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AMD Cuts X2 Processor Prices
BDPrime writes "AMD is cutting prices for its X2 processors, according to an update on its microprocessor pricing list. The cuts refer to AMD's Athlon 64 FX and Athlon 64 X2 chips. Some of the price cuts are almost in half."
Most of the remaining chips on AMD's price list use the Socket AM2 or Socket F form factor, rather than the older Socket 939 interfaces.
I just bought a 4200+ x2 for $159 from newegg. They sold out hours later. I don't think they even make 'em any more. Anything higher than a 4200 was plain sold out everywhere.
So if you've got a socket 939, I'd say you better upgrade with a quickness cuz those CPUs are going, going, gone.
I`m quite surprised by how long it took for this to come into affect after the Core Duo's were released. It seems like they gained immediate acceptance (Core2 Duo) and were getting great reviews from just about anybody, you'd think AMD would drop prices earlier on, I didn't think it would take this long.. I don't think this it was a question of IF... but WHEN.
The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I just picked up a nice Athlon X2 system for my son. Total cost with shipping was $700. 1GB RAM, 160GB HD, DVD drive, 7600GT video card. For an extra bonus although I ordered a 3800+ X2, the system came with a 4200+ installed.
I have a Core2Duo system myself but currently the AMDs are a great value.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Why bother with X2 when you know this will force a price cut on C2D?
I must presume, though, that this cut is just to clean up on the bottm end and make way for a new high-end line.
I'll bite.
Reading "Honestly, Slashdot these days..." then following your sig and see: "Francisco Mota is a 16 year old Portuguese college student..."
When was it better?
(Off topic. Got mod points? You CAN pretend that you did not see this one.)
If you're complaining about ONLY $80 for 1GB of RAM, you have no concept of what non-shitty memory for real workstations can cost.
You should be glad you can deal with Frys and don't have to goto Best Buy and put up with the "Geek squad".
OK, I'll bite; how much?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
If I'm forced to use Vista, I don't want to shell out $300 to upgrade to 4 gigs of ram to get a decent GUI experience.
You don't need to... that article was full of crap. Vista has issues, including performance and memory use issues, but it's not nearly THAT bad.
As for your question, I have no clue. I bought a gig (one stick) a year and a half ago for about $110, and it's only recently that prices have come below that. It seems that prices shot up I guess not long after that and have been declining since. I would like to know as well.
If you're complaining about ONLY $80 for 1GB of RAM, you have no concept of what non-shitty memory for real workstations can cost."
Hey, I paid more than that for 64k of ram (not 640k .. 64k). $100.00 on sale. A gig of ram for $80 - stop complaining, its cheaper than staples, thumbtacks, plant seeds, etc.
And you should have seen the cost of the abacus before that!!!
If he is doing video editing like he suggested, it would be that bad. Of course this would be mostly because of the video files and editing on top of what Vista has issues with.
But on a side note, I don't understand why he is complaining about the cost of a special needs system when he is the one dictating the special needs. And $80 per gig isn't likely going to be the type of memory to excel in this area. I have dabbled with video editing in the past and found the rock bottom priced memory to have issues in some programs were they weren't ever noticed in others. After hours upon hours of trouble shooting and pulling my hair out, I have actually bought matched sticks of corsair memory to replace problematic generic el-cheapo memory and then used that cheap stuff in other systems without problems.
I'm wondering if he is going to be satisfied with any $80 per gig memory or any cheaper modules when they become available.
$164.00 per 1 gig DDR2 ECC workstation level ram.
and that is for the cheap stuff.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
My guess:
RAM prices come down in steps. RAM gets cheaper because new fab technologies come out, but upgrading to these new factories costs a lot of money. This loss is recouped by selling the current technology at a higher price, while discounting the old technology to have half a chance in hell of selling enough to maintain a profit. This is the way CPU prices work (see current article). While prices come down slowly (I purchased a gig of RAM for 100 dollars last year, which is almost 50% more than current prices), it is not noticeable until one of these new technologies come out. I usually time my computer upgrades to coincide with these events.
