AMD Releases Three New Low-Cost CPUs

WesternActor writes "With its new Fusion APUs coming out in about a month, you wouldn't think AMD would still be tweaking its processor lineup. But it released three new processors today—the Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition, the Phenom II X2 565 Black Edition, and the Athlon II X3 455—to balance out its price-performance offerings. The Black Edition CPUs with their unlocked multipliers are probably the most interesting, particularly the Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition which has six cores, runs at 3.3 GHz, and costs only $265. As the name implies, the 1100T represents only a minute increase in clock speed over the 1090T. It even has the same amount of L2 and L3 cache (3MB and 6MB, respectively), is based on the same 45nm production process, and is designed for the currently standard AM3 socket. Given that 1090T got the downward nudge in price to $235, however, the 1100T offers slightly better performance for less money."

Comments

Low cost?

[jewelises]

I've heard of marketers redefining price points, but this is ridiculous. I've never paid more than $150 for a processor.

Re:Low cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you even looked at Intel's price-points? You wouldn't be saying these things if you had.

Re:Low cost?

[leon.gandalf]

Considering the INTEL option costs $1000 more. I would say it is cheap, at least by comparison.

Re:Low cost?

[hedwards]

As the other poster suggested, you can buy an entire AMD based system for what one of Intel's high end processors costs. There are people who want that level of performance and are willing to pay, but the chip does cost a lot.

Re:Low cost?

[windcask]

I've never paid more than $150 for a six-core processor.

Re:Low cost?

[blair1q]

Both Intel and AMD have a wide range of price points. At least in the low to mid-range. Intel has a swath of parts that cost a lot more than any AMD parts, but they also perform a lot better than anything else in existence.

Re:Low cost?

[blair1q]

Intel has parts similar to these at about these prices. The Intel part that costs $1000 more makes one of these things run like an abacus.

Re:Low cost?

[Kjella]

Intel's low-end parts tend are typically lower performing (or higher priced, depending on how you look at it) than the AMD counterparts, I thik you pay a minimum just for the brand. In the performance ranges AMD can't touch you get far better performance, but at an ugly price premium. Personally I've found that Intel is competing most intensly around AMD's high-end where AMD starts to cheat a little and Intel wants to "cut off" AMD. Intel is of course trying to choke the chips that give AMD good margins, which makes the bang for the buck not that bad.

Re:Low cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

But an i5-750 Quad ($200), while similar to a Phenom II X4 965 BE ($160), is more expensive. Plus, the 955 ($145) is basically identical from an OC perspective. And don't forget to add in the $100 Intel mobo premium.

To be fair, AMD's latest offerings also carry an initial premium, but it's typically short lived.

Re:Low cost?

[hairyfeet]

Exactly. I built my current machine for around $600 after rebate and it has a 925 2.8GHz quad, 8GB of DDR2 800MHz, an HD460, a pair of 500GB HDDs, and Windows 7 HP X64. To build an Intel machine at the roughly same specs I was looking at a minimum of around $200 more thanks to the higher prices on Intel motherboards, and if I wanted anything even slightly future proof I would have had to go DDR3 which 8GB would have put a serious bite in my wallet.

Plus if you support having a free market and competition your really should be looking at AMD first. Intel was caught bribing OEMs and rigging their compilers to sabotage AMD chips, which is why they paid AMD 1.25 Billion to try to make the heat go away. Personally I think Intel will still be looking at EU fines as well as a host of lawsuits by AGs. I'm all for someone winning a good chunk of the market by having better products, performance, marketing, etc, but sabotaging the market through payoff and rigging just makes the market a sham.

So unless you are in one of the niches where the insane price difference is worth it to squeeze every amount of speed you can get I would look at AMD first. Since Intel got caught rigging and bribing and Nvidia pulled bumpgate I have switched my shop to AMD only and my customers couldn't be happier. I just sent out a triple core with 4GB of RAM and a TB of HDD along with an HD4350 for the local print shop and it cost them just $485 after paying me. According to the owner which had already added a quad I built to the office the performance is great and the lower price is allowing him to accelerate the replacement of the older machines in his business. Hell you can get quad kit with Win 7 for $400 or supply your own OS and get a get a triple for $220. Intel just doesn't have anything similar at those price points unless you get the bottom o' the line Celery or Pentium duals. At those prices the bang for the buck is firmly in the AMD camp. And if you are looking at mobile the Turion and Neo chips make for nice laptops you can actually play games and watch HD video on without breaking the bank. Not a hard choice IMHO.

Re:Low cost?

[0100010001010011]

AMD has the top 10 of CPU Value Benchmarks. of available CPUs. I've been looking at upgrading my AM2 system and my final choice came down to the top 2 CPUs before I even found that list.

I think Intel has 4 out of the top 30 on that list. Intel does not have parts similar to AMD performance wise for the same price.

Re:Low cost?

