Question about AMD

[Salvador]

I don't know if it's out of line to post this here, but I wanted advice from the chip experts.

Do you think that AMD has a good enough product at the moment and in the current pipeline to survive? Ever since the 775's, Intel has been kicking their butts from what I can see. Most people here used to prefer AMD over Intel back in the P4 days.

Just want some opinions on the current state of AMD.

 

[Duvie]

You said you dont OC in the other thread so AMD could look very attractive to you on price alone..The first phenoms were not great ocers, but that deosn't matter to you..I am not familiar with the best price point and how far they are off the yorkfields to give you a comparison....

Look at reviews and then check newegg to compare price...

 

[BlueBlazer]

They do... mostly in their dual core lines, value for money at stock speeds. Especially for those who buy off the shelf to use and don't overclock. When it comes to overclocking, the scenario changes though.

As for their quad core line, just beware that there are simply hidden costs to consider such as quality motherboard and performance RAM. On the other hand, you can plug in any Intel quad core into budget boards and cheap RAM... and yet will outperform the AMD quad cores with performance RAM.

In the P4 days, the Netburst are very inefficient... while AMD was more efficient, also partly due to their IMC. However, this was the drawback as AMD processor performance is very much dependant on memory performance. Then Conroe changed all that, the rest is history.

Just IMHO..

 

[Dravic]

I7 >= C2D >= Phenom II > Phenom > x2

The best bang for the buck is in the c2d and phenom II range. Nobody has final number on Phenom II yet, but I looks like it will still trail c2d by a small margin, and maybe not at all in games.

Things are actually looking up for AMD. They are spinning off the Fabs which have been costing them TONS of money to retool and keep up to date, and they are about to launch the Phenom II which looks competitive in the mid range.

AMD is not the answer at the high end or the enthusiast crowd due to lack of overclocking and headroom. Dual core c2d @ ~4ghz have been the gaming sweet spot so far. If these Phenom II?s get to 3.6-3.8ghz on air and give equivalent gaming benchmarks at 80% platform cost, the maybe enthusiast will by them.

Intel doesn?t really want to see AMD go, from what I can remember they are required to have a competitor with ~25% market share due to anti trust laws..

 

[formulav8]

Newegg.com actually has the 9600 x4 Black Edition for $99 shipped with a code.

The so called B2 bug doesn't get executed except in a very very rare instance using virtualization. In fact no one has ever even ran into the bug in the real world.

So if you want a very low cost x4 core then look at that 9600. People have even been getting 3ghz from it.

Anyways, just my humble opinion. 🙂


Jason

 

[JackyP]

Originally posted by: Dravic
Intel doesn?t really want to see AMD go, from what I can remember they are required to have a competitor with ~25% market share due to anti trust laws..

AFAIK AMD is already way, way below that.

 

[BlueBlazer]

On that Phenom 9600.. If you are running Vista, then you can't switch off the TLB bug fix.. its embedded into the operating system. That bug fix will degrade its performance. I'm not sure whether the TLB bug fix is forcibly implemented under Windows XP with the latest patches.

Futhermore, the TLB bug is not only related to virtualization.. Read Erratum degrades Phenom 9500, 9600 performance

In order to better understand this problem, TR spoke with Michael Saucier, Desktop Product Marketing Manager at AMD. Saucier confirmed that the TLB erratum can cause the system to hang when the chip is experiencing high utilization. AMD has stated previously that virtualization workloads can lead to this problem, but Saucier clarified that other workloads can trigger system hangs, as well. He characterized the issue as a race condition in the TLB logic "where the other guy wins who isn't supposed to win," and said the likelihood of the erratum causing a system hang is extremely rare.

Update 12/4/07: AMD informs us that Saucier's statement here was incorrect. AMD has asked motherboard makers not to include a toggle for the workaround in their BIOSes. Instead, the workaround should be enabled by default, and the option to disable it will be exposed solely via AMD's Overdrive tweaking utility, unless motherboard vendors elect to add this option against AMD's guidance.

 

[BLaber]

If you can Wait for Phenom II reviews , which will be out by Jan 8 , then make your buying decision.You will definitely have more options to select from if you can wait till Jan 8th.

 

[BlueBlazer]

Originally posted by: BLaber
If you can Wait for Phenom II reviews , which will be out by Jan 8 , then make your buying decision.You will definitely have more options to select from if you can wait till Jan 8th.

We don't really need to wait as we already have some ideas on what to expect... Real Phenom II X4 940 benchmarks. Don't miss the quote from HardOCP chief Kyle Bennet.

 

[ted]

Originally posted by: BlueBlazer

Originally posted by: BLaber
If you can Wait for Phenom II reviews , which will be out by Jan 8 , then make your buying decision.You will definitely have more options to select from if you can wait till Jan 8th.

We don't really need to wait as we already have some ideas on what to expect... Real Phenom II X4 940 benchmarks. Don't miss the quote from HardOCP chief Kyle Bennet.

😀Oh yeah, how about this
http://bbs.chiphell.com/attach...c62c33TTTScC1hpEYL.jpg
Phenom II at 7Ghz

 

[BlueBlazer]

Originally posted by: ted 😀Oh yeah, how about this
http://bbs.chiphell.com/attach...c62c33TTTScC1hpEYL.jpg
Phenom II at 7Ghz

Fake.. Latest CPUZ 1.49... plus it show FSB instead of HT Link. And that is supposed to be the screenshot.

 

[thilanliyan]

Some of the new Phenoms are pretty good if you're not going for OC records and such. And by the looks of it Phenom II will be much better.