I could be totally wrong. Sometimes catastrophic events can actually increase RAM prices, such as the earthquake in taiwan a few years back that drastically cut production of RAM.
I'll bite. 1 GB PC 5300 is $54.99 shipped.
I hate to ask this, but which of the top AMD CPU:s are truly competitive now that AMD has cut the prices in half?
At least before the price cuts, there was simply no way I would even consider an AMD CPU, after Intel got Core 2 Duo up and running.
So unless Barcelona changes AMD:s position, what CPU:s do you recommend that actually give us some serious $/performance sightings against Intel?
Full Tilt
If you don't need the latest and greatest processors for a new system, these cuts are awesome. Just two months ago the X2 3800+ was about $109.99, but can now be purchased for close to $86.00!
2gig is more than enough to edit video under XP.
After ordering hardware for a Vista Editor, and using it for 2 days we erased it and downgraded to XP. the machine is at LEAST 3X faster without Vista taking up all the resources. (64bit is useless in video editing right now, most editing apps are NOT optimized for it yet)
Only a complete fool would use Vista on a video editor, stay with XP until the last possible moment, you get more done faster.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I use rambus it came with the comp 4 years ago.. if I wanted to upgrade to 512 it would cost roughly $600 [obviously no shot in hell of that happening..]
For a long time, you could run XP with only half a gig. It got to the point where even the cheap-o computers had half a gig, and a gig was only a few bucks more (relatively speaking).
But, as has happened every few years when a bleeding edge (in system requirements, not performance) version of Windows comes out, everyone goes out to upgrade and the new machines are requiring more resources. Now, PCs are being sold with the minimum required 1g, with 2g upgrades and so on. Essentially, where RAM used to be cheap because you didn't need much, now you need twice as much just to get going and more to really perform => higher cost of RAM.
So yeah, after a long period where prices went down because computers only needed 1G for about 5 years straight, we're seeing the other end. Once the market catches up and demand slows again, prices will drop, but I wouldn't expect it anytime soon.
Plus, I hear prices drop when Dell or HP orders huge amounts from a supplier.
I just bought a set of G.SKILL 2x 1 GB PC-6400 modules for $130 from Newegg.
2 E16820231098
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8
"Hegelians, who love a synthesis, will probably conclude that he wears a wig." - Bertrand Russell
When was this purchase made? Because if you did that recently, I would think that that finding a 64k ram card would be something that one would purchase to cherish (antique ram)
If creativity is the field, copyright is the fence.
Intel, on the other hand, actively support the development of open-source drivers for their graphics chipsets. Indeed, just today, I noticed this announcement:
So to Linux users wanting to support the 'underdog'
It was because I just bought a new Athlon X2 cpu last week.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
All I'm asking is why RAM prices haven't fallen like they have for MHz in processors or gigs in hard drives.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Memory failure is memory failure, period. The application you're running doesn't change the fact that it's not working, it just accentuates it.
If you can't run memtest86 overnight on new RAM, you should return it. End of story.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Why would you buy RAM at Newegg, but processors at a box store? They're almost certainly going to be more expensive at Frys than they are at Newegg.
AMD chips go 30% faster when 64-bit.
Intel chips go 5% slower when 64-bit.
I suppose this is an indication that Intel marketing pays attention to the very lame old 32-bit benchmarks that are getting used.
64-bit is here now, even if you run Windows. Linux people have had pure 64-bit systems for many years.
If you want expensive, look at the prices on the 2G stick.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
...unless you'd like reduced performance on 64-bit code.
Going from 32-bit to 64-bit, Intel performance drops 5%. AMD performance goes up 30%.
You can't stay 32-bit forever. Even the Windows gamer world will end up 64-bit. Linux has already moved, with 100% 64-bit being common for years now.
Intel also does badly when you have more than 4 GB of memory. The AMD chips have an on-chip IO-MMU that can be used to avoid bounce buffers. PCI DMA on an Intel box can only reach the low 4 GB of memory; the OS must copy the data around if you have more RAM.
