AMD Phenom II Available To Distributors This Week

jdb2 writes "Fudzilla reports that AMD's Phenom II is already available to distributors, and will be available to sell to consumers in the week of the 29th of December. The Phenom II is AMD's consumer version of its 'Shanghai' 45 nanometer SOI process Quad-core Opteron chip and will reportedly ship in 3 and 2.8 gigahertz flavors corresponding to the model numbers '940' and '920' respectively. This first release will be packaged as a Socket AM2+ part which only supports DDR2 memory. The following month AMD is reportedly going to release a new '9x5' series of Socket AM3 versions which support DDR3 memory — these will be backward compatible with Socket AM2+ . This may be an inflection point for AMD if the Shanghai architecture lives up to the performance numbers from preliminary reports and if so it will no doubt also be a welcome belated Christmas present for the already salivating hordes of Tech Junkies."

Comments

Re:It will come down to clock speed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting as AC not to undo moderation. What motherboards were you thinking of, because I certainly can't think of any.

The cheapest AMD motherboard I found that doesn't come with garbage onboard video is either the Gigabyte GA-MA790X-DS4 or the ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe ($150 and $190 last I checked). For that much money, you can get a REALLY nice board with an Intel P45 chipset, SATA RAID (ICH10R), heatpipes and everything else.

In fact, despite of their Phenoms having poor single core performance (and no better than a Q6600 for the most part), I think motherboard choice is their primary issue: the lack of any decent choice, at any price.

Re:It will come down to clock speed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good choices indeed, if I want something with garbage onboard video. Like I said, there's nothing under $150 that doesn't come with that scrap onboard. Nice try though.

Re:It will come down to clock speed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why pay for complete trash you're going to disable when you can have MUCH nicer for the same price, i.e. your money (and space on the PCB board) going towards stuff that's actually useful instead?

See this comment for a quick comparison.

AMD is no cheaper in the end, and their hardware selection sucks REAL hard these days :(

Re:It will come down to clock speed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Me indeed. And no, I didn't just say under $100, there's plenty of garbage (for both AMD and Intel) under $100. Any idiot can find one in 30 seconds on newegg.

The point was, $100 or less, and *WITHOUT* the onboard video shit. Like I said:

"Good choices indeed, if I want something with garbage onboard video."

and:

"The cheapest AMD motherboard I found that doesn't come with garbage onboard video"

I thought that was pretty clear. I'm not wrong at all, but hey, you keep thinking that.

Re:FAR better option than anything AMD has to offe

[Anonymous Coward]

Biostar is a second-tier brand for sure, but these motherboards seem reasonably well-engineered and reliable.

That's an understatement. Even recommending them calls your credibility into question.

As to why AMD, because I prefer the alternative choice, always have.

So you're alternative because there is an alternative. Either you're Mother Theresa donating to the underdog or just an idiot. I'm thinking the latter.

As to n00bishness, I don't think so. The first general-purpose computer I programmed ran at 1 Mhz. My first laptop ran at 0.6 Mhz. I've been at this racket a little while now.

Oh give me a break. You just described half the Slashdot population. I've breadboarded machines from scratch... have you?

Back to the point: Biostar boards are junk. If you value your sanity, time, and data do not use them.