AMDZone on Barton pricing/release date

[dullard]

I've been saying for quite some time that I expect AMD to raise prices significantly. But I was expecting to see that happen when the Hammers were released (I expected a $500-$600 Athlon 64 at launch - AMD had always said it will carry a significant price premium over the rest of their chips). But now AMDZone claims the 3000+ Barton will be $571. Wow, I didn't expect AMD to go that high this soon. Makes me rethink my $500-$600 price target on Hammer. The only good news there is it seems like Barton itself will be a bit cheaper than the current speed equivalents. I honestly think this is a great move for AMD, but are a lot of consumers going to complain?

Release date set at Feb. 10th. Just a few days off of the Inquirer's Feb 7th date.

 

[Alptraum]

I think its something they probably need to do. And I am sure a number of people will complain. I was thinking that when they release the new it will be more then your $500-600 estimate. I wouldn't be totally shocked if it was closer to a grand at release. But who knows. I haven't been following it all that close. Hopefully they will get it out soon and we can all find out

 

[RSMemphis]

Eh, that's for the first release. Probably will be in the low to mid 400s after a while.

Now, I am really curious about the benches - I hope the extra cache will help make it measure up more.
Honestly, I think it will help more for servers though, and that would justify that price tag. Maybe instead of bringing 333FSB MPs, they will just bring the Barton... Since everyone knows that only CPUs >> $500 are good for server applications... j/k

 

[Alptraum]

Yeah, for servers I (and I think most other network types) don't really look at the CPU price on its own. I just look at the entire package price of the server. I would say on average I spend 5 to 15 thousand dollars when I order a new server. And wether the CPU is 1000 of that price or 1500 doesnt make an massive difference. Most of the cost is eaten up by RAM and storage among other things. Certainly it has a larger effect down near the 5k range then it does at the 15k or up range but the CPU is pretty much never the largest part of server pricing. Lol, I can't wait to see the pricing on some of those Intel chips with the 9meg cache. Mucho pricey I am sure.

 

[dullard]

Barton Benchmarks are supposedly here and repeated here. I honestly didn't read the thing, but people say the extra cache gives it a 4% boost on that link. That makes good sense. The Athlon should get less of a boost than the P4 did when going to 512 kB cache, since the penalty for misreads on the P4 is much larger. If the P4 got roughly 5%-10% boost, then the Athlon should get roughly a 3%-5% boost. Also note, AMD will be adding 100+ PR points for the extra cache. That means a chip that would have been marked 2700+ will be marked 2800+ with the extra cache. 2800/2700 = 1.037 or a 3.7% boost in their claimed speeds.