Originally posted by: Duvie
Originally posted by: BlingBlingArsch
Originally posted by: Duvie
Originally posted by: BlingBlingArsch
i know.
still conroe looks quite future-proof to me.
nothing is future proof, but the conroe boards are suppose to be able to support future kentsfield chips...
but conroe may be good for a couple of next gen gpu upgrades.
Oh I see what you are saying....definitely not cpu limited...has room to grow into it...
My two centavos - unless AMD also cuts the prices on their FX CPUs they're gonna see some market share erosion. Did anyone notice that they're canceling all of their 1MB L2 A64 X2 chips to save fab space? They explicitly said that they can crank out a lot more M2 socket CPUs at a lower price point by limiting them to 512K/core. Compared to Conroe's 2 MB per core, that gap starts to look a lot more forbidding to power users... especially for people like Duvie who really make use of that L2. Even if the delta is ~10% from 512 to 2MB, it's not just numbers, it's perception.
So AMD needs to come up with the goods on the price front. The price cut numbers I've seen lately aren't good enough. Most people with a good S939 platform aren't gonna be tempted because they have to do a complete new build. AND of course they canceled all S939 X2 CPUs instead of blowing them out at fire sale prices, which makes people like me think "gee - thanks a lot." Now I feel like AMD is trying to squeeze me.
If I were doing a new build, I would grab a 6600 Conroe without hesitation, OC the snot out of it, and spend the extra ca$h on a higher-end video card and 4 GB of RAM. As BBArsch said, then you're set for a couple generations of video card improvements. And for Vista.
But it will take 6 months or so for the platform to settle down. This stuff is still so new. Nevertheless a $316 CPU matching or beating a $1100 FX-62 (or is it even more?) makes it a complete no-brainer, especially since I'm not really a gamer. Conroe basically buries the AMD FX series as a game system proposition. I will give props to AMD for moving over to DDR2 so smoothly. But the price/performance is just devastating. You'd have to be monumentally stupid to lay out $800-900 extra dollars for a CPU that at best matches its $300 competition, all else being equal. Buy a 24" LCD instead!
Not that I'm doing any builds. Unlike our friend Markfw900, who has enough computers to outfit a tech startup,

I'm done spending on equipment for some time. The last thing I want to do is be my own IT guy on the weekends like I used to do.
If it wasn't for AMD forcing Intel to compete we wouldn't be seeing this, by the way. Props to AMD for that, too.