[black6host]

Used to be that the choice for me was a financial one in that I could achieve the same processing power on the high end but did I want to pay more for the Intel name. Actually, for awhile, I considered AMD the best choice and recommended it to many and chose it for myself. Now though, I want the performance edge that Intel has. And I'll pay more for it. Of course, the balance between the two sway back and forth and right now Intel is on top. Maybe not tomorrow....

Re:Low cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Never? Hey, there's nothing really wrong with never having done that, but you're here on Slashdot bragging that you have never built even a mid-range best-bang-for-the-buck hotrod. You're expected to have some kind of e-peen, practical issues aside.

Re:Low cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

I paid more than $150 for my CoreI7-920 ...and that was about 2 years ago.

Re:Low cost?

[devent]

Future proof? I'm still using my 3 years "old" laptop and I'm perfectly fine with it. I think I will be using it in another 3 or 10 years if the hardware will not fail me.

Actually, I'm really don't know why I need such a power monster, all my applications run perfectly fine on my T61p.

But of course I have work to do and not play all day long Crysis.

Re:Low cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course you'll spend half a day extra to figure which special features the lower-cost Intel CPUs have or don't have (like virtualization support).
I started to consider my time too valueable to put up with the "feature diversification" crap that Intel plays, performance be damned (I don't really need high performance anyway).

Re:Low cost?

[DarthVain]

My first thoughts also. 240-270$ isn't low cost at all. My last one was 150$ also (though now I am wishing I ponied up the extra 40-50$ bucks). I still wouldn't go north of 200$ before taxes on a CPU.

Re:Low cost?

[DarthVain]

i7 > 275$
i5 760 quad core can be had for 200$.
i3 150$

So there you go. High end. Mid Range. Low end.

240-270$ isn't exactly low cost. AMD or Intel.

Re:Low cost?

[tibman]

That is a great point, i've never thought about proc flags being missing on low-mid intel. Is this because they don't create middle processors, they just sell older ex-high-end ones?

Re:Low cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I've never paid more than $150 for a processor" = noob

Re:Low cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Meaning that they are what, 20 % faster in real-world benchmarks?

Re:Low cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not know Intel internals, but to my knowledge and by the pattern this is just intentional market fragmentation. Things like new instruction sets are something different, AMD has that as well (though often only for a short time), with Intel the low-end CPU can have all the same userspace-instructions (SIMD stuff) but lack things like virtualization (in addition to the mess that they might be disabled by the BIOS even if the CPU supports them with no way to enable them).
64-bit support was for a while quite inconsistent as well, but there might have been significant technical reasons I just don't see for the virtualization stuff.
I do not know about ECC, but for AMD you can expect that also on the low-end (even though I haven't found a single reseller that has a clue about that and actually knows if the mainboard producer played it cheap and left some wires out or something - most don't however).
By my research that can mean a huge price difference if you want a mid-level (computing-power wise) system with virtualization instructions and ECC RAM.

Re:Low cost?

[blair1q]

Meaning that they are what, 20 % faster in real-world benchmarks?

I'll walk past the oxymoron and pretend it isn't there, just to refute the actual question:

No. The part that costs $1000 more than AMD's $200 parts is not 20% faster. More like 300% faster. It's 50-100% faster than AMD's fastest part.

Here's a graph from about 7 months ago (note those are system prices, not CPU prices): http://www.techreport.com/discussions.x/18502

Part numbers and prices will have changed by now, but the basic structure of that graph doesn't change much over time. Two years ago Intel was actually ruling performance/price in the midrange, but AMD started slashing prices because it was getting completely killed in unit sales. AMD now strategizes pricing to remain a few dollars to the left of Intel at every price point it enters, because if it doesn't it will go out of business within a few months.

But AMD chips cost more to make than Intel chips, and AMD has to share that money with its fab partners: GlobalFoundries, TSMC, UMC, and Chartered. AMD no longer fabs chips (GlobalFoundries is its fab spinoff), which puts it at a serious production-efficiency disadvantage. You can attribute some of the slip in Fusion to this.

Re:Low cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

As the other poster suggested, you can buy an entire AMD based system for what one of Intel's high end processors costs.

That's kinda irrelevant, as you can also buy an entire Intel-based system for what one of Intel's high end processors costs, and you can also build a multi-Opteron system where the CPUs alone cost more than a whole Celeron system.

What's actually important is that a $200 AMD CPU is faster than a $200 Intel CPU. $200 is low-mid end for Intel whereas $200 is mid-range for AMD, and that shows in the performance. Intel chips are overpriced.

Re:Low cost?

[luk3Z]

I'm still using my 10+ years old laptop and I'm perfectly fine with it too :) P266MHz XP + nLite what do I need more ? Devcpp working just fine, so I still can coding on this machine.

Re:Low cost?

[blair1q]

AMD actually was better, both in performance and performance/price, and especially performance/power.

Intel tried to pull away from x86 and it cost them dearly. But they got back in the game and now those AMD superiorities are distant memories.

