I was going to wait for Sandy Bridge but...

[SickBeast]

You know a Phenom II a 3.8Ghz is no where near as fast as an i7 at 3.8Ghz?

You know an i7 costs at least $300? At that price I would expect it to be 3X as fast as my CPU, only it's not. An overclocked i3 at 4.6ghz is still slower than my setup in most cases where it actually matters.

 

[Lonbjerg]

You know an i7 costs at least $300? At that price I would expect it to be 3X as fast as my CPU, only it's not. An overclocked i3 at 4.6ghz is still slower than my setup in most cases where it actually matters.

What "cases" are we talking about?

 

[RavenSEAL]

You can preach all you want, the fact i that Intels outsells AMD in every segment...and makes a profit doing so.

If AMD had a choice, they charge more...but they can't.

AMD is pressed so hard and forced to sell so cheap it's having a painfull effect on their bottom line.

And I'd sure iif you look into price/performance/OC...the $80 AMD suddenly isn't such a good deal after all.

Alright, then you go pay 3x's the price for a CPU that only gives you 20-30 % extra performance compared to the one that cost $80.

 

[Hacp]

I remember back in the days when 99 dollars was what most people paid for their CPU. Intel has mad 250-300 the norm astonishingly.

 

[SickBeast]

What "cases" are we talking about?

Anything related to video encoding, 3D rendering, compression, or serious computation. The same goes for multitasking.

I can game comfortably on 2 of my cores while leaving the other 2 cores do do something else intensive. That's just not going to happen on an i3.

 

[BBMW]

What's giving you the Highest performance. An unoverclocked SB may give you better throughput than your overclocked Phenom II.

AMD is also coming out with now hardware in the same timeframe.

If you can wait till February-ish, you will probaly be better off seeing what's available at that point. If you need something now, buy what's available now. But in that case, I'd be looking at the current i7s over the Phenom II.

The lack of overclocking on the platform killed it for me. Why should I pay $200+ for a "K" chip that can overclock, when I can get a Phenom II and a motherboard for $140? I did just that and am running happily at 3.8ghz.

I just don't understand Intel. To me, this just proves that they do not care about the enthusiast market.

I would have waited for Bulldozer but the Black Friday deal I got was too good to pass up on.

 

[ilkhan]

run with or laugh at anything else Intel makes...

oh really? Without the same price point? Because...
my 990X says otherwise.

Gulftown is still not that far ahead of sandy. The 2600K starts at a slightly higher clock (3.4 vs 3.33 [980X]) and turbo's higher as well. Overclocking...borderline. Gulftown clocks pretty damn well, but sandy is supposed to as well. 6-core will help, but where thats not being put to *really* good use the 2600K will perform at least as well at a third the price.

Also, thanks for ignoring the "run with" part of "run with or laugh at".

 

[SickBeast]

What's giving you the Highest performance. An unoverclocked SB may give you better throughput than your overclocked Phenom II.

AMD is also coming out with now hardware in the same timeframe.

If you can wait till February-ish, you will probaly be better off seeing what's available at that point. If you need something now, buy what's available now. But in that case, I'd be looking at the current i7s over the Phenom II.

You know, I hope you're right. That said, I highly doubt that you are. By all accounts, SB will be 10% faster clock-for-clock. I just can't see two i3 cores outperforming my 4 Phenom II cores. I'm sure they will compete in some apps like games, but in the majority of tests, I'm confident that what I have is faster.

To get into a quad core Intel processor, you have to spend too much money IMO.

Anyhow, I'm happy with what I've got for $140. I think I would be lucky to get a low end i3 Sandy Bridge for that.

 

[SickBeast]

Perhaps it's because an overclocked SB @ 4.5GHz+ will come close to doubling the performance of a Phenom II @ 3.8GHz? Even at stock, a 2500K will be a class above... but whose gonna leave one at stock?

It will probably be around 50% faster than a Phenom II at 3.8ghz. That said, it will cost more than twice as much.

For people who want to spend $200-300 on a CPU, SB will be great. For people like me who want to get as much as they can out of a $100 CPU, AMD is hard to beat ATM.