I'm glad that AMD has taken so long to finally cut the prices of their processors. It has been a long time since the introduction of the dual processors that intel has designed. With these price drops all I can say is that it is about time. AMD Needed to drop the prices earlier to help with profits which would lead to money to improve their processors. All I can say is that it's about time!
Thats what I thought. But low and behold, this happened. And the sticks passed memtest86 and a couple of other memory testers.
I'm not sure if there wasn't something with the ability of the memory to keep up in the timing when a heavy demand was placed on it or if there was just a bad spot that only got accessed when using the video editing stuff. I mean working with a 2 gig raw video file compared to a couple hundred megs for a game or word processing is a little different in usage. But to tell you the truth, I couldn't tell you were the problem was and I'm guessing to why it was even present. I don't think I'm alone on this either. I have heard in the past of someone getting memory to work were someone else said it was bad.
However, I do suspect it involves how much was in use and how it was used. And I'm not willing to dismiss that something could be wrong with the memory that doesn't show up in lighter usages. With the switch from DOS to windows 95, MS had an article explaining how windows 95 used memory different and bad memory could work fine in DOS 3.1 systems and the problem would be noticeable in windows 95.
The Inquirer had these numbers a couple of weeks ago friday, newegg adjusted by the following Monday, and this past friday, the local Frys flogged me a retail boxed AM2 3800x2 EE and a cheap motherboard for $90 - which feels like it Must have cost SOMEBODY money.
I think they have. Although there have been fines imposed for fixing prices in the past that the memory companies needed to recuperate as well as supplies being limited because of DDR2 and 3 becoming more available.
There are several factors at work here but 5 years ago, 512 megs was going in the $100+ range. Now a full gig is under that in some cases. A key difference between the two might be the amount of competition that is limited by the CPU designs and motherboards that support them when dealing with memory. The memory is more of a reactionary process were they make something then wait for it to be used and the processors generally dictate what types of memory is to be used. You cannot have the same level of competition as you would with processors because of the dependence of usages. On the other hand, Taping into newer processes in production that would make them cheaper seems more reasonable for newer styles of memory when considering the retooling effort needed. Why spend million rebuilding the production system for a third generation technology when you can tool for DDR2 or DDR3 that will have a longer life span.
There are probably more factors involved. I think these are some that seem to pop out and could be likely to influence the price a bit.
And what of chip companies that do publish specs? There are MANY chips from FreeScale (formerly Motorola's semiconductor division) that include fantastic levels of documentation. All the calls, all the functions, all the features. There are bugger all drivers in any Open Source *nix (xBSD, Linux, Plan9, you name it) for the S1 encryption chip. You want to talk about supporting those vendors who support Open Source? Then support them by adding that support.
Let us get down to basics, here. Part of the reason why companies like ATI can avoid supporting Open Source is because the Open Source community has, itself, failed to support the Open Source community. We have not been perfect, shining examples of our own standards and have no right to expect others to adhere to ideals we ourselves fall desperately short of.
Sure, the Open Source community lacks the kind of funding needed for this sort of stuff. So does AMD, whose profits were almost a billion short of expectation, whose net worth is now not much more than ATI prior to being bought, and whose future (due to Intel's near-monopolistic control over the industry and near-inexhaustible supply of funds) is severely in doubt. AMD has less than a tenth of the money of Intel and can't afford the current price-war for much longer. In the meantime, Intel can not only afford it but can afford to make next-gen components that have exactly the same flaws in concept as all their products have always have. Intel can afford it, Intel will essentially kill AMD, and Intel will only correct the flaws in the logic the next time it is threatened by a chip company.
(I may sound a little harsh on Intel there, but it's basically true of all corporations. Quality for the sake of quality is not a concept most managers comprehend, and "engineering excellence" is an oxymoron in any group outside of a few fringe development projects and maybe a couple of Formula 1 teams.)
If support for Open Source were a criteria, I'd say support nobody and move to another planet. As the old NASA joke goes, there is intelligent life on Earth but it's only visiting. There isn't any meaningful support for Open Source, outside of a handful of individuals.