Re:Low cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

I built my current machine for around $600 after rebate

Rebates suck dick and not in a good way, but rather in the trading your personal privacy for discount sort of way.
They are also distortive of the market when advertised prices are post rebate prices.

1090T

[cosm]

I have a 1090T in my main home/dev machine. It is excellent. Gaming, video encoding, whatever. Combined with a boot SSD and 6GB of DDR3, couldn't be happier with the system. Beats the hell out of a standard consumer box, and for the $300 I paid for the 1090, it spanks Intel's offerings (at least did at the time, probably still does). I will say though that consumer boxes are catching up pretty quickly, and their price/performance seems to have plummeted enough to compete with independent system builders (still don't get the feel good feeling).

If your building a new box with an X6, make sure the BIOS supports 'em. When I bought mine along with a new motherboard, I didn't check, turned out it only supported quads out of the box. I was in such a rush to see the CPU in action, I went to best-buy, bought a machine that had an X4, put the X4 in my new board so I could flash the board to support X6, and then swapped the CPUs back out. Desperate geek times call for desperate geek measures.

Note: I didn't return the X4 Best Buy machine, but was seriously tempted to :)

Re:1090T

[blair1q]

It spanked nothing. It may have been a nudge better in performance at the same price, or $3-5 less for the same performance, but Intel gets a little juice from its brand recognition and power and reliability numbers.

In those segments where Intel and AMD compete, Intel can make better ASPs than AMD, and manufactures the goods for cheaper per unit. That's why AMD is still dinky and Intel is a behemoth. In those segments where AMD and Intel don't compete head-to-head, you find Intel parts and no AMD parts. AMD has no niche to itself. That's another reason for the dinky/behemoth ratio.

P.S. Daps for flashing the BIOS just to get a board running under your chip. 3 out of 1000 /.ers would have even considered it, and 1.5 of those would have bricked their system doing it.

Re:1090T

[Anonymous Coward]

standard consumer box

Dells sells Phenom II X6 machines for $700. Doesn't get much more 'consumer' than that.

Re:1090T

[Rockoon]

Thats funny because (A) I have had no trouble getting motherboards that support 6-core AMD's out of the box, (B) Flashing the bios is painless these days unless you are using some shitty assed brand of motherboard, and (C) AMD clearly wins the price/performance competition with all of the top-20 being AMD.

Re:1090T

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't remember specifically why but IIRC none of the old AMD motherboards (700 series based) supported the X6 without further BIOS flashing. This is why it pays to watch out for the AMD chipset models, since many of the older AMD boards are still being sold at low cost.

Re:1090T

[Rockoon]

well certainly you need to "be careful" where careful = do a bit of research.

The newegg comments is actually a very good place to start on that research.

As far as cheap motherboards.. don't..

I'm not saying grab the most expensive thing on newegg.. just make sure that the class of board you are getting is well made.. which means not one of the cheapest thing on there (MSI "Military Grade" boards are very solid, but not all that expensive)

Re:1090T

[Eugene]

at least for AMD you can use your old motherboard, with Intel you need new motherboard everytime...

Re:1090T

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that they're cheaply made (not always anyway), it's that they're outdated and priced accordingly. Last-gen 785Gs are as low as $60, but are still manufactured. Unfortunately these have more than just BIOS issues; the SB chipset will probably also be old (only a couple mobos have 7xx NB & 8xx SB)... meaning less power efficiency and only SATA2 support, etc.

Re:1090T

[RicktheBrick]

Computers are my hobby. I did voluntary work for United Devices and now do work for World Community Grid. I have been doing this for over 10 years. I am in the top one tenth of one per cent of the World Community Grid(515th position with more than 515,000 members) Three years ago I purchased a q6600 quad computer hoping to get 3 or 4 times as many results. I was surprised when I got 6 times as many results as a similar speed rated single core computer. I recently purchased a 1090t 6 core bare bones computer($307 on pricewatch) and was again surprised when I got twice as many results as my quads. With this one computer, I now get more than twice as many results than I did with 6 single core computers. I am sure that the electricity cost for that computer is a lot less than than the 6 computers were so I believe that in my case the computer has paid for itself by reducing my electrical bill.

Re:1090T

[rev0lt]

Yah, but if you are worried with electric bills you should try the 32nm processors.. You get 4 cores / 8 threads at half the 6600 consumption.

$100 or $150 may be low cost...$265?

[kcbnac]

I know! My general rule is $100 - I don't buy the Phenoms or other "high-end" models. Last time went with the 2.8GHz quad (Athlon II X4 630)

I could picture buying the same as a Phenom if the L3 cache would make a big difference for what I ran, but it doesn't make enough of a difference when gaming to be worth the cost.

I also love how both articles are from PCMag and nothing linking to AMD directly.

Re:$100 or $150 may be low cost...$265?

[avandesande]

265$ is more than I have spent on an entire system in the last ten years.

Re:$100 or $150 may be low cost...$265?