 

[Edrick]

I just don't understand Intel. To me, this just proves that they do not care about the enthusiast market.

Since when is the "enthusiast" market on a $140 budget?

The OP started this thread about how Intel is neglecting the enthusiast market with the initial release of SB. And he is correct in a way as this is their mainstream release. LGA2011 will be for enthusiasts and will cost some $$. But what does that have to do with being able to purchase an AMD chip for $80? You are comparing apples to oranges.

 

[SickBeast]

Since when is the "enthusiast" market on a $140 budget?

The OP started this thread about how Intel is neglecting the enthusiast market with the initial release of SB. And he is correct in a way as this is their mainstream release. LGA2011 will be for enthusiasts and will cost some $$. But what does that have to do with being able to purchase an AMD chip for $80? You are comparing apples to oranges.

The enthusiast market does not have a defined budget. By "enthusiast", I simply meant people who are into computer hardware and overclocking. If you're into overclocking, it's way more fun to clock a CPU from 2.5ghz to 3.8ghz than it is to take a 3.4ghz CPU up to 3.8ghz.

By comparing an $80 AMD CPU to something that Intel makes for around the same price, I'm basically looking at a price/performance comparison, regardless of how each CPU performs in its own right.

 

[Concillian]

Since when is the "enthusiast" market on a $140 budget?

The enthusiast market used to take cheap $100 and under CPUs like the Celeron 300A, A64 2800+, etc... and OC them to be equivalent to high end CPUs.

Somewhere along the line Intel convinced the people that the enthusiast market buys $150-300 CPUs. People talk about i7s like they're budget machines . When did things go haywire? Bulldozer and whatever the mainstream desktop core that's after Llano can't get here soon enough, we need some level of competition again.

 

[taltamir]

They have paided a dear price for their price policy...look at their bottomline.

AMD didn't choose to be a nice guy, the price their products as their performance dictates...forced by Intel's performance.

I know people have shor memories, but I remeber AMD's $1000 CPU's...AMD ain't your friend...their products just don't have the performance for such a pricetag today.

And you speak like Intels OC's bad...when infact they OC better than AMD.

This is the state of performance today:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/cpu-benchmark-highend.html

every word you say is true

The lack of overclocking on the platform killed it for me. Why should I pay $200+ for a "K" chip that can overclock, when I can get a Phenom II and a motherboard for $140? I did just that and am running happily at 3.8ghz.

I just don't understand Intel. To me, this just proves that they do not care about the enthusiast market.

I would have waited for Bulldozer but the Black Friday deal I got was too good to pass up on.

good for you, that means AMD strategy of desperation is working. I am actually hoping AMD gets a large performance improvement and is able to once more make 1000$ CPUs. It will be better in the long term to have such competition

 

[borisvodofsky]

The lack of overclocking on the platform killed it for me. Why should I pay $200+ for a "K" chip that can overclock, when I can get a Phenom II and a motherboard for $140? I did just that and am running happily at 3.8ghz.

I just don't understand Intel. To me, this just proves that they do not care about the enthusiast market.

I would have waited for Bulldozer but the Black Friday deal I got was too good to pass up on.

Bad idea.. phenom can't play starcraft 2 for shit.. so unless you plan on not playing strategy games "in general", then you MUST wait for SB

SB is the only chip that will run Starcraft 2 at 60fps.. obviously this excludes people with i7s that do 4.5ghz+ on water and exotics.

 

[Rifter]

I dont really see the point in this thread, obviosly AMD had intel beat in the sub $150 market but that just because intel doesnt need to compete in that market. They are killing AMD with sales anyways of there higher cost chips.

With intel the "enthusiast" market will be waiting for LGA2011 anyways.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I remember back in the days when 99 dollars was what most people paid for their CPU. Intel has mad 250-300 the norm astonishingly.

I bought an Athlon 1100 back in the day for $250. I then bought a Athlon 3700 San Diego for $220 or so. I then bought a Core i7 930 for $199.

Not TOO bad.

