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AMD Shows Upcoming Phenom II CPU At 6.0 GHz+
Vigile writes "Today during a press briefing at AMD's offices in Austin, TX the company showed off some upcoming technology that should be available sometime early in 2009. What was most impressive was the overclocked speeds of the pending Phenom II X4 45nm processors. On air cooling AMD showed the quad-core CPU running at nearly 4.0 GHz while with much more extreme liquid nitrogen cooling help the same CPU reached over 6.0 GHz! It looks like AMD's newest processor might finally once again compete with the best from Intel, including its recent Core i7 CPUs."
Yes, but you fail to note that the P4 was designed to reach insane clock speeds (which it never ended up being able to do.)
You can't get a Core 2 CPU to run at 5Ghz no matter how hard you try.
What this proves for AMD's CPU is that the architecture is able to handle 6Ghz, and the only problem is heat. Heat is a big problem, sure, but it's delt with every day in all sorts of new and creative ways - but usually just from reducing fab size and lowering voltage.
I personally don't care much anymore about who's CPU is 5% faster than the other. I choose what gives me the best options.. And I really have had excellent results with AMD's processors in the past. I have a few Core 2 based machines and they're nice too, no doubt. It just doesn't really matter anymore.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
This is far from impressive. Showing the overclocking results, especially on liquid nitrogen, is not a good indication of the day to day performance of the processor.
If the overclocking results were the only thing in the full article, your argument would be valid. However, your comment indicates that you read the short summary, did a quick search for your P4 overclocking link, and posted for quick mod points from Intel fanboys.
TFA shows the processor benchmarking at 3GHz, and 4GHz with air cooling, likely a custom air setup that would not be uncommon for many self builders. Check Intel's speeds, I'll even give you a link to a vendor. I even filtered for the highest GHz. They are about the same.
So Yes, it does look like ""AMD's newest processor might finally once again compete with the best from Intel." Maybe it doesn't blow them away, but compete with Intel it does.
(This commenter recognizes that raw GHz is not the end-all and be-all of the final experience, but this is the only concrete number we currently have to argue about)
The Phenom II will fit in my AM2 motherboard (which started with an Athlon 64 2.0GHz and currently has an Athlon x2 2.6GHz) and use my existing RAM. The intel i7 will not. The intel i7 is significantly more expensive than anything AMD has too.
personally don't care much anymore about who's CPU is 5% faster than the other. I choose what gives me the best options.. And I really have had excellent results with AMD's processors in the past. I have a few Core 2 based machines and they're nice too, no doubt. It just doesn't really matter anymore.
When they're about equal, I choose AMD, so that next time I build a computer I'll still have a choice.
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
I couldn't agree more.
Even all other things being equal, I still tend to prefer AMD as they have a better track record of supporting upgrades without having to change out your CPU, RAM and motherboard every time. Also, if your board burns out, you're far more likely to find a new retail motherboard for AMD to replace it. Intel, a lot of times, your only option is eBay.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Who cares which company has the fastest chip at $1000.
only those who have money to burn and/or are buying more for penis length reasons than real value
In the $75 - $250 range (the range I personally care about), AMD and Intel are pretty much always trading blows. Here's a good chart for illustration: Crysis CPU Benchmark [tomshardware.com]. Note how, for example, the Intel chip at $187 is slower than the AMD chip at $170.
Note how the intel chip at $164 (rounding down to the nearest dollar like you appeared to do) beats every amd chip in the table in that benchmark.
To me that table seems to show one thing: intel THRASHING amd in the upper midrange. One overpriced intel chip (it appears the reason it's price is high is that none of the cheaper retailers stock it) does not change that.
Of course it will depend on your application, most of the AMD chips seem to be quad core so if you have applications that make better use of multiple cores things would look better for AMD.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register