Honestly, trying to get a thread back on topic!

I am - once some more, lower power versions come out I'd be interested in dropping one into my 740G (AM2+) mobo. If it fits within the same thermal envelope as my current 5000+, doesn't cost a bunch and has better performance, then it'd be a no brainer in a years time or so.

As I've already said, AMD will have more trouble when Ci5 shows up. The thing with the latest CPU's is that AMD have made very small changes compared to the first Phenom: a die shrink and added cache, that's about it. If they had more time and money they would of course have done more. I'm really curious what AMD's plans are for the next two years, until the next CPU shows up.
AFAIK, the core logic have changed very little since the K7. They pretty much added some very good features like IMC, HTT, 64 bit, and L3 cache. I think they could have done more with the K10.

They are doing that, although in their own way, and it's called Athlon Neo.

matt: The 720 is rated for 95 W, but uses like 55 W, so there's no problem I guess.

mats, that's still a little high for me - my whole PC currently idles at around 40W Once there are some user reviews on here with undervolting data I'll start thinking about it - I'm pretty conservative (took me 4yrs to upgrade from an old Xp machine) and I have to save up for a potential move from Australia to France, which'll put a bit of a dent in my shiny toy fund!

I already did. Public perception. People buy what they PERCEIVE to be better, in this case a larger number on the box. Talk about hitting a brick wall.

Sure cheer on AMD for slowly slipping further and further behind its competition, maybe if enough people do they may actually believe it up until they realize they have no market share whatsover, and their price cuts become meaningless to intel.

you're arguing cross purposes Aris - on one hand you're saying AMD was the market leader and so, based on the PERCEPTION you keep banging on about ("The vast majority ask the sales clerk "whats faster, intel or amd?" and the store clerk says "well intels new i7 is currently the fastest". Then the customer goes over and buys something from intel, even if it isnt the i7. Even IF the intel machine their buying is actually slower than a comparably priced amd machine."), all AMD chips should have sold better than the P4, now you're arguing that the P4 actually sold better because of people's PERCEPTION that it was better, even if it wasn't.

Really Aris, what are you on about? Obviously, AMD is barely competitive with previous generation Intel processors and the price war is hurting it more than Intel, but in the mass market which IS dominated by price, it's actually not doing too badly. Market share doesn't seem to have been affected much one way or the other by either i7 or PhenomII, both companies are posting losses. Instead of being depressingly negative, how about finding cheer in the fact that AMD and their chips are getting better and that this is maintaining competition to the benefit of all?

Or is the only way to end this discussion for everyone to roll over and repeatedly chant, "we're all wrong, only Aris is right"?

I am, but like matt I'm concious of the power envelope of these chips. I'm primarily waiting for the X2's due this summer. I've seen reports of 45W X2 and X3 chips, though. That would be interesting, but that is still unsubstantial rumours, though...

I think this page is more interesting:
http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//inde ... mitstart=4

So the Phenom II X4 810 is idling at only 7,2 W?
And 60 W at full load. Maybe we can undervolt this like an X2 5000+ can be used as an 4850e with some undervolting?

I am using a 4850e right now and my motherboard supports AM3 CPU. Tthe operating system I use on my server (opensolaris) does not support cool&quiet with 4850e. However the K10 generation is supported with cool&quiet in opensolaris so it might be worth an upgrade? I am now running my 4850e at 1,8 GHz and 0,95 V Vcore in BIOS but I could need some more speed sometimes.

You wanna know what im on about? I'm pissed off. I've been getting progressively more and more upset because at one time i was an AMD fanboy rooting for little AMD comming from nowhere to topple the Intel jugernaught and give them a run for their money and the consumers competative price structures on computer hardware. And now their just slowly becomming another niche market manufacturer beaten back by the machine.

No, AMD does not have anything that competes with the i7, and thats the problem. As you pointed out, intel dropped their prices on everything BUT the i7. AMD should have a product to keep the i7 at a competative price structure, and right now they dont. And if this continues the way its been going eventually AMD wont have ANY products that compete with Intel's line-up.

Keep on dreaming. AMD can't do that in such short time (2.5 years), if at all anymore.
I never expected the new CPU's to be close to the i7, given the small changes they've done from the first K10.

but Aris, they have succeeded in forcing competition in the CPU market! And they still are and in both directions - AMD's aggressive price cuts have forced Intel to cut prices (and lose considerable margin), whereas Intel's technical superiority has forced AMD to compete on price. I'm sure you remember the astronomical prices AMD charged for their first Athlon64 and X2 chips - now I can go out and buy a 2.6GHz dual core for AU$75 (and a quad core from either for ~AU$300). No one would have believed that if you'd told them a couple of years ago and all that has come as a result of competition, not failure.

