates for the dual
core CPU with the new AMD quad somewhat behind.....however 115 or 106
frames per sec make no real difference...One of the better wins is where
SCommander runs better on the AMD quad core than the dual core. Here we
are down around 30~40 frames per second, so 5 frames more is a big win
and more likely to be noticed....

So, yes it is not all bad....however the people who buy computers to
play games are I think more discerning on the components and shop at the
upper end. While at the bottom the value segment is going to buy a
machine and who cares what cpu it has....AMD sits in the middle with
these cpus, neither good enough to challenge Intel up the top, or have
enough of a margin selling bulk at the bottom....ie I think these chips
sit in no mans land...for AMD that is very bad IMHO.

Take me, I'd consider going for the AMD quad because it runs SC better,
but looking at it I'd more likely say 30fps is marginal, Ok I get it up
some by upgrading from a 6000x2 to a Quad but its not much.....or I can
bite the bullet and spend $200~300 more and get a way better Intel CPU
and gain a lot more fps.

regards

thing

 

How so? look at the overclock reviews, Intel has always been able to
ramp up Ghz way beyond AMD....netburst may have been a disaster in
itself but the consequence is Intel seems to know how to get the GHZ far
higher.....

regards

Thing

 

Somewhere on teh interweb thingy typed:

Yeah, I know what you're saying but, other than gamers, I think with today's
computing power the replacement time is going to start climbing towards 10
years rather than 2 or three. It seems mobo manufacturers have taken this
into account by using conductive polymer capacitors in their more expensive
boards rather than those (almost disposable) aluminium electolytics.

Most games do better on two faster cores than they do on four. With a few
exceptions. This holds true for Intel CPUs as well as AMD. It's in the
coding, very few games have been written for four cores whereas there are a
lot of games that have been written for either dual core or hyperthreading
(which translates better to dual core CPUs than quad core). This will
change. In a year/18 months all games will be written to take advantage of
mutiple cores. For now, fast dual cores rule the roost (with the few
exceptions noted).

I'm hoping that these AMD "Phenom" chips are just the start of better
things. As they fine-tune them, then take them to 45nm I'd like to believe
that they'll be able to take Intel on in most markets.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I hope enough people decide to buy AMD to keep
them afloat. I'd hate to see Intel with the amount of power and market
dominance they enjoyed 6 or 7 years ago again.

 

Architecture. Improvements, like 2x faster cache, slated for releases
to come will see them ramp up very well from what I have read in
various articles, especially when socket AM3 comes out. It isn't
about sheer GHz.

 

Then it is not really speed but efficiency/effectivness....while AMD
beat the netburst architecture dead for that, Intel has moved on....AMD
might well be slightly more effective per clock, but if Intel can
compensate for this by having a higher clock (which it is) Intel
wins....ie what matters is how fast an application runs per second (or
dollar)....

regards

thing

 

Um, I think that is a marketing/image thing, so many people got badly
burned, hells bells I lost three motherbaords to bad capacitors....and
two of those were expensive ($500) dual p3 motherboards....that hurt...

So gigabyte are leading the way by having solid state caps....some
people will be buying theirs for that reason alone...and some will buy
if all else is equal, I know I would.

yep, so buying a AMD 6000x2 today probably makes the most sense, a year
from now the AMD 4 core will be at 3Ghz, maybe 3.3....then it will be a
good buy....

However I could buy an intel cpu'd motherboard now and upgrade the CPU
later as well...potentially a better deal.

I wonder....I hope so as well...but I think AMD is on a slippery slope
and Intel is pushing them......look at it this way, AMD's server cpu is
a non-event....it came out too slow and in some cases has not even
shipped yet!! (Dell tell me they are still not available!!!) The desktop
CPU is showing the same issues, ie lack of winning performance....

yes.....I bought 2 AMD cpus this year...one (the 4000x2) is going to go
into my file server next year (or maybe the year after)....at which
point I think I will be getting an Intel CPU to replace it....I might
want to support AMD, but that also means AMD needs to be good enough to
deserve my $........

I dont see the point in keeping a dead duck afloat.....

regards

Thing

 

Somewhere on teh interweb thingy typed:

Eeek! That has the ring of tempting fate. Let's hope that we don't find
ourselves in a position where there is no AMD and Intel are back to charging
$1,000+ for a mid-range CPU again in the future.

 

yes I know....not happy....but there is a saying, dont fight a battle
unless you have to and dont fight it unless you can win....the AMD/ATI
combo is showing signs of mega stress IMHO....

Looks at how thins have gone in the last few years.....For a healthy
environment I'd expect AMD/ATI to leapfrog Nvdia/Intel, then Intel/nvdia
to leap frog in turn....going back a few years that is what was
happening....then it was no more leap frogging but just about matching,
or an improvement (from ATI) but it was small and lasted a few weeks....

ATi's "best" card barely matches the GT8800 mid range card but its a 2
slot card to boot...Nvidia's GTX/ultra top end cards look set for a
revamp real soon (before Xmas?) All ATI does is roughly match Nvidia's
price / performance ratio...now AMD does the same thing....

Someone once said (Tom's hardware?) it is only worth upgrading if you
can jump 2 generations or you wont really see a decent improvement for
your money...these offerings are a fractional improvement....

regards

thing

 

Somewhere on teh interweb thingy typed:

All excellent points. However, I remember the days of an Intel Virtual
monopoly, of buying Cyrix/AMD CPUs not because they were better but because
they were one-third the price of Intel CPUs. I'd hate to go back to those
days because, you can bet your bottom dollar, the moment Intel believe that
they have a solid advantage by a reasonable margin, their prices will climb.

Hey, I have Intel/nVidia here. I have to go with the best value. It doesn't
mean I like what could happen to AMD/ATI. I wish them all the best, for all
of our sakes.

 

AMD's cpu/gpu "fusion" project has barely gotten started. And who knows what
that could turn out to mean for the entire industry? With so much processing
power going flat to waste in most applications right now, it's high time
someone took a different approach. Seems a bit premature to be writing AMD
off.

The mid-range is where Nvidia and ATI has always made its money -- and
parity there is a good thing for consumers, I think. Instead of just letting
the best chips slowly drift down in price to the mid range, you now have
these companies both competing to deliver high-end performance at mid-range
prices right from the start of the product cycle.

I agree. Bechmarks pointing to 10-15% improvements in performance are rarely
going to translate into perceptible differences for users. No sense then in
trying to benefit from incremental upgrades, which are inevitably
over-hyped. The first-generation quad cores from Intel and AMD both fall in
that category, since you can get cheaper dual core chips from either
manufacturer that will rival the best of the early quad cores like the
Q6700. But things are moving fast now -- "generations" are turning over
quicker, so who knows what that means anymore.