is there any hope in sight for AMD in the $200 price point?

[jinduy]

anyone know if AMD announced anything about being competetive with the i7 series at the $200 price point? i miss the good old days when the athlon xp series smoked the p4 cpus.

 

[soccerballtux]

Well it smoked them clock/clock at a ratio of 2.5ghz P4 to 1.83ghz AthlonXP, but the 3200+ Barton just couldn't keep up with a 3.2Ghz P4.

The thing now is we've got cheap quad cores that are plenty fast to run all the latest games. There's little point in buying an i5/i7 unless you can get a killer deal (such as having a Microcenter nearby and very few do), because that money is much better put towards a better graphics card.

 

[ShawnD1]

AMD doesn't really have any top of the line products right now, but they do have a great line of products.

Pretty much the only reason to buy an AMD is to get value. I bought their old school $100 quad core, the Phenom 9600 black. I bought another $100 quad core a few months later, the Athlon 620. While neither of them are fast, both of them are excellent. This is the Toyota Echo of computing right here.

 

[Jd007]

Bulldozer would be the "hope in sight" for AMD, though it's not in the near future. The specs and design of it definitely is revolutionary.

 

[heyheybooboo]

There should be 3-4 Thuban/Zosma chips out in May(ish) that will range $180-???. I imagine the upper range will ultimately depend upon (insert your own conjecture here).

A poster at XS opined they will include AMD 'Turbo' and suggested HKMG (which AMD has consistently said was an option at 45nm) but I've seen little other comment on that...





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[zsdersw]

Well it smoked them clock/clock at a ratio of 2.5ghz P4 to 1.83ghz AthlonXP, but the 3200+ Barton just couldn't keep up with a 3.2Ghz P4.

The thing now is we've got cheap quad cores that are plenty fast to run all the latest games. There's little point in buying an i5/i7 unless you can get a killer deal (such as having a Microcenter nearby and very few do), because that money is much better put towards a better graphics card.

When did he say gaming was his primary use of the computer?

 

[soccerballtux]

When did he say gaming was his primary use of the computer?

Nobody needs a faster CPU for anything else. What happens when you start a video encoding? You minimize it and go do something else or watch a youtube video. Whether it takes a minute or 75 seconds is inconsequential. And, nobody does enough regular encoding that is time sensitive for Intel to be a requirement.

In my opinion, they are currently superfluous thanks to all the cheaper fast CPUs we have.

 

[zsdersw]

Nobody needs a faster CPU for anything else. What happens when you start a video encoding? You minimize it and go do something else or watch a youtube video. Whether it takes a minute or 75 seconds is inconsequential. And, nobody does enough regular encoding that is time sensitive for Intel to be a requirement.

Nobody? Yeah, like you're an authority on what "everybody" needs.

That's like me saying "nobody needs a faster CPU for games when the most you'd get is a few extra fps. Whether you get 45 or 48fps is inconsequential."

Not to mention that faster and more-core CPUs increase the speed and fluency at which you can do something else while encoding.

 

[Phynaz]

Nobody? Yeah, like you're an authority on what "everybody" needs.

That's like me saying "nobody needs a faster CPU for games when the most you'd get is a few extra fps. Whether you get 45 or 48fps is inconsequential."

Not to mention that faster and more-core CPUs increase the speed and fluency at which you can do something else while encoding.

No shit, who is he to say what I need?

One minute video encodes?

Try converting two hours of raw HD DV to DVD.