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AMD Undercuts Intel With Six-Core Phenom IIs
EconolineCrush writes "As Slashdot readers are no doubt aware, Intel's latest 'Gulftown' Core i7-980X is an absolute beast of a CPU. But its six cores don't come cheap; the 980X sells for over a grand, which is more than it would cost to build an entire system based on one of AMD's new six-core CPUs. The Phenom II X6 line starts at just $200 and includes a new Turbo capability that can opportunistically raise the clock speed of up to three cores when the others are idle. Although not as fast as the 980X, the new X6s are quick enough to offer compelling value versus even like-priced Intel CPUs. And the kicker: the X6s will work in a good number of older Socket AM2+ and AM3 motherboards with only a BIOS update."
Back in the days before the Intel Core series, when AMD was doing well, Intel's outdated architecture was still better at encoding video. The only benchmark that Intel P4s would consistently beat AMD in was the video encoding benchmarks. But more people play games than encode video.
The iCore series completes the catchup that Intel had to do to get back into the performance gaming. Wider bus and on die memory controller easily won gaming performance benchmarks for AMD. The iCore series increased the bus, and put the memory controller on the die.
The Boost vs Turbo features sounds like Intel has the more innovative product.
These days its looking more like AMD is the one doing the catchup in innovation.