[Rockoon]

Its easy to go cheapo when you dont have to count the cost of the monitor, hard drive, or operating system.

For most people, those 3 alone (18" panel, 250GB HD, Windows) will run them almost $265.

It is much harder to justify skimping on the CPU/RAM when you are starting at $265.

I get you though.. I build my father a nice (for his needs) salvage-system for $150 when his mobo fried.

Re:$100 or $150 may be low cost...$265?

[pjbgravely]

For my needs I upgrade monitors in between motherboard upgrades. I just bought a 25" LCD, slid my 23" LCD over to my middle screen, and slid the 17" 3x4 LCD to replace a CRT.

Do they even make 250GB hard drives anymore? With an upgrade I usually grab the second from highest size. My last one a few years ago was 1.5 TB. Maybe you mean a 10K drive. That would make sense then.

The OS for me is free. I guess there are some who want to pay for one.

Another extra expense for me when upgrading would be another video card. I will be choosing a mother board that takes 3 video cards and I only have 2.

And last maybe a new power supply, but I think my 1000 watt will be good for next time.

Re:$100 or $150 may be low cost...$265?

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know this was something to brag about. The last system I built was what I wanted; price be damned. I don't build very often, every five years or so but when I do the price is the last thing I look at. Surprisingly, this doesn't result in 'god boxes'. Just very fast solid machines I'm happy with for a long time.

Re:$100 or $150 may be low cost...$265?

[hairyfeet]

So how does it run? Most of my customers go with the Phenoms so the only Athlon I've built was a 7550 dual which did run pretty well for a basic game/media PC. I personally went with the Phenom II 925 which is just $30 more than your chip, but I do a lot of video transcoding and that 6MB of L3 does help there. ever try to transcode video with it? How does it do? mulitasking performance?

As for TFA in the sub $300 section and especially the sub $200 section you can't beat AMD. After rigging their compiler I've been avoiding Intel at the shop and my customers couldn't be happier. The only time I touch Intel now is picking up socket 775 CPUs to help customers and family get a little more life out of their machine before going for a new one. I mean it is hard to turn down two 2.6GHz Pentium Ds for just $60 shipped, which should get my boys another year or two out of their PCs before I get around to building them AMD quads.

I am curious about the no cache Athlon IIs though, simply for those like my boys or customers that don't do much heavy lifting. I figure about another 2 years with their Pentium Ds and 4650 GPUs for the MMOs they play and then they'll be getting AMD too. The price difference for Intel just isn't worth it unless you have some app that is sucking down CPU like crap through a goose and you need that extra juice no matter the cost. So any info will be helpful, especially those that have experience running Photoshop CS and other graphics apps on them. I have a couple of print shop customers and if they can get decent CS performance out of them like the AMD quad Phenoms I've been selling them the extra savings could speed up replacement of the old machines.

Re:$100 or $150 may be low cost...$265?

[h4rm0ny]

Some people brag about what an awesome high-end system they have. Some of those people are just genuinely excited about all the shiney in front of them, and that's fine - the species has to progress, you know? But some people are wanting to wave what they've got in front of others as a mark of status. That's pretty obnoxious and you can tell when they do. On the opposite end, you get people who like to talk about how low-end their system is. And that's often a reaction against the obnoxious ones at the other extreme. It's quite nice to point out the rampant materialism of some of these people sometimes. But as you say, sometimes it becomes a sort of inverse snobbery.

Neither type of arrogance is good, really. But it is at least worthwhile being reminded that you can actually do useful productive work on some old 512MB system. We don't want the marketing people to rule the world unopposed. ;)

Re:$100 or $150 may be low cost...$265?

[tibman]

I recently bought a 250gb sata drive for 38$. Used it in a hobo computer.

link: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4837457&CatId=2458
picture of a hobo computer: http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/tibman/Hobo%20Computer/DSCN1086.jpg

Re:$100 or $150 may be low cost...$265?

[CannedTurkey]

No static issues with that plastic box?

Re:$100 or $150 may be low cost...$265?

[dogmatixpsych]

I just purchased a Phenom X4 2.8GHz + ASUS mobo (not high end but with good features - core unlocking, easy overclocking, Crossfire support, USB 3 - and it is usually $100 on Newegg) for $160. If you time deals right, you can get the higher end stuff for the same price as the lower end stuff (not that there's too much of a difference for most people between Athlons and Phenoms).

Re:$100 or $150 may be low cost...$265?

[tibman]

So far, all is well. There is a stack of four now, with one infrastructure node at the bottom containing a powerstrip and gigabit switch. I made two and my roommate made the other two with the power node.

It certainly looks neater than our old shelf of hodgepodge machines.

Fusion APUs

[John Hasler]

Fusion Auxillary Power Units? Wow!

Oh. Overloaded initialism. Damn. Carry on.

Re:Fusion APUs

[blair1q]

That is, sadly, exactly the way their marketing plan was designed to work, but with a ??? and a "Profit!" somewhere in the sequence.

