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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."
.. 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.
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.
Because it's between this
And this
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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
Intel and AMD release different numbers for their CPU's power consumption. Intel gives an average and AMD gives a maximum. They're not comparible. In real world testing, the X4 965 uses slightly less power at idle and slightly more power at full load than a stock Q9550.
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.
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.
Intel and AMD release different numbers for their CPU's power consumption. Intel gives an average and AMD gives a maximum. They're not comparible. In real world testing, the X4 965 uses slightly less power at idle and slightly more power at full load than a stock Q9550.
Sadly, that is incorrect.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/phenom-ii-x4-965_4.html#sect0
While idle is comparable (Intel has a slight lead), full load most definitely isn't - 75% extra power consumption (which amounts to over 60W!) for the X4 965 over a Q9550 is far from "slightly more".
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.
You were running 95 watts at stock (2.83 GHz). You're way, way over that by now!
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
The thing is, it's the value proposition of AMD that's attractive... the motherboards are cheaper, and you can upgrade incrementally with them. You don't have to get a whole new system to upgrade. The AM3 chips fit into the AM2+ sockets, the AM3 chips are compatible with DDR2 RAM as well as DDR3...
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Sadly, that is incorrect.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/17402/11
"Interestingly enough, the systems based on Phenom II quad-cores (including the X4 965) draw quite a bit less power at idle than our Q9550-based test system."
"That said, the X4 965-based system draws only 15W more than the Q9550-based one. The gap between the Q9550- and X4 965-based systems is thus smaller than the processors' TDP ratings alone suggest. [In full load]"
"By virtue of its lower system power draw at idle and its ability to finish the rendering task sooner, the Phenom II X4 965 fares better than the Q9550 in our two most important measures of energy efficiency."
Tech Report tells a different story: ... A story that says that you can't necessarily compare like-for-like when using different motherboards.
Which is why X-bit Labs did this:
To get a better idea of the situation, we performed a separate Phenom II X4 965 power consumption test under heavy load when none of the other system components are taken into account. To be more exact, we measured the consumption along the 12 V power line connected directly to the processor voltage regulator on the mainboard. In other words, this measurement method didnt take into account the efficiency of the voltage regulator circuitry. ... and got 84W for the Q9550 and 147.6W for the X4 965. Granted, like they said in the last sentence, this doesn't take VRM efficiency into account, and it might as well be that those on the AMD motherboard were woefully inefficient and the CPU itself uses plenty less watts than measured. Still, this is 75% extra, and the VRMs cannot be the main reason for it.
They do similar measurements for graphics cards, too, because measuring total system power consumption from the wall can only get you so far.
I'd personally be more inclined to trust the Ukrainians.
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