Not really. Neo is a 65nm K8 part. It was probably cheap to develop compared to the Atom, but it will not be cheap to manufacture and that is Atom's real strong suite. AMD were seemingly on the right track with Core Fusion, but they allowed that project to slip way behind schedule -- probably due to the pressure of trying to actually get Phenom II out the door before i5 made it completely irrelevant. If they had come out with Core Fusion instead, they'd actually have a product that Intel could not compete directly against and it would be them commanding a price premium and not the other way around. Given that they now have a good channel with Dell and the like, Core Fusion would have made even more sense as it would likely be a more cost effective solution for markets currently served by motherboard IGP. Intel's own version of this has also slipped behind schedule, so the whole idea likely turned out more complicated than anticipated, but that is all the more reason why AMD needs to be better focused. They don't have the resources to work on a lot of things at once or the cash reserves to slog it out in low margin competition. They need to pick their battles and win clear victories, not come out with a long stream of also ran products. Again, it doesn't matter if they have the performance crown -- what they need are the more profitable offerings. That is where the funding for R&D, that leads to the performance win, is going to come from.

jessekopelman: I said "in their own way" not "just like Intel did it".

I don't care what AMD "should" do, AMD won't compete with Atom:
Now can we please stay on topic?

Its nice to see AMD step up from total failure to a somewhat more competitive product, however they are clearly far for offering a real challenge for Intel as they did back in the P4 days.

I always tend to buy the top CPU in its family positioned just before the price bump. A year and a half ago it was Q6600. Today it would be Q9650 or i7 920 quads or E8500 dual. Since AMD offers no competition to any of these CPUs in terms of price/performance there is still no reason to buy an AMD CPU IMHO.

The fact that AMD has a CPU that when compared to a middle of the pack Intel CPU is similarly priced and resembling performance in some apps (not including games, 3D rendering or audio, where Intel still has a clear lead) still isn't reason enough to go AMD.

Add to that the fact that Intel has made some huge investments in the USA (8 billion according to recent Anandtech article) and its move to 32nm will happen this year I am afraid AMD is very far from being in real competition in the next 2-3 years if they ever manage to get in line again.

Lucky for them they still have ATI...

double posted deleted

I have gone and bought the AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition, along with the Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P and some ram ( 2x CT25664BA1339 )....

okay, its not a huge upgrade from an E6750, but an i7 system would have cost over £200 more. The AM3 socket mobo should be good for a while, to me it seems the AMD upgrade path is so much more friendly than intel's, where you seemingly need to replace everything every time. The whole i7 being a different socket from i5, which is a different socket from s775.... im not sure i want to buy into that.

I don't understand this argument. i5 (socket 1156) is not an upgrade from i7 (socket 1366), they are two parallel sockets. Once you picked one the only reason to switch back and forth is if you are the kind of person who likes to upgrade MB every 6 months and always wants whatever is the newest thing. Socket 1156 is the replacement for socket 775. To complain about that would be like complaining about AMD replacing Socket 939 with AM2. Socket 775 lasted a really long time. Will Socket 1156? Right now nobody knows. Then again, there is no guaranty that AM3 will last beyond Phenom II.

Now, a valid argument would be to say you are buying Phenom II rather than C2Q because you need it right away (can't wait for i5 release) and want to have at least some chance of getting one CPU upgrade out of the MB. But even this argument is really only good if you like to upgrade every 2 years or less, because, again, there is no guaranty AM3 will be around longer than that. You can assume, but you know what they say about assuming things . . .

If you allredy had a socket 775 E6750 the logical upgrade would be to Q9550 or E8400 or E8500 (all faster than the equally priced AMD parts) and at the same time save on the MOBO swap.

i wanted the mobo swap. the 2 extra sata ports, the coxaxial digital out, the dual gigabit lan, the extra pci-e x16 slot..... all things im after. the cpu upgrade was less important, i dont actually need a better cpu than the e6750 right now.

so once i was changing the mobo, i had the choice to stick with s775 (it was £150 for the mobo i wanted which i would have a change again when i wanted nehalem), go for i7 (over £200 more), or am3 (x3 720 is great value, new am3 socket mobo means i should be able to upgrade a year or two down the line without problems, and the mobo is literally perfect for me).

oh, and im fairly sure the x3 720 can beat out the e8400/e8500, i guess on anything that can use the third core. Even when it cant, the X3 720 is clocked fairly high and can easily get up to 3.8ghz on air cooling, so should be competitive in any single threaded app.