Re:Fusion APUs

[jiteo]

FAPU? Why yes, my college years were spent at FapU...

Re:Fusion APUs

[ChunderDownunder]

I didn't rtfa. so assumed Mr Burns had named a new reactor after one of the townsfolk.

X6 Black is awesome, hopefully

[Stregano]

I actually bit the bullet when they X3 Black came out. I got it later on in the cycle, and it was a true tri-core and no unlocking of the 4th core. As for price, I paid $200 for it back then. A six core for $200 and I will bite again. I like to buy stuff right when it is on the brink of not being new anymore. That is the fun of pc parts though, it all depends on what you do with your PC. If you are into gaming and most of the games do not support 6 cores, then it is bragging rights only. I promise you in 6 months that $235 price tag will be much lower than $235. I personally do alot with video processing and 3-D animation, so I could use some more cores.

Re:X6 Black is awesome, hopefully

[Rockoon]

A six core for $200 and I will bite again.

AMD's first Phenom II 6-core (the 1055T) was $200 when released (they are now $180 on newegg.) Thats a 2.8 ghz with locked multiplier (still highly overclockable, but the bus has to follow)

MSI motherboards auto-over-clock feature (capped at 20%) has brought several (all, I've built 3 1055T systems) of these up to 3.36 ghz without changing the voltage for me, and when AMD Turbo is being used by the CPU it brings 3 cores up to 4ghz (and down-clocks 3 cores.)

All of them have been stable with Prime95.

The unfortunate part is that the stock cooling is kind of weak for the over-clock, requiring either an excellent case fan setup (push-pull straight across, what I opt for) or a better heatsink/fan.

Now this is the kind of stuff I buy.

[Ismellpoop]

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/Computers(ME)/ComputerComponents(ME)/Processors(ME)/AMDSocketAM3cpu(ME)/Default.aspx

Math?

[Anonymous Coward]

the ... 1100T ... costs only $265... The 1090T [costs] $235 ... the 1100T [costs] less money.

Wait, $265 is less than $235?

Anyone done the upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still on 1080P. Is 1090T a worthwhile upgrade?

Re:Anyone done the upgrade?

[hedwards]

Yes, it's 10D better.

Funny math.

[sconeu]

From TFS:

1090T = $235
1100T = $265

"Given that 1090T got the downward nudge in price to $235, however, the 1100T offers slightly better performance for less money."

Could someone explain the math to me? It seems to me that $265 is more money than $235, but this is probably just advanced math.

Re:Funny math.

[Rockoon]

The 1090T was running $280 when first released ... so this one at $265 gives you more for your money.. I guess that sort of contrived logic explains it.

Re:Funny math.

[maxwell demon]

From TFS:

1090T = $235
1100T = $265

"Given that 1090T got the downward nudge in price to $235, however, the 1100T offers slightly better performance for less money."

Could someone explain the math to me? It seems to me that $265 is more money than $235, but this is probably just advanced math.

After you bought the 1100T you have slightly better performance, but also have less money.

Problem is....

[Lumpy]

AMD's 6 Core stuff underperforms the same clock frequency i7 quad core by enough that real power users dont choose AMD right now.

What I want is both Intel and AMD to drop the BS of "special SMP processors that require all special and expensive stuff.

3.1ghz 6 core processor X2 on a workstation motherboard using normal ram instead of the craptastic Opterons and the overpriced ECC ram coupled with anal rape priced motherboards.

Re:Problem is....

[hedwards]

Depending upon your definition of power user, that's almost always been the case. I remember there was that brief period when AMD beat Intel to the 1ghz mark, but apart from that the high end stuff from Intel has typically been faster.

But it's also pretty much always been crazy expensive as well. Most people make their decisions either on marketing or the price/performance ratio. I suppose some people now consider energy efficiency as well.

Re:Problem is....

[Rockoon]

Dont forget the new breed of folks that build systems based on how quiet they will be. Thats sort of similar to the energy efficiency group, but not quite the same.

Its actually quite impressive what can be done with just some decent fanless heatsinks.

Then there are those sick bastards that submerge their computer in mineral oil...

Re:Problem is....

[serviscope_minor]

When AMD first released the Opteron and x86-64, they beat the pants off Intel, especially in SMP because they had Hybertransport versus Intel's rather dated FSB, not to mention the Netburst architecture which failed to scale to 20GHz.

Also, the 6100's currently get more FLOPS/socket than Intel, provided your workload can scale from 32 to 48 cores for a 4 socket motherboard. AMD also win on Flops/$, again assuming reasonable scaling.

Re:Problem is....

[Anonymous Coward]

Quiet is nice, but lately I've gone for size (well actually they're both related). MicroATX is damned nice, and miniITX is increasingly appealing. It's great having a top-end gaming PC you can pick up with one hand and carry around with no effort.

I've been eying this case for some time. Must resist... urge.

Re:Problem is....