But motherboards are outrageous. The prices are like "WTF." Back in the day a $140 KT7-Raid was like wow omg overclocker! Then came the DFI Ultra NF4. I got in on these awesome overclocking boards and that was $140. Do a pencil trick and you could get the SLI version. Wow.

Now what? $250 for a motherboard? Goodness. I threw my whole bonus check away on an i7 system just because board, cpu, ram would be costing me over $600 alone.

 

[smakme7757]

Just wait, if Bulldozer destroys Sandy Bridge then i'm pretty sure AMDs prices will go up. I doubt it, but as mentioned earlier in the thread, when AMD was beating out the Pentium 4 they charged big $$$ for their CPUs.

Everyone has a bleeding heart for AMD, but when they get back on top just watch them raise their prices just like Intel did when they got in front!

I don't take sides, i set a budget, and buy the best hardware i can afford!

 

[Hacp]

I bought an Athlon 1100 back in the day for $250. I then bought a Athlon 3700 San Diego for $220 or so. I then bought a Core i7 930 for $199.

Not TOO bad.

But motherboards are outrageous. The prices are like "WTF." Back in the day a $140 KT7-Raid was like wow omg overclocker! Then came the DFI Ultra NF4. I got in on these awesome overclocking boards and that was $140. Do a pencil trick and you could get the SLI version. Wow.

Now what? $250 for a motherboard? Goodness. I threw my whole bonus check away on an i7 system just because board, cpu, ram would be costing me over $600 alone.

Why would you buy san diego when you could buy a venice for 99 dollars and get 95% of the performance of the san diego? Its people like you that accept high prices that drive the price up for everyone else.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Why would you buy san diego when you could buy a venice for 99 dollars and get 95% of the performance of the san diego? Its people like you that accept high prices that drive the price up for everyone else.

Because if we let people like you dictate price, we wouldn't be where we are today performance wise.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Why would you buy san diego when you could buy a venice for 99 dollars and get 95% of the performance of the san diego? Its people like you that accept high prices that drive the price up for everyone else.

Sorry, don't see a $99 Venice.

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides...eekly-CPU-Prices---Week-of-August-22-2005.htm

The 3000+ or 3200+ was the CPU to get at that time.

 

[StrangerGuy]

The idea of enthusiasts, out of all people, paying $200+ for a mobo in year 2010 makes me laugh.

 

[Hacp]

Sorry, don't see a $99 Venice.

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides...eekly-CPU-Prices---Week-of-August-22-2005.htm

The 3000+ or 3200+ was the CPU to get at that time.

Venice was always 99 dollars on newegg every few weeks sometimes with free shipping too. You didn't need to go to drive to a microcenter (and pay tax either)

 

[amenx]

The enthusiast market does not have a defined budget. By "enthusiast", I simply meant people who are into computer hardware and overclocking. If you're into overclocking, it's way more fun to clock a CPU from 2.5ghz to 3.8ghz than it is to take a 3.4ghz CPU up to 3.8ghz.

By comparing an $80 AMD CPU to something that Intel makes for around the same price, I'm basically looking at a price/performance comparison, regardless of how each CPU performs in its own right.

OK. Theres budget enthusiasts and theres performance enthusiasts where money is less of an issue. Performance enthusiasts usually stay clear of AMD. Like from the $200 mark and up (which is considered mainstream).

 

[betasub]

OK. Theres budget enthusiasts and theres performance enthusiasts where money is less of an issue. Performance enthusiasts usually stay clear of AMD. Like from the $200 mark and up (which is considered mainstream).

Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, most marketeers view "budget enthusiasts" as "cheapskate". "Performance enthusiasts" allow them much bigger mark-ups in price: recall AMD's release of the first X2 processors (then exclusive to the enthusiast Socket 939 platform), and Intel's first release of i7 quads (at the time, exclusive to expensive motherboards for enthusiast LGA1366).

As the name suggests, "performance enthusiasts" tend to put performance before budget or brand, so many went with AMD's Skt939, and then jumped to Intel's LGA775 when Conroe and then quads rolled into town.

 

[amenx]

I remember when AMDs X2 4800 was going for around $800 (2005). Fortunately C2D put an end to that.