AMD Price Cuts

[frozentundra123456]

Most single display PC have resolution 900p and below.

You have a source for that, or is it just personal conjecture? I really dont know, but it might be true if you consider all the old units. I would have thought if you consider the entire PC spectrum, including enterprise, 1080p would be the most popular. Cant see doing much spreadsheet work on 720p.


Edit: I am sure if you included all the 768p laptops and windows tablets it would shift the balance, but we are discussing desktop here.

 

[Cerb]

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

Best data we're going to get. 1080P > 1366x768 >> 1600x900 > 1280x1024 > 1680x1050 > 1440x900 > *.

Both of the top 2 reses are increasing, but clearly 1080P is becoming the norm (not only absolutely higher, but increasing at a higher rate). So, 1080P is standard/normal, but so is 1366x768. Cheap retail monitors are not usually 1080P; but nobody works to make a good <1080P gaming monitor.

 

[cbn]

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

Best data we're going to get. 1080P > 1366x768 >> 1600x900 > 1280x1024 > 1680x1050 > 1440x900 > *.

Both of the top 2 reses are increasing, but clearly 1080P is becoming the norm (not only absolutely higher, but increasing at a higher rate). So, 1080P is standard/normal, but so is 1366x768. Cheap retail monitors are not usually 1080P; but nobody works to make a good <1080P gaming monitor.

I wonder how many of the 1366 x 768 are laptops vs. TVs?

 

[Cerb]

I wonder how many of the 1366 x 768 are laptops vs. TVs?

No telling. I suspect most new ones are laptops, but there are tons of budget monitors out there still sporting that res. It's definitely not negligible, though neither the 1080P nor 1366x768 numbers are only accounting for desktops.

 

[crashtech]

I bet 1366 gets its big numbers from laptops.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

I bet 1366 gets its big numbers from laptops.

Yeah, no doubt. I know Best Buy sells probably 5 laptops for every 1 desktop. That would explain why 1366 is such a popular resolution...... Which isn't a terrible resolution to game with IMO -- it is certainly much better than the 1024 x 600 that most netbooks were running 2 or 3 years ago.

 

[Phynaz]

Electrical and computer engineers do. Because they are -- the die on both chips is in fact identical. Smart AMD buyers have know this for years which is why so many of us bought cheaper CPU's in the past and were able to unlock the disabled cores. I only just realized that not a lot of AMD buyers frequent this forum.

We all know some tri-core at Athlons could be unlocked. You are trying very hard to imply a 4300 can be unlocked to an 8300, which it can't be. So let's not use the past as an indicator of value for current products.

As far as the users of this forum, what you find is they will skew towards performance. Back in those Athlon days you mentioned many more people were running AMD at the time because they were the highest performing CPU. Now most people run Intel because they have the highest performing chip. The market share differences will be exaggerated here due to the enthusiast nature of the forum.

Also, don't conflate AMD buyers with AMD users. I am an AMD buyer, but not currently an AMD user.

 

[jpiniero]

I wonder how many of the 1366 x 768 are laptops vs. TVs?

On Newegg and Amazon, for external monitors 1080p is by far the most popular resolution. So I don't think it's people using TVs. 1366x768 is definitely people using their laptops.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

We all know some tri-core at Athlons could be unlocked. You are trying very hard to imply a 4300 can be unlocked to an 8300, which it can't be. So let's not use the past as an indicator of value for current products.

That still doesn't change my original point. An A8 7600 and Athlon X4 860k are identical silicon..... The A8 is priced roughly the same as the Athlon -- both have the identical quad core CPU only differentiated by clock speed.... Thus, buying the A8 is like getting a Radeon video card with 384 shaders for free.

 

[Enigmoid]

That still doesn't change my original point. An A8 7600 and Athlon X4 860k are identical silicon..... The A8 is priced roughly the same as the Athlon -- both have the identical quad core CPU only differentiated by clock speed.... Thus, buying the A8 is like getting a Radeon video card with 384 shaders for free.