[bill_mcgonigle]

AMD's 6 Core stuff underperforms the same clock frequency i7 quad core by enough that real power users dont choose AMD right now.

For values of 'power user' that don't include low-end high-volume virtualization where core-count is paramount. AMD's 12-core part is nice too (I use it on 'real' servers), but spendy per-core. Getting 6 or 12 cores in an Intel box is far more expensive.

Re:Problem is....

[drsmithy]

For values of 'power user' that don't include low-end high-volume virtualization where core-count is paramount.

When it comes to virtualisation, RAM is nearly always more important than either core count or speed, unless you're doing something unusual.

Re:Problem is....

[Anonymous Coward]

[Brand x] underperforms the same clock frequency [Brand y]

Who compares by clock frequency? It's all about dollars vs dollars, watts vs watts, or some mixture thereof.

Re:Problem is....

[Anonymous Coward]

If you'd been paying attention to prices recently ECC unreg 1333 is actually in some cases cheaper than regular DDR3 1333.

While it doesn't help for people wanting 1600/2000+ speed memory, ECC is definitely not at the premium prices it once was. And while not everyone needs it (Esp if your computer gets shut down at the end of teh day and booted again in the morning), for those of us who have system updates listing into the 'years' category, ECC makes a huge difference for ensuring that system is still running without any long term corruption creeping in.

Re:Problem is....

[Zancarius]

When it comes to virtualisation, RAM is nearly always more important than either core count or speed, unless you're doing something unusual.

And when you buy a cheaper multicore processor from AMD, you can spend the difference on more RAM! :)

Re:Problem is....

[DarthVain]

AMD did have the lead once upon a time. Basically they had processors that ran on PAR with Intel (even thumped them in many benchmarks), but sold cheaper. Then Intel came out with the Core 2 Duo and on a smaller die fab than AMD could muster. AMD has never been able to catch up since. About the ONLY thing that makes AMD even slightly attractive is that currently the Intel spec motherboards are still a bit pricier than AMD's offerings. However that difference has been dropping over time, and AMD hasn't made any noticeable advancements. At the reasonable level (i.e. not the razors edge technology) the difference only really amounts to 20-30$ on the MB. So if your looking at total cost, bump up your cost for your AMD cpu by that much and compare. However at the same time start looking at which technology you want to have as well features available. Anyway if I were to buy a chip today, it would be Intel hands down without a doubt in my mind. AMD would have to offer me a big discount in order to convince me to buy theirs.

Re:Problem is....

[QuantumBeep]

Such as what GP is doing, apparently.

Many commercial virtualization shops standardize on one VM per core.

Re:Problem is....

[drsmithy]

Such as what GP is doing, apparently.

Well he didn't mention doing anything unusual.

Most people grossly overestimate the overheads of virtualisation, and thus believe they need a lot more CPU than they actually do. Typically, CPU is the _last_ resource you run out of when virtualising.

Many commercial virtualization shops standardize on one VM per core.

Like who ? That seems incredibly low to the point of nearly making it uneconomical. We're averaging about 20 VMs on each of our 8-core/16-thread/48GB UCS blades - not a remotely high consolidation ratio in my experience - and the CPU isn't even close to the limiting factor.

Re:Problem is....

[bill_mcgonigle]

When it comes to virtualisation, RAM is nearly always more important than either core count or speed, unless you're doing something unusual.

Obviously it depends on your workload. Any job that will benefit from CPU cache coherency will appreciate dedicated cores. Something as simple as MySQL replication benefits handsomely. Any kind of compute farm or compile cluster will demand it. If you're doing filesharing and terminal apps, it's definitely overkill.

Also, remember that we need to have ECC RAM for servers, and with AMD that's built in to the on-chip memory controller. You can have a 6-core cpu+mobo with 8GB of ECC RAM for about 500 bucks @125W in AMD-land. Just the Intel CPU is a thousand bucks - you're at $1500 if you shop wisely for the rest. The Xeon solution needs to thus do 3x better per-clock to break even on the economics (though it gains a little bit back with consolidation through moderately more work-per-cycle and a tiny bit less power consumption (95W for the CPU, but the chipset is hotter).

Re:Problem is....

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Depending upon your definition of power user, that's almost always been the case. I remember there was that brief period when AMD beat Intel to the 1ghz mark, but apart from that the high end stuff from Intel has typically been faster.

AMD was faster from when Athlon 64 was launched (December 2003) to when Core 2 was released (July 2006). But even today AMD is just about at parity with Core 2, and Intel is about to launch Sandy Bridge. Hopefully Bulldozer can change that.

Re:Problem is....

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Then there are those sick bastards that submerge their computer in mineral oil...

Real mean use fluorinert.

get a core for free

[Anonymous Coward]

x3 + core unlocker = win

Nice

[interval1066]

6 cores for $235??? AND at 3.3G? Sign me up.

Not certain, i'd buy it right away.

