AMD Launches New Processor Socket Despite Poor Economy

arcticstoat writes to tell us that despite a poor economic climate, AMD is moving forward with a new processor socket launch, although they are trying to make it as upgrade-friendly as possible. "As you probably already know from the AM3 motherboards that have already been announced, AM3 is AMD's first foray into DDR3 memory support. As Phenom CPUs have integrated memory controllers, it's more accurate to say that it's the new range of Phenom II CPUs (see below) that are DDR3-compatible. However, the new DDR3-compatible Phenom II range is also compatible with DDR2 memory. As the new CPUs and the new AM3 socket are pin-compatible with the current AM2+ socket, you can put a new AM3-compatible CPU into an existing AM2+ motherboard. This means that you can upgrade your CPU now without needing to change your motherboard or buy pricey new DDR3 memory."

Comments

Re:strange

[afidel]

Actually we bought drop in CPU upgrades for our Database server, when you have the time invested in the OS and application installs and QA time not to mention tons of ram it's a very cheap upgrade to just swap out CPU's if you are CPU limited. Spending $5K or so to get 40% better performance out of say $300K is sunk cost is a no brainer. Now that's on the Opteron side not the Phenom side, but again if you do a lot of transcoding it's probably cheaper to buy a new CPU then upgrade the whole rig.

Re:What's the point in wating for markets to turn

[stuffman64]

Core i7 940 -> $564.99 + about $250 for mobo = $800+
Phenom II 940 -> $224 + about $150 for mobo = about $375

Core i7 needs DDR3, Phenom II 940 runs DD2 (note that the 940 is an AM2+ part, not AM3 so it doesn't support DDR3). DDR3 is somewhere around 50% more expensive than DDR2 (though falling).

For me, the fact that the i7 is only about 10-20% faster than the Phenom for more than twice the cost, it's simply not worth considering for me. Then again, I do most of my gaming on consoles.