What has become of AMD (and this section)

[technician]

Anyone using virtualization in an enterprise situation is thinking the more cores the merrier. I'm running dual Xeon 5410's (quads) in an ESXi server and I can keep everything pretty darn busy running servers.

 

[Oroka Sempai]

What do you mean, move on from the BE line back to the expensive FX line? If so, I don't agree. What more to cater to the enthusiast than "cheap" unlocked multipliers in a Deneb platform? Especially if Deneb is clockable and can be pushed into competing with Nehalem on the cheap. Big win for AMD.

No, I ment the BEs. The FX series was always expensive, but they were always a high end premium chip. AMD didnt have anything worth putting in their premium line, so the FX series disappeared for a year and a bit.

If it wasn't for the BEs, enthusiasts wouldn't have had anything worth talking about from AMD.

Now the FX series is coming back, I suspect AMD has something worth charging a premium for.

 

[Kivin]

Back when I started ocing 5 years ago, the situation was somewhat similar to this, but not quite this bad. Intel had a definite lead over AMD with the HT-enabled Northwoods which oc'ed insanely on very stable and smooth platforms.

A high end AMD rig could be had, but with both clocked to the max, the P4's would win by a little bit. Nonetheless, the majority of most enthusiast sites like this used AMD systems.

Why was that? Well...I bought my AthlonXP 1700+ for $59.99 in 2003. It made it from 1.47GHz stock to 2.5GHz on watercooling. The cheapest Intel alternative was a 2.4C, for about $170. The Intel boards were also about $100 pricier. So I'd save about $200 but lose a little bit of performance.

Huge savings, slight performance hit. The bang for buck choice was obvious.

Now, we have AMD's absolute fastest products getting completely crushed by Intel's slowest. And yet, for some reason, they are still pricey as hell.

Even a Phenom 9550 will run you ~$160. Who in their right mind would buy that when you can easily pick up a Q6600 for about 10 bucks more which will completely walk all over it, both in clock for clock performance and raw clocks??

Offer me a Phenom for the $59.99 I spent on my AXP and you got me sold. I'm sure many others would quickly jump to AMD if they had their products priced as agressively as they used to be in the past. The cheap pricing is truly what made them popular, probably more so than their past performance crowns.

True story. I've been a faithful AMD customer for ages now, and I never bought my old Durons and AXPs because they were really outstanding chips, but because they were cheap as dung and overclocked balls to the wall

 

[Caviman2201]

True story. I've been a faithful AMD customer for ages now, and I never bought my old Durons and AXPs because they were really outstanding chips, but because they were cheap as dung and overclocked balls to the wall

Which is really a lot like things are now...

We know AMD can't compete on a clock-for-clock basis with Intel right now, but if I can buy a $60 2.6GHz dual-core Brisbane, OC it easily to 3.1-3.2GHz and compete with a $150 2.6GHz Core 2, I'm a happy camper. Maybe the only reason I'm not one of these people lamenting the "good ol' days" when AMD FX processors were obliterating Intel is because I've never been one to drop several hundred on a processor. Sure, I miss having bragging rights against my Intel-loving friends, but for my needs, a $60 3.1GHz X2 that will hang with or beat a $120-$130 Core 2 is good times in my book. The only thing I worry about is AMD's financial situation, because I have a hard time believing they're making any money at all on a $60 processor...

Nobody can argue though that an average 20% overclock on a $60 processor isn't good stuff...

 

[don'tknow]

My long time with AMD is about to end very soon. Only the first PC I've ever had was a Cyrix 133, all the rest were using AMD cpu's because of the price/performance/overclockability ratio.

Now I ordered an e8400 because that is the current best price/performance/OC'ing chip and has a nice combo deal (+ P5Q Pro board). Tried to look at the AMD offerings but there just wasn't anything very worth it... some of the BE's were ok, but still... OC of ~3.2 - 3.4 max won't be a huge upgrade over my current Opteron @ 2.8. Never was a 'fanboy' of any brand; so I go for the cheapest and best performance O/C.

 

[Particle]

It's a hard sale to convince yourself that an Intel dual core even OC'd to 4GHz is going to outperform an AMD quad at around 3GHz in anything important enough to be multithreaded. The 9950BE and the E8400 are in the same price bracket.