What about IBM? All those 500+ patents they freed up! Yeah, and how many projects do you see based on them? None? Is that a surprise, when most were hardware patents? Outside of OpenCores, I really don't see many people being able to do much with pipeline optimization or CPU scheduling, and frankly most coders there working on CPUs have been doing just fine using their own methods of solving these problems, and anyone likely to want a high-end 64-bit Open Source chip would probably be looking at the Open Sourced UltraSparc. IBM have released lots of bits of project in the past, but never really maintained them and never really did anything with them. You been using IBM's GUI-based Apache management tool? Ever realized IBM had one?
The community should, by rights, support anything and anyone it can, AMD included, because a monoculture would be far far worse than the putrid stench we have at the moment. The existing mess can be fixed, with a lot of time and a lot of patience. Monocultures are stagnant cultures are cultures waiting to die. What we have right now is no great shakes, but I'll take it over a living death any day. The dead can't be cured - well, unless they're a kipper.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
And now, so have I.
*high-five*
I remember during the Pentium IV days all the AMD fans were constantly talking about how AMD owned the price to performance crown and that Intel was overpriced, ran hot (energy inefficient), and was just all around not as good an architecture. They were right - and I bought an Athlon 64 instead of a P4.
Now those same people are trying to argue that the less expensive, cooler and more efficient Core2Duo are still not as good as their beloved AMD. They will point to 64 bit performance or performance over 4GB of ram - or a myraid of little things that are not relevant to the vast majority for at least the next couple years to support their bias.
The processor wars, just like the video wars, will go back and forth. Nobody stays on top forever. Intel, after many years trailing, had their leap ahead for a generation or two. The people who are the most rational go with the best architecture or company at the time. I bought an ATI 9600 instead of a Nvidia 5600, even though I had always owned Nvidia and loved the drivers, because it was the better value for the money at that time.
The bigger person, the more rational person, is the one who can be objective about these things. Which CPU company you "love" is a very strange thing to have an irrational passion about...
Quite amazing when you realize how long we sold socket A boards. They went from a duron 700 to well over Athlon 2400+ over about 3 years IIRC.
AM2 is supposed to be here for a while now. Just ordered a 4400 today. It's gonna cost me about $138 canadian. Got an Asus board, the chip, Nvidia 256 video card gig of ram and a 200 gig seagate for under $500 canadian. Might buy the 6000 if the price does drop that much in the next little while.
I'm not anti-social, I'm anti-idiot.
So my next X2 notebook will be cheaper!! I wait and I get better prices :)
ghostbar page.
Ever done a `man` on `top` ?
I got new Registered ECC 256MB DDR for $25 about 5 years ago, so I can complain.
There could be circumstances we know nothing of preventing AMD from opening their drivers - an example: what if they are making use of technology licensed from another company and that company made them sign a nondisclosure? What if, over the years ATI has been developing their stuff, there were thousands of components licensed from various entities and ATI had signed contracts never to disclose some or all of them? ATI's been around for a long time, and open source really wasn't an issue way back when.
Not that I like the changes either. I have a 939 motherboard and only a single core processor that I bought about a year and a half ago. I would like to be able to pick up a cheap 939 x2, but looks like maybe I waited too long. But that is the way it goes.
Frys has a bundle right now that NewEgg cant touch. I would NEVER buy Frys RAM though.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/dualc ore-roundup.html sums things up rather nicely.
Whoa there AC, these ain't PCs I'm talking about. People commonly forget that there's far more to computing than PCs.