Or for AMD, selling a video card with 384 shaders completely for free.

 

[DrMrLordX]

For a linux box, I wouldn't be against using a spinning platter.

On Ubuntu 14.04 trim is only enabled by default on Intel and Samsung SSDs. (There is a manual way to perform trim however. I've used it.)

P.S. Ubuntu 14.10 was released earlier today (not sure what the default status is on trim for that one yet), but I prefer to stay with the LTS release if at all possible.

Interesting observation on TRIM support. I did not know that. Still, if it can be enabled, then any workload that involves moving/writing to/reading from lots of little files can definitely be improved by an SSD. Compiler jobs, I guess.

For general use, I find that Linux (well, Xubuntu anyway) hits the disc a lot less than Win7, and the boot times are acceptably quick on an old WD Black drive. So, for teh Lun1x, maybe a platter-based drive isn't such a bad choice after all, at least as far as general use is concerned.

Not sure if I care about 14.10 or not. Sometimes it's fun just to upgrade for the sake of the upgrade. And sometimes, things just break.

 

[frozentundra123456]

That still doesn't change my original point. An A8 7600 and Athlon X4 860k are identical silicon..... The A8 is priced roughly the same as the Athlon -- both have the identical quad core CPU only differentiated by clock speed.... Thus, buying the A8 is like getting a Radeon video card with 384 shaders for free.

Or you could argue that the price for the A8 is the correct one and the athlon is overpriced because the igp doesn't work. Seriously though, I would argue that whether the physical silicon is identical is beside the point. The functionality of the chips are different because they have different features enabled. Basically it seems you are trying to exaggerate the value of the A8 because the "free video card" as you call it is pretty much standard in one form or the other in nearly every CPU these days, both from Intel and amd. I would agree though that since the APUs have received substantial price cuts, the athlon should as well.

 

[III-V]

Or for AMD, selling a video card with 384 shaders completely for free.

The correct perspective.

 

[crashtech]

I'm genuinely curious to know what kind of cooling an aggressively OCed 7700K would require.

 

[Cerb]

Interesting observation on TRIM support. I did not know that. Still, if it can be enabled, then any workload that involves moving/writing to/reading from lots of little files can definitely be improved by an SSD.

All you have to do is add "discard" to the mount options It's been off by default due to some early crappy SSDs not handling it well. Or, periodically run fstrim, which does a full pass, like Windows' "optimization."

Personally, I couldn't go back to a platter w/ Linux, but can with Windows. All those little files, loading all the time, v. the registry and a bunch of caches...SSD all the way, TRIM or no.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

Or you could argue that the price for the A8 is the correct one and the athlon is overpriced because the igp doesn't work. Seriously though, I would argue that whether the physical silicon is identical is beside the point. The functionality of the chips are different because they have different features enabled. Basically it seems you are trying to exaggerate the value of the A8 because the "free video card" as you call it is pretty much standard in one form or the other in nearly every CPU these days, both from Intel and amd. I would agree though that since the APUs have received substantial price cuts, the athlon should as well.

Yeah, sure.... Try playing some modern games with the current Haswell Pentiums IGP that are priced around $90 and then get back to me. I'll save you the time -- they suck. I love my G3258 (mine is paired with an Nvidia card), but seriously.... The iGPU on it is complete garbage.... Like turning 3D graphics into a slideshow on every game suckage.

We're talking about integrated graphics -- where even an i5 gets walloped by a 7600 that is half the price:

 

[cbn]

That still doesn't change my original point. An A8 7600 and Athlon X4 860k are identical silicon..... The A8 is priced roughly the same as the Athlon -- both have the identical quad core CPU only differentiated by clock speed.... Thus, buying the A8 is like getting a Radeon video card with 384 shaders for free.

????

LOL, I don't care how you want to spin this....but no way would I ever think someone buying a A8-7600 is "a lot like" buying a Athlon x4 860 with a free 384 stream processor GCN Video card throw in.