[formfeed]

let's check Wikileaks to see if there's a good review by the state department.

amd has better chipset choices and lower MB prices

[Joe The Dragon]

amd has better chipset choices and lower MB prices

Man, already?!

[John Pfeiffer]

Argh! They knocked down the price? I just bought a 1090T last month... Oh well, par for the course. The whole sequence of events was just FRAUGHT with BS. :(

The motherboard in my primary computer shit itself suddenly and for no apparent reason, and I had to RMA it. This took three weeks for some god-unknown reason considering they didn't 'repair' anything, but instead sent me a different board with a new s/n sticker on it with my serial.

I finally get the motherboard back only to DROP THE GODDAMN CPU DURING REINSTALLATION. So, when it DIDN'T WORK, I had reason to assume it was the chip. So I bought the 1090T, which I was going to do anyway come February. Since, amazingly, my 3-year old AM2+-based motherboard supports an AM3 hexacore with nothing more than a BIOS update...

Still nothing. Examining the board, I smelled burning semiconductors...and then burned my finger on a VREG... Yeah, I had WORDS with the tech support about my RMA, believe it.

Not having another three weeks to piss away, I got a cheap motherboard, and a couple sticks of RAM (Because it takes DDR3) and was back up and running with the 1090T.

The reason I'm saying all this, is so you have some appreciation for what I went through, to be rewarded with an absolute beauty of a machine with the 1090T at its core. And I'm not being sarcastic, for once. The CPU's a real monster. I have it overclocked to a perfectly stable 4.00GHz, with the STOCK COOLER.

Renders go fast as anything, and Photoshop CS5 x64 starts up in 2.5 seconds. (Unless I just added some new fonts.)

Right now, my only limitation is the 4GB of RAM, when my old machine had 8GB. I'll have to do something about that.

Some nimrods were calling me stupid for buying an AMD, but you look at the price of Intel's chips, and the hexacore offerings start at $900!!! What in all of fuckery?? My whole new mobo+CPU+RAM combo cost a THIRD that! Man, some people...

Re:Man, already?!

[Rockoon]

Never buy cheap motherboards. My rule of thumb is two-fold.

First, the cost of MoBo should never be cheaper than the RAM that is going onto it. Yes this means that all those sub-$100 MoBo's are out of the question if you are going 6+ GB DDR3.

Secondly, for its SATA and USB feature set, it should not be within 20% of the cheapest board you can find with that same feature set, and never the cheapest of that feature set from that specific manufacturer.

The first part is more common-sense than anything else, while the second part is avoiding even a hint of warning signs.

Re:Man, already?!

[hairyfeet]

Wellll....I would say it really depends more on if you are going for a strictly gamer PC or for something more rounded. for example I have had quite good luck with several ECS Business Class boards and most of those can be had in the $70-$80 range. Since it is a business board you won't be getting crossfire, but they are really rock solid boards and usually make up for the lack of crossfire (at least for me) in their solid construction (heavy traces, solid caps, well thought out BIOS, etc) and the ability to take huge amounts of RAM, which my customers love.

I liked them so much that I built my own with one and I really have no complaints after nearly 2 years of running it hard, and with 8GB of RAM and plenty of SATA and USB ports I really can't find anything to complain about, especially since IMHO it is often better to just upgrade to a better single GPU than to deal with all the heat and noise of crossfire. Not to mention with the AMD GPUs they seem to get better on power with each generation so doubling up instead of just getting a better one of the latest gen just doesn't make sense to me.

Now if you are talking gamer boards I agree completely, as you really have to spend some $$$ to keep from getting shit with those things. It seems like hey just make it with some cool color board and parts and then skimp on the quality of the build, but for everyday machines or even those that like to game but aren't hardcore like me I really can't find anything wrong with the $70 business class boards.

Re:Man, already?!

[John Pfeiffer]

I don't intend for it to be a permanent solution, it's just literally all the money I had at the time.

Though it does seem to be a perfectly fine board, so I'll definitely put it to use somewhere. Come tax rebate time, I fully expect to get a new mobo and plenty of memory. :D

Re:Man, already?!

[WuphonsReach]

Never buy cheap motherboards. My rule of thumb is two-fold.

And more importantly, never buy a cheap PSU.

(Having a voltage stabilized UPS unit helps as well, but the APC Smart-UPS aren't cheap and replacing the battery every 3 years sets you back $30-$60/yr depending on size.)

Re:Man, already?!

[QuantumBeep]

Your rule of thumb doesn't seem to include anything besides gut feeling.

As a counter-anecdote, I've never paid more than $50 for a motherboard, and I upgrade about every 3 years. It's worked out well for me. Just insist on solid caps, and after that it's just a feature comparison.

Just give me a 95W X6

[camh]

I was hoping we'd see a 95W X6 available retail sometime soon. I want to build a mini-itx 6-core box, but these are typically limited to 95W parts. There is a 95W X6 manufactured, but it is not available retail (only to OEMS from what I understand).

errr whut?