What is it that computers do? Compute! Mathematics. I just have to deal with computers that aren't exactly meant for Joe Windows User, Bob Apple User, or AC Linux User, so if that makes me an "elitist troll" so be it. Computational fluid dynamics, finite element modeling with millions upon millions of nodes in a mesh, mechanical system modeling, and more are all computational tasks suited for a different class of computer than most people are familiar with. Sun, SGI, IBM, heck, even some Dells require memory that is easily twice the $80/GB price point that makes you sweat. The components of these machines must be of the best quality, the most robust design, and extremely trustworthy. ECC is icing on the cake. When I submit a compute job that is going to take five days, I want to be damn sure that the results I'm getting are correct. There is no room for a bit error. There have been two occassions in my year and a half tenure at the aircraft design and engineering firm I work for where this has been a factor. A computer detects an uncorrectable error in memory and halts. I submit the job again, if the error occurs in about the same place, I run a diagnostic, verify that the address is roughly the same again, then pull that memory module and replace it. Its not cheap, but how safe would you feel flying in airplanes that have been modeled and analyzed with unverified computation?
In case you aren't aware, most workstations won't even function with bargain basement memory installed. The workstation is supposed to be reliable, and that stuff can't guarantee reliability all the time. I just mention this for workstations, but the same goes for servers and minis. So what if you have checksums everywhere? They don't necessarily tell you where a problem occurred, or even if its in hardware or software. If you don't believe that the better grade memory makes a difference, I have some SparcStations, Iris Indigos, and AS/400s in perfect, original, working condition (that get regular use) that you should check out.
Please buy another one next week!
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
AMD has always been incredibly helpful and suportive of open source. They supply full documentation for their hardware, and even donate hardware to open source projects. Its just ati that has sucked, and even then it wasn't always that way. They used to provide docs before they started trying to seriously compete with nvidia. Give AMD some time to deal with the merger before deciding how the new company will behave.
The real best-kept secret in the CPU world today is the X2 3600+. It's selling on Newegg for $65 right now, and while a dual-core 1.9GHz Athlon 64 isn't going to make Intel tremble, $65 is pretty darn close to Celeron price territory. Apparently the 3600+ overclocks well, too. Really well.
Uh the word you are looking for is upgrade. You upgraded to XP from Vista.
;).
If more people kept to XP, maybe we can make Vista to Microsoft what the Itanium was to Intel.
Now if the Wine etc people would come up with an XP+DirectX compatible ASAP, then when Microsoft tries to pull the plug on Windows XP, lots would switch to "XP" on Linux. Just like when Intel tried to kick people off x86 and on to the Itanium, AMD started raking it in
I'm completely with you on the need for better RAM, but you must still see the point the OP is making? RAM prices haven't changed for ages - I've been after a GB stick for one of my machines for over a year and it's been at ~£70= ~US$140 for all that time and I'm not *that* bothered at that price.
The real thing that bites for me, and I'm well aware that it's completely different technology but it's hard not to compare, is that flash ram is so cheap now. I'm looking at a 4GB usb drive for £20=~US$27. It is the cheap stuff, but that's nuts.
Cheers,
Roger
Do you have any better hostages?
The X2 3600+ could be had for $65 shipped free with a copy of Rainbox 6 : Vegas since last week. Sell the game for $15 - $20 and get the CPU for ~$45.
Pair it with a Biostar TA690G (the best overclocking 690G motherboard aside from the Sapphire PI-AM2RS690MHD) as well as some SuperTalent DDR2-667 (which seems to overclock pretty well) and you have a pretty nice setup.
Biostar TA690G at ZipZoomFly (the best deal atm w/free shipping)
2GB SuperTalent DDR2-667 at either newEgg or eWiz
If you need a cheap AM2 heatsink and some thermal paste, hit up SVC for the Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 and some Arctic Silver Ceramique
Ummm, right.... Before the 64s came out, AMD had the Socket A, which was around for a very long time (Duron through Athlon XP). Before that was (Super) Socket 7. How many sockets did Intel go through in the same amount of time? Check out Wikipedia.
Sticking with "mainstream" CPU sockets/slots (ie: no mobile or server parts, since they're not really relevant) since the K6 and Pentium 2 (1997), we have:
AMD (6)
Super socket 7
Slot A
Socket A
Socket 754
Socket 939
Socket AM2
Intel (5)
Slot 1
Socket 370
Socket 423
Socket 478
LGA 775
Seems pretty even to me...
