AMD's Phenom II 965, 3.4GHz, 140 Watts, $245
Vigile writes "While AMD does not have the muscle to push around the i7, they certainly have the ability to give the older and more common Core 2 Quads a run for their money. With the release of the Phenom II X4 965, AMD further attempts to dethrone the Core 2 Quad as the premier midrange CPU offering. While it may not be a world-beater by any stretch of the imagination, it certainly is catching Intel's attention in the breadbasket of the CPU market. The X4 965 is the fastest clocked processor that AMD has ever produced, much less shipped in mass quantities. While the speed bump is appreciated, the cost in terms of power and heat will make the introduction of the X4 965 problematic for some. Many of us thought that we would never see another 140 watt processor (as the Phenom 9950 was), but unfortunately those days are back. Still, AMD offers a compelling part at a reasonable price, and their motherboard support for this new 140 watt processor is robust."
I'm running a Q9550 at 3.4 Ghz right now (with the ability to go much higher) and mine only uses 95 watts.
AMD has a long ways to go to get back in the game. I can't imagine craptacular ideas like purchasing ATI are helping.
.. can now double as still for my homemade vodka
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
read: if you didnt shit in a marble toilet this morning and start the day trying to figure out which of your sedans to drive to the office, you may find this chips introduction "problematic" from a pricing standpoint.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Have you seen Intel's pricing? Can't get a decent solution from them including a motherboard for under 500 whereas I just recently built a full Phenom II computer for about 400 (including hard drive). I'm not convinced that Intel is really interested in mid-ranged computing.
AMD and Intel are just running on its fumes. Silicon (Si) is inherently limited by its inorganic composition which means it produces lots of heat especially when it is on the Web. All the smart engineers at the secret R&D labs are working on organic computing: solving the paradox of user interface versus wattage by harnessing the power of bacteria to create a new paradigm of information that is multi-dimensional. Instead of "processes" and "treads" and "HTML" we will have gases and sugars dancing to the rhythm of our wildest imaginations. And one more thing... you will not need your eyes any more since the two-dimensional "screen" and "paper" metaphor will be replaced by a revolutionary direct access to pure consciousness. Buy my book.
UNITE with the Campaign for a Free Internet because today, our future begins with tomorrow!
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Wait what? This also serves as a penile extension??!!?? I"ll take 3!
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
Because it's between $100 and $500 which is probably the high end for most PC class processors. Intel has the Core2Duo at the low end, the Core2Quad and the low end Core i7 in the midrange and the faster Core i7 at the high end with a few enthusiast offering at the extremely high end (~$1000). That's basically been the market as long as I can remember which dates back to the early 90's.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Beckton, the 8 core / 16 threads Nehalem CPU will be out in Q1 2010.
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/opinion/1050976/intel-bunch-fun-cpus-moves-2010
You can get an i7 920 for $200, so not only is it faster and lower power, it's also cheeper.
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0302727
If you're referring to Moore's law, it's not a doubling of speed every 18 months, it's a doubling of transistor counts. Clock speed has never been part of that equation, no matter what intel's late-1990s marketing department would have you believe.
Article shows that performance is roughly equivalent beween the Q9550 and Phenom 965, with the AMD part enjoying a slight advantage if you look at all the benchmarks together. This while costing $30 more and consuming more power.
Would be interesting to see a comparison of the i7 920 with the Phenom. I'm guessing the 920 would outperform, which is what you'd expect since you're paying $30 more.
Yeah, but you have to pay the "i7 tax" for a new $220+ motherboard. Core2Duo/Quads will happily plug into any $50 motherboard you (already) have.
moox. for a new generation.
I recently completed a home-build with this very CPU. Sure, the chip was the single most expensive piece, but with NewEgg combo deals and shipping discounts, I got the entire machine for about $600, including a smashing new case, plenty of RAM and disk space, extra USB ports and two disc burners. That's mid-range in my book.
I'm sure some of you hardware nerds will smack me down for one reason or another, but as a starting point I just installed the AMD factory CPU cooler it came with. I don't know what wattage it's pulling, but the CPU temperature is holding very steady at about 38 Celcius, and the fans don't even seem to be working very hard for that. It's working great, and at those temperatures, it should do fine for years to come.
My $0.02 on the very rare occasion of having first-hand experience with the actual hardware in the story.
You shall see a cow on the roof of a cotton house.
Now if I could only efficiently recirculate air from my 150 sqft office to the rest of the house, I wouldn't need a furnace...
If you have a furnace (or forced air system) see if you can turn on the fan only. The return(s) in the room should pull the heat out of the office to the other rooms. That is if you have a return in the office, a good system has a return (even a small one) in every room. My house built in the mid 1950's has small returns in every room.
I know I'll be called a fanboy or something but I've been building AMD/ATI systems for the last ten years based solely on the fact that it isn't Intel/nVidia. I'm not going to pay $1000 for the top-of-the-line Intel chip anyway and I'd rather see AMD in business than Intel be the only big player.
-SaNo