AMD - Budget dual core champion - Xbitlabs review (if it was cheaper)

[Lonyo]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-x2-3600.html

Looks like it doesn't lose too much due to the halved cache, which is nice, and it also manages to overclock quite nicely.
Price seems to be $150 for now, just over 2/3rds the price of an E6300, and it can (only overclocked though) manage to mostly match/outperform it (and the E6300 can be overclocked too).

3800+ is $149 at Newegg at the moment, I just saw. So it's not really that hot.

 

[F1shF4t]

Now if only one of those came out on socket 939 😛

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-x2-3600.html

Looks like it doesn't lose too much due to the halved cache, which is nice, and it also manages to overclock quite nicely.
Price seems to be $150 for now, which isn' too bad, only just over 2/3rds the price of an E6300, and it can (only overclocked though) manage to mostly match/outperform it (and the E6300 can be overclocked too).

But for a low cost dual core chip it seems to do alright.

Blah, just give me an X2 3800+ for a few bucks more please...

So it matches a stock E6300 overclocked? Even an overclocked PD 805 @ 4GHz can do that. Once you overclock the E6300 to 3GHz+ however... LOOKOUT! 😉

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: harpoon84

Originally posted by: Lonyo
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-x2-3600.html

Looks like it doesn't lose too much due to the halved cache, which is nice, and it also manages to overclock quite nicely.
Price seems to be $150 for now, which isn' too bad, only just over 2/3rds the price of an E6300, and it can (only overclocked though) manage to mostly match/outperform it (and the E6300 can be overclocked too).

But for a low cost dual core chip it seems to do alright.

Blah, just give me an X2 3800+ for a few bucks more please...

So it matches a stock E6300 overclocked? Even an overclocked PD 805 @ 4GHz can do that. Once you overclock the E6300 to 3GHz+ however... LOOKOUT! 😉

Yeah but the E6300 starts out costing more, the motherboard will cost more, and the 805 will be rather toasty.
For a low cost, reasonably performing, low-ish power chip it's not bad.
Prices just might need to come down a bit more.

 

[cmrmrc]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: harpoon84

Originally posted by: Lonyo
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-x2-3600.html

Looks like it doesn't lose too much due to the halved cache, which is nice, and it also manages to overclock quite nicely.
Price seems to be $150 for now, which isn' too bad, only just over 2/3rds the price of an E6300, and it can (only overclocked though) manage to mostly match/outperform it (and the E6300 can be overclocked too).

But for a low cost dual core chip it seems to do alright.

Blah, just give me an X2 3800+ for a few bucks more please...

So it matches a stock E6300 overclocked? Even an overclocked PD 805 @ 4GHz can do that. Once you overclock the E6300 to 3GHz+ however... LOOKOUT! 😉

Yeah but the E6300 starts out costing more, the motherboard will cost more, and the 805 will be rather toasty.
For a low cost, reasonably performing, low-ish power chip it's not bad.
Prices just might need to come down a bit more.

yeah thats the problem, conroe performs better, but the entire combo, mobo+cpu is gonna cost alot more than the 3600+ combo...

 

[F1shF4t]

Originally posted by: cmrmrc

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: harpoon84

Originally posted by: Lonyo
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-x2-3600.html

Looks like it doesn't lose too much due to the halved cache, which is nice, and it also manages to overclock quite nicely.
Price seems to be $150 for now, which isn' too bad, only just over 2/3rds the price of an E6300, and it can (only overclocked though) manage to mostly match/outperform it (and the E6300 can be overclocked too).

But for a low cost dual core chip it seems to do alright.

Blah, just give me an X2 3800+ for a few bucks more please...

So it matches a stock E6300 overclocked? Even an overclocked PD 805 @ 4GHz can do that. Once you overclock the E6300 to 3GHz+ however... LOOKOUT! 😉

Yeah but the E6300 starts out costing more, the motherboard will cost more, and the 805 will be rather toasty.
For a low cost, reasonably performing, low-ish power chip it's not bad.
Prices just might need to come down a bit more.

yeah thats the problem, conroe performs better, but the entire combo, mobo+cpu is gonna cost alot more than the 3600+ combo...

Yea and especially here is australia, the good boards cost more than the E6300 chip. U can get the 3600+ combo for less than the what the mainboard only costs for the E6300.

 

[harpoon84]

It's true the Conroe platform costs more, but that's the price for it being new and cutting edge isn't it. Anybody remember how expensive X2s where when they were first launched?

X2 platforms are definitely cheaper than C2D atm, but the difference isn't *that* big once you take RAM prices into account IMO. Since the X2 3600+ is AM2 only most people will most likely need to purchase DDR2, so it makes sense to take that into consideration as well.

So an E6300 + Gigabyte DS3 + 2GB DDR2 costs something like $US500 right? Whereas an X2 3600+ / nForce4 mobo / 2GB DDR2 = $US400.

For an extra $100 I personally think it's worth it, you're paying 25% more for a 40% performance gain.

Not everyone has that kind of money, however, and the X2 3600+ (and 3800+) represent a good alternative to the truly bargain base DC systems like the PD-805.

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
Yea and especially here is australia, the good boards cost more than the E6300 chip. U can get the 3600+ combo for less than the what the mainboard only costs for the E6300.

Well I happen to be from Australia too and the Gigabyte DS3 costs ~$AU250 here. The X2 3600+ costs ~$AU190 and you ain't gonna find a decent AM2 board for $AU60 I'm afraid, they are all around the AU$150 mark.

The E6300 goes better with the i965 based DS3 than the more expensive i975X based boards, so why even take that into consideration?

 

[Beiruty]

My left hand is itching for a new S939 X2 3800! price is around $150 shipped!.

However, my spedings this month on e-toys include:
1) $20.52 for CPU cooler: AC 64 Pro
2) $24 for my 1800XT cooler: AC Accelero X2
3) $40 for a new Cool Master 400W PSU, since my cheapo FREE 450W PSU just gave up on the new load!
4) $718 for a new Dell 2407...... Ah Beauty! I just wish to have a second one for FREE. ( Kind buy 1, get 1 for FREE) 😀

So is worth it?

Also, I do have a few never used good AMD CPUs for sale S939 1-core 4000 and 2 Opteron 246.... see here if you are interested: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=45&threadid=1905952&enterthread=y