Not even three months ago I spent $400 on my socket 939 Athalon 64 FX60 processor. I guess I couldn't really expect to know this three months ago, but the core2duo's success should have clued me in.
You, my friend, have never been in a Fry's Electronics. Not only will the processor be less expensive than newegg, but they'll throw in an ECS motherboard (if you can call it that) to sweeten the deal.
If you think
No price drop on the Turions. Sorry.
So what's your usage profile ? High-end gaming or running some extremely CPU-intensive tasks where time is money ? Yup, then the C2D is for you.
But what about the mass market ? People whose CPU will mainly twiddle its thumbs (and other digits) while running web/email/office ? People who don't care if they get 100 fps or 145 ? For them, getting an Athlon makes more sense. It's more efficient while idle and more than fast enough for the usual tasks. It's fast enough for any current game (when combined with an appropriate graphics card). Why spend an extra $40 just to have "Intel inside" ?
if AMD continues to drop their prices you'll...not buy from them? Err...k. If AMD plans to do this same type of Bulk Huge price drop, then i will plan to buy intel. Did you mean Intel and not AMD as you stated?
memtest86 and ALSO prime95. one instance of p95 for each cpu core. let THAT cook overnight.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
You should both be glad you've actually got some way to purchase processors at a brick & mortar retailer. I'm lucky if I can pick up the right type of RAM around here... Processors, motherboards, decent sound and video cards, and empty computer cases are all out of the question. I have to order absolutely everything on-line and pay for shipping and handling. Very inconvenient when something sizzles and I just want to get back up and running fast.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
You mean to say the Core 2 uses the AMD64 ISA... just like current AMD processors.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Ham operators behave because they don't want to lose their license, and Intel and Atheros behave because they don't want to lose their licenses. (There's no license required to operate the devices, but devices have to be certified by the FCC as conforming to regulations.)
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
if you're complaining about ONLY $80 for 1GB of RAM, you have no concept of what non-shitty memory for real workstations can cost.
I read that as he's buying non-shitty ECC memory, as in name brand and not generic crap. I think you read it as non-ECC memory is shitty.
Having ECC is good for servers where since you don't want the server to crash due to bad memory, but you want to know asap about memory that's gone bad. You also want to minimize down time since there could be 100s or 1000s of people using that system where as with a desktop, it's generally 1 person. In the last 10 years or so, I've had 1 server have memory go bad. The server started beeping, told me what slot had the bad memory, but never crashed. I've got to say, it was much nicer than having a random crash or having to run memtest86 to find out if it was bad memory.
so my new 5200+ is being delivered today. guess i should send it back, order the 6000+, and STILL get a credit on my account. i wonder if this marks amd releasing a quad core? i'm probably wrong, but i sure hope i'm right!
Well then I probably shouldn't tell you about the X2 AM2 6000+ retail CPU complete with K8M890-M motherboard at Arbeit Macht Fry's for $230 then?
The computer I bought (for my son incidentally) has an SLI capable motherboard oh and the 7600GT also supports dual monitors. At 10 years old my son is more interested in a box that looks like a silver spaceship than anything else. Also FedEx shipping to Hawaii is expensive - but if you try to buy parts locally you get screwed.
The system also has a three year warranty. Of course most parts have decent warranties anyway - it's just a matter of having one place to call no matter what breaks.
I've built a lot of computers of the past 15 years and now I'd just rather spend an extra $100 and buy one out right. Especially since there are boutique system builders that let you pick specific parts to go into the system. I'm not much of an advocate of the big guys like Dell except in office situations. Generally half the parts (case, motherboard and power supply for example) are useless if you want to upgrade later.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
No, I'm sure he meant what he said. It's very common to call it that.
Used here for example...
Although AMD renamed it
So did Intel
The only problem is I have to, at minimum, also get a new motherboard (~$100-150 maybe) and new memory (I currently have 2 GB, so that would probably be ~$175-200 to match that) to use it. And then it is probably worth it to go ahead and get a new video card, case, PSU, and hard disk to make a whole new system.