 

[QuietIce]

Dual cores are on their way out ...

 

[muddocktor]

It's a hard sale to convince yourself that an Intel dual core even OC'd to 4GHz is going to outperform an AMD quad at around 3GHz in anything important enough to be multithreaded. The 9950BE and the E8400 are in the same price bracket.

But unfortunately it is in the same general price range as the Q6600 though, which is a quad core that will overclock as good or better than Phenom. But I do say that with present pricing, Phenom is a much better match for the Q6600 than it used to be; fully competitive in price/performance. And IMO, that is the price it should be marketed at.

 

[Caviman2201]

I think the current 9850/9950 pricing is right where it needs to be. While we build-your-own/overclocking enthusiasts are a significant market, AMD surely still makes more money with PC manufacturers (who care nothing of overclocking), and with more and more doing quad-core, its nice that AMD finally has a quad that can compete in out-of-the-box performance AND price. Hopefully the PC manufacturers that Intel hasn't corrupted and beaten in dingy basement rooms with a single swinging overhead light will see that and buy AMD...

HP and Gateway to mind as major AMD buyers...

 

[funnyperson1]

Which is really a lot like things are now...

We know AMD can't compete on a clock-for-clock basis with Intel right now, but if I can buy a $60 2.6GHz dual-core Brisbane, OC it easily to 3.1-3.2GHz and compete with a $150 2.6GHz Core 2, I'm a happy camper. Maybe the only reason I'm not one of these people lamenting the "good ol' days" when AMD FX processors were obliterating Intel is because I've never been one to drop several hundred on a processor. Sure, I miss having bragging rights against my Intel-loving friends, but for my needs, a $60 3.1GHz X2 that will hang with or beat a $120-$130 Core 2 is good times in my book. The only thing I worry about is AMD's financial situation, because I have a hard time believing they're making any money at all on a $60 processor...

Nobody can argue though that an average 20% overclock on a $60 processor isn't good stuff...

This is how I feel as well. The main difference is that a $50 1700+ back in the day would get performance better than the fastest stock Northwoods and AXPs. Nowadays AMD is so far behind that even the best clocking X2s will get rocked by an E8600. Also the $50 X2 won't outperform AMD or Intel quads in heavily multithreaded apps.

That said its plenty of performance for me, all current games run beautifully on my X2 with a Radeon 4850.

From time to time I do video encoding or FPGA synthesis but not often enough to justify an expensive CPU/mobo upgrade.

It's a hard sale to convince yourself that an Intel dual core even OC'd to 4GHz is going to outperform an AMD quad at around 3GHz in anything important enough to be multithreaded. The 9950BE and the E8400 are in the same price bracket.

Yet the killer app for most people on these forums continues to be gaming. This is a task that is multithreaded, but not multithreaded enough to see a tangible benefit from quad cores.

Look at these scalability benchmarks:
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=775&p=3
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=775&p=5

In Company of Heroes the 2.33Ghz E6550 is faster than the 3Ghz Phenom. In Crysis Quads fair a lot better, but the 3.0Ghz Phenom is still behind the 3.6Ghz Penryn at 1440x900, and the 3.3Ghz at 1680x1050.

 

[don'tknow]

It's a hard sale to convince yourself that an Intel dual core even OC'd to 4GHz is going to outperform an AMD quad at around 3GHz in anything important enough to be multithreaded. The 9950BE and the E8400 are in the same price bracket.

Yes, I've read the "dual vs quad" arguement to death. It comes down to personal usage, and I don't use anything where quads would perform better except sometimes an A/V encode which I leave the PC on to do overnight while I sleep. My main concern is gaming performance. I still have the option to upgrade to a quad later on, but for me that would only really be when games begin to absolutely require a quad core or above to be playable. Possibly around 2011 or a little later, I don't know.

 

[Particle]

If gaming is your only high-performance area, then by all means go for a higher clocked dual. I sometimes forget that the things I do aren't normal. Gaming for me is kind of an important secondary more than a primary activity.

 

[DrSlinky]

I'm not sure who said it and I'm paraphrasing it but "Humans are curious creatures and be nature insane. Lock us all in a room together and within hours we're dividing into groups, creating Gods and plotting on how to kill one another"

I believe this quote comes from an episode of House, M.D.

