Price Guides - July 2005: More 64-bit CPUs
by Derek Wilson & Manveer Wasson on July 23, 2005 10:03 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Sempron
Even though Socket 754 really only lasted about a year as a formidable AMD platform, its advantage as a competitive budget platform has just barely been tapped. Sempron 754 offers incredibly performance over the Socket 462 chips, but at a premium. The cost of Socket 754 motherboards aren't the inhibiting factors any longer; good nForce4 Socket 754 motherboards [RTPE: MS-7135-010] can be had for about $70 (compared to good nForce2 Socket 462 boards that run about $50). Coupled with a decent TurboCache or HyperMemory video card, you can build a pretty solid rig for under $400.
Sempron is also finally getting 64-bit support. Many of you may have seen our roadmap article earlier this week with specifics on DDR2 for future Semprons as well. A few Sempron 3300+ chips (specifically SDA3300AIO2BX) offer full 64-bit support; as well as the upcoming revision "E" Sempron 3400+ to launch on August 1st. However, if you're going to shell out the cash for a 2.0GHz or 2.2GHz Socket 754 processor, you really ought to be spending the few extra dollars on a Socket 939 Athlon 64 of the same speed grade; the additional L2 cache will go a long way in performance.
AMD's Turion launch received a lot of attention in January when AMD unveiled their plans to "recapture" the mobility market. Although Turion chips have been in laptops and notebooks for almost three months, channel variants of the chip are just starting to show up now. We have some interesting articles coming up detailing the differences between Turion and Athlon 64 Mobile; so stay tuned for those in the near future.
For those old fashioned folk, AMD still has some Athlon 64 Mobility chips floating around as well. The overlapping SKUs between Turion and A64-M are slightly confusing, so if you anticipate buying a mobility chip for overclocking, make sure you know exactly which processor you're getting before hand. Also keep in mind that AMD is not real good at keeping their motherboard providers up to date with mobility chip information; you may have a motherboard that doesn't necessarily have support for the Turion or Mobility chip in mind.
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KristopherKubicki - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
coomar: The motherboard costs are a little more negligable than I first originally thought. You can get a 945P board for about $130.http://labs.anandtech.com/search.php?q=945p&pr...
An nForce4 Ultra Socket 939 board runs about $90 (unless you love Biostar).
http://labs.anandtech.com/search.php?q=nforce4%20u...
So compare $605 for AMD versus $375 for Intel; it comes to about 1.6. I would still think the D820 has the advantage although I would be very interested in seeing the new AMD chip in a couple weeks. Let's just hope they ship near launch time so that we won't be waiting as pricing on the D820/D840 and X2 chips plummets.
Kristopher
coomar - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
the difference between the x2 coming in august and the lowest pentium-D is 345/240 or 1.4, factor in that the pentium needs a more expensive motherboard than the x2 and that drops down to 15-30% more, which is reasonablewe can ignore ram prices, ddr and ddr2 are pretty much equal
boban10 - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
The problem with Pentium D is power consuption. And nobody mentioned how much you need to pay more energy bill with those cpus....PrinceGaz - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
I'm getting nothing at all showing up in the lists of prices, except for maybe one or two parts every page or two. For instance on the AMD Desktop page, all I see isAMD Athlon 64 (754) 3400+ 512KB Newcastle CDW 319.76 9.99 329.75 +158.03 Check Prices
there are no S939 parts in the upper table, and thats all that it finds for S754.
KristopherKubicki - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
sprockkets: I don't know if you've used an Intel CPU lately... they basically mount the thing on the motherboard with plastic anchors. Then again, they've done that since the original Pentium if you really think about it!Kristopher
KristopherKubicki - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
JGunther: AMD's fab 30 is hardly a high production fab (it's barely more than a foundry) and yes, the entire facility isn't even dedicated to X2/Opteron A6 production. Meanwhile all of Intel's fabs are doing dual core production...Let's be honest, Intel doesn't have a chance on the technology front here. No doubt about it, AMD has Intel licked as far as tech goes. Unfortunately, they can't seem to make it on the cheap like they did the Barton series.
Throw me a sub $300 A64 dual core chip (even a Sempron) and I am sure it will do circles around the D820. Unfortunately, AMD isn't even close to something like that right now. Maybe 01'06.
Kristopher
JarredWalton - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
5 - the point is that there's a reason Pentium D can cost quite a lot less than the X2. You can love AMD all you want, but the simple fact of life is that Intel is way ahead in production capabilities, and that leads to the higher prices. Even the upcoming X2 won't change that too much. It will still cost over 50% more than the 820 I think, and is it 50% faster?I want to try to get some OC tests done with some of these chips, particularly the Turion/Mobile Athlon parts. We'll see....
ElJefe - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
OH, I have to add to the Ext. Edition post:a 3700 754 socket outperforms that in gaming.
lol. check it out.... across the board.... lol. wtf intel?
i know the EE of course does video really well, but er, yeah. what a minute % of computing time is devoted to video compression..... and that cant wait another minute....
ElJefe - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
Ya know, I can't understand the high level dual core intels, the low end, they sound neat for certain uses and business things def. so.However, I would rather eat glass in truth than buy any intel besides a Dothan 2.1ghz, which is more money than it should be.
amd just has a retarded freakin way to explain their cores and chips.
I dont personally think that the Toledo 4400 is going to drop anytime until january by any noticable degree. They have the market cornered on the best dual cores, and well, for 600 dollars I can get myself a sick proc and also feel dumb that I spent that much.
i wonder if M2 is going to be anything. it must have something up it's sleeve. as it stands now it doesnt offer a blessed thing.
sprockkets - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
The intel dual core processor is nice, well, doesn't that thing run very hot?Well anyway, can you elaborate as to what you mean by Intel being a "plastic monstrosity"?
What is cool is that the new boxed amd processors come in a green tray that feels like styrofoam but says it's really made out of paper.