[isopropanol]

Hmmm... AMD 1090T $279.98 CDN, ... Intel i7 960 $651.98 CDN, .... The $372 difference can buy a whopping GPU, Stack of RAM, or SSD (or contribute to all 3), which will probably make a bigger difference anyways, depending on workload. (Prices from NCIX.com, I am not affiliated with them)

Waiting for the 45W 12 core chip

[jameskojiro]

Someday I will be able to buy it....

*taps his shoes like Sonic the Hedghog...*

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been considering upgrading from an old junker PC from around 2005 because it doesn't have the grunt to play The Dark Mod. I'm going to buy AMD, but I'm not buying an AM3 bored because the Bulldozer chips will not work in it. I know what it is like to buy a board just before a standard is fazed out... I made that mistake once and will not make it again.

So, Please get the AM3 boards out ASAP!

Re:*taps his shoes like Sonic the Hedghog...*

[hairyfeet]

Uhhhhh...question: If you are currently using a PC from 2005, why not just buy something cheap like this and use it until you outgrow it? By then the AM3s will not only have been out awhile but the Bulldozer chips will be cheap as well. Then you can always either use the other as a spare, a renderbox, give it to family, or sell it on Craigslist. At that price you should be able to easily get your money's worth out of it, just add a cheap 5450 GPU and you could probably get another 2-4 years if you are running a 2005 PC.

Hell I'm running a 925 quad and can easily see myself getting another 4 to 5 years out of it, by simply upgrading the GPU occasionally. By the time I've outgrown it the next gen Bulldozers will be uber cheap and I can just skip the 6 core and go straight to 16 HT cores! but I can tell you right now most apps don't even strain a dual core, so this quad could easily last you three to four years unless some breakthrough in parallel computing comes out which we haven't seen any hint of.

Re:*taps his shoes like Sonic the Hedghog...*

[WuphonsReach]

Hell I'm running a 925 quad and can easily see myself getting another 4 to 5 years out of it, by simply upgrading the GPU occasionally.

Exactly. My AMD Phenom 9850 quad is going on 2 years old. I dropped a new GTX 460 in there this year. Next year I'll hopefully drop a 256GB SSD in.

Although the 10k RPM SATA Western Digital drive has been holding up very well. The box definitely feels snappier then other 7200 RPM SATA systems that I've also been using. Still, I've used a SSD-based laptop one too many times in the past two years and every time I walk away going "ooooh, that was nice".

Someone needs to poke Intel with a stick and tell them to get their SSDs down to the $1/GB range. (Their 25nm stuff is supposed to ship in Jan/Feb 2011.)

Re:*taps his shoes like Sonic the Hedghog...*

[hairyfeet]

Funny I got marked down for just asking the guy a question, but waiting for Bulldozer when he is running a six year old PC and quads are so cheap is just nuts. I feel your pain friend, as I have been drooling at those SSDs but don't want to get bit in the ass like when I spent $200 for a 4x DVD only to have the bottom drop less than a month later.

I've found that at least with Windows 7 that throwing a buttload of RAM and having a separate drive with the swap does help some, not as nice as an SSD mind you, but Superfetch really does work. And despite what the pundits say about flash drives and plenty of RAM I've found having a spare 4GB allocated to Readyboost does help with a lot of apps and wake from sleep, so you might want to try it with flash being so cheap.

And I have to agree with the 9850, I've built a few with that and it is a nice chip. With few programs even taxing two cores why someone would want to use a circa 2005, which you just know is a P4, aka "Mr Piggy Space Heater" as a primary machine when you can have a full quad kit for $220 is just crazy. Unfortunately with Xmas just around the corner I have to make a choice since I'll only have enough cash for an either or kind of deal, so let me ask your opinion. my 4650 1GB is getting a little long in the tooth so what do you think: The new HD5670 or a 32GB SSD? While I'd love both they just ain't in the budget and what I get will probably have to be it for six months or more as I'll have family BDays after the first of the year. So if it were you, which would you choose? The big GPU, or the fast SSD? Sadly I'll only have a spare $100 so the 256GB is right out.

Re:amd has better chipset choices and lower MB pri

[blair1q]

All AMD stuff tends to be cheaper. For the same reason their chips tend to be cheaper. Not because they cost less to make, but because undercutting significantly on price is the only way they can compete.

And Intel's chipsets are in many ways superior these days. This isn't 2004.

The Third Yorkshireman

[Dogtanian]

Future proof? I'm still using my 3 years "old" laptop

I'm still using my 10+ years old laptop and I'm perfectly fine with it too :)

That's nothing. I'm still using my 24-year old Atari 800XL and I don't feel the need to upgrade at all. That said, I must admit I'm using a disk drive, as loading my web browser from a cassette would just be silly.

Can't keep up with it, slow down

[Anonymous Coward]

It's already difficult to run four dwarf fortresses in parallel. I think I need a bi-brain or something to handle these 6core CPUs.