 

[InfernalVortex]

I know AMD hasn't had the performance crown wrapped up in years, but a little bit of brand loyalty and nostalgia from my old Athlon 1 GHz (Socket A) system had me wanting to go AMD this time around. That old system served me very well aside from that god-forsaken VIA chipset. Ugh....

Now that AMD is making chipsets and there's a clear upgrade path to Phenom, I'm really happy with my setup. It's a 790gx system with a x2 5400 BE. It's priming at 3240 MHz right now, will try to bump it up to 3260 soon and see what happens. I know it wont do 3300 at 1.4v, but hell, it's fun trying.

But at the end of the day, I have a $200 mobo proc combo that can be easily upgraded in teh future with a 45nm Phenom. No, the Phenom wont take the performance crown from Intel, but Im the kind of guy who has never paid more than $75 for a processor. I paid about that much for my Duron 750, and I paid that much for my 1 GHz Thunderbird. I'll pay that much for a 45nm Phenom when they come down that far. For the apps I use, a quad core isnt that important, so a dual is fine. I just want to game.

Intel would do that faster, but the chips you guys are talking about like the E8400 are almost $200. It's just not worth it to me to bother with that. I'll take second rate performance at the x2 pricepoints. Phenoms aren't really worth the price right now, though. But I've got a clear upgrade path, and not much money. I'm exactly the target market AMD is looknig at.

But if you need bleeding edge performance and you can afford it, then clearly there is absolutely no reason to bother with AMD. But if you're on a budget, an x2 for less than $100 plus $100 for a good board (this is by far more stable than my KT133A ever was) makes me feel pretty damn good about it. Also, let's face it, for gaming, a graphics card is going to make a bigger difference than the processor. So I'll take the performance hit if I can keep my money and have an upgrade path. I put that money I saved towards a graphics card, and I've got myself a half-decent platform for less than $350.

 

[BaRReLL]

All my rigs was AMD, building it was always fun, and I must admit, I am way too much dissapointed with the AMD situation right now.
I can understand, it is little bit hardcore to maintain company which is manufacturing GPUs and CPUs at the same time.
One thing is - AMD is selling really cheap CPU with nice raw performance ( not counting OC ability ) my Phenom 9950 cost is roughly 200$, but other thing is the competition. There is no such a thing these days.
It seems AMD/ATi is focusing on the Radeon series now.

 

[AlabamaCajun]

I just confirmed my reason for staying with AMD.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39455/128/

"Me not likes dudes in my box diddling with my bytes". I shut off these remote options in the OS, I see hardware being a different issue altogether not controllable.

 

[>HyperlogiK<]

I just confirmed my reason for staying with AMD.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39455/128/

"Me not likes dudes in my box diddling with my bytes". I shut off these remote options in the OS, I see hardware being a different issue altogether not controllable.

Green is doing it too, it's just called something else:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/AMD-039-s-Reply-to-Intel-vPro-50320.shtml

People made similar comments when Intel announced trusted computing i.e. AMD would protect their rights, this was nonsense. If companies want to spy on ther workers, both firms will help them, AMD are just behind what Intel is doing.

 

[Kuroimaho]

Nice catch, I hate any kind of snooping, keeping data what we search which sites we visit (google analytics anyone) this could take it to the another level.

I hope they will look into this more, but wouldn't loose sleep over it yet but it could definitely get there when government zombie networks are made if not caught soon enough.

BTW good to see you are still around.

 

[AlabamaCajun]

The difference with SIMFIRE, as opposed to Intel's vPro initiative is that it isn't proprietary to AMD hardware, it's royalty-free and, first and foremost, it's open-source. The purpose of DASH is to replace the Alert Standard Format (ASF), which has been around for four years.

I think that line says it may be kept honest by the O/S folks since it is all out in the open. Intel is a US/Israeli operation with closed doored policies. AMD is a US/German operation and they have better

K' I've been in and out but mostly I've been supporting the front lines of fixing the USA.
I still have the 4Socket Opti system ready to go when I get to working on it again other than that it's a wait until I can replace my Phen with one of the Deni's.

 

[>HyperlogiK<]

OK, I hadn't realised. I do have some respect for AMD with their opening up of hypertransport and other techs.