Doomed . . .

The Phenoms debuted today are not competitive against C2Ds: clock-for-clock, overclock-for-overclock, watt-for-watt, not even bang-for-buck. Other than all that, they’re great!

After all, it will have a really good software overclocking utility (after they work the bugs out)!

Seriously, folks, no. What’s going to happen when cheapish Penryns show up? (BTW, Intel is adding more cheapish Penryn dual-cores to its lineup).

These particular chips are doomed, and anybody who buys them soon will be kicking themselves in a few months.

If you are the least bit concerned about getting some value for your buck, you’d have to be extra-crazy to buy these anytime soon. These initial prices are just meant to justify a promise made in the last conference call that AMD would sell these at a price higher than any X2. When AMD is actually ready to sell a serious number of these things come the new year, prices will plummet.

If you want to slide a Phenom into your current AM2 system, given this TLB bug, it would be very wise to wait until the B3 stepping chips come out, maybe March-April: no TLB bug, faster, cheaper.

But let’s face it, no matter what you wait for, you’re going to end up with second best. There’s no way 65nm Phenoms are going to beat whatever Intel will have for sale, first C2Ds, then Penryns.

Maybe the situation will get better when AMD 45nm chips come out, but really, after seeing the end results after all the promises, would you buy a used car from these people?

Ed


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