Functionally the two are different enough from each other that to say your analogy is stretching things a bit would be an understatement.

 

[cbn]

Basically it seems you are trying to exaggerate the value of the A8 because the "free video card" as you call it

A8-7600:

Slower clocked Kaveri quad core
Downclocks under iGPU load
Locked multiplier
65 watt cooler
benefits from 2 x 4GB RAM kit because 2 x 2 GB RAM kit speeds stop at DDR3 2000.

Athlon x4 860K with R7 video card:

Faster clocked Kaveri quad core
Does not dowclock under GPU load
Unlocked multiplier
95 watt cooler
Can run with 1 x4GB RAM and not impact GPU performance.

In a nutshell, the A8-7600 is quite a bit away from the performance of a Athlon x4 and video card.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yeah, sure.... Try playing some modern games with the current Haswell Pentiums IGP that are priced around $90 and then get back to me. I'll save you the time -- they suck. I love my G3258 (mine is paired with an Nvidia card), but seriously.... The iGPU on it is complete garbage.... Like turning 3D graphics into a slideshow on every game suckage.

We're talking about integrated graphics -- where even an i5 gets walloped by a 7600 that is half the price:

Actually they both suck compared to a 2 or 3 year old low end gcn gpu, so to me it is irrelevant. If I want to game, I will add a discrete card. If not the igp is plenty good enough on either one.

 

[SPBHM]

I bet 1366 gets its big numbers from laptops.

1366x768, dual core not decreasing much and Intel Graphics being so high makes it pretty clear, a lot of people using steam on cheap laptops,

 

[cbn]

2). The throttling is a non-issue for anyone who bothers to alter their p-states and defeat the behavior. It's irritating, but if you want it gone, it's gone.

Do you or anyone else know of a way (or ways) of disabling the cpu throttling for Linux users?

 

[DrMrLordX]

I would try TurionPowerControl. Failing that, maybe mrstweaker under WINE, though that would be weird.

edit: Looks like it can at least detect the p-states of Kaveri.

 

[cbn]

Now I'll reiterate what I've said elsewhere: the 8310 is a good deal, MSRPs be damned.

$110 for an octocore:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...q9Qka3U7eeGmhg

This is only $33 more than the x4 860K which is $77 free shipping at Newegg right now. Though with that mentioned, 8310 does need a cooler and 860K does come with one.

P.S. I wonder how much could a person expect this FX-8310 to overclock on a value cooler like a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus? (EDIT: I read some claims of FX-8350 being able to get 4.5/4.6 GHz on 212 Plus/212 Evo, so hopefully this lower bin doesn't do much worse than that on a reasonable motherboard.)

 

[DrMrLordX]

Depends on whether or not the 8310 is low-leakage like the E chips. The 8320E and 8370E tend to reach ~4.5 ghz on less vcore than the 8350. If the 8310 is the same way, it should be okay with a 212 variant.

No idea how hard it would be to cool the 7700k, though I suspect it will be slightly easier to cool than the 7850k just due to the shortage of GCN cores. The 860k's best strength (in my opinion) is that it is probably the easiest to cool, and the least stressful on the socket/VRMs. It is probably easier to reach 4.5 ghz with the 860k on a budget board with poor VRM cooling than it is with the 7700k or 7850k. Sure, it's basically the same chip as all the other Kaveris, sans iGPU, but FM2+ boards can be awfully weird about power delivery. Especially the cheap ones.

 

[janeuner]

Do you or anyone else know of a way (or ways) of disabling the cpu throttling for Linux users?

Something like...

cd /sys/devices/system/cpu
for i in `ls | grep 'cpu[0-9]'` ; do
echo "performance" > $i/cpufreq/scaling_governor
done

There are also more delicate ways to control frequencies.

Edit:
Note that you can only use this to set the cpu up to its rated frequency. AFAIK, you cannot lock the CPU to a boosted state using existing kernel parameters.