AMD's Phenom Unveiled: A Somber Farewell to K8
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 19, 2007 1:25 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Intel Responds with...really?
Surely Intel wouldn't allow AMD to simply come within the range of being competitive this late in the year. I honestly expected Intel to combat today's launch with something, something serious, something sinister. And indeed it did.
But instead of sampling a Core 2 Quad Q9450, the upcoming Penryn replacement to the Q6600, and instead of even further dropping prices to completely ruin the Phenom launch party Intel responded in a way that actually doesn't make much sense: by sampling a $1000+ Extreme CPU, the Core 2 Extreme QX9770 (click here for our review).
The QX9770, 1600MHz FSB and 3.2GHz, just salting the wounds
Running at 3.2GHz with a 1600MHz FSB (up from 3.0GHz/1333MHz of its recently released predecessor, the QX9650), the QX9770 isn't schedule for release until next year and we do know that it'll carry a price tag of over $1000. The timing of Intel's launch is obviously to disrupt AMD's Phenom thunder, but the most important part of Intel sampling QX9770s has nothing to do with the chips themselves, but rather the act.
Almost as soon as we had Phenom samples, Intel made the decision to sample a CPU requiring a FSB that wasn't officially supported by any chipset at the time. No, 1600MHz FSB support won't come until next year with the X48 chipset, but it didn't matter to Intel; we were getting chips now.
Take a moment to understand the gravity of what I just said; Intel, the company that would hardly acknowledge overclocking, was now sampling a CPU that required overclocking to run at stock speeds. Even more telling is that Intel got the approval of upper management to sample these unreleased processors, requiring an unreleased chipset, in a matter of weeks. This is Intel we're talking about here, the larger of the two companies, the Titanic, performing maneuvers with the urgency of a speed boat.
It's scary enough for AMD that Intel has the faster processor, but these days Intel is also the more agile company.
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erikejw - Monday, November 19, 2007 - link
Good that you did not agree to this.
It is sad though that you agree to Intel tactis.
Reviewing a cpu that has no platform and will not be released for months.
Is that the worst paperlaunch ever and you happily benchmark it(QX 9770 or whatever it is).
Lets not go back to late 90s when Anandtech was a huge Intel fanboysite with payed
reviews by Intel with 90% of your ad revenues from them.
Now you are one of the best quality hardware review sites out there, lets not ruin it.
JumpingJack - Monday, November 19, 2007 - link
Wait... wait... the entire enthusiast community was beggin', pleading, for any early preview data on Barcelona and Phenom, it is not uncommon for companies in yesteryear to provide test sames weeks or even a month before launch to provide preview data. AMD gave us none of this, but power points, and promises that did not pan out.Now, Intel provided this CPU as a 'spoiler' for the phenom launch no doubt... but has AMD ever pulled the same shibang? Of course, every IDF there is something new announced to spoil the party.... what do you expect??
Come on... not only is intel providing more performance and more options, but they are doing it with ease... give them credit for that... if there is a travesty here it is that AMD cannot be competitive and the cost factor, if you want top notch performance, is going opposite of what we would want... you blame Intel? Blame AMD for a crappy showing.
Ohji - Monday, November 19, 2007 - link
I don't think Anand's preview of the QX9770 shows any favoritism for Intel at all. Yes, Intel is distributing a pre-release version of its chip, but this fact was clearly stated in the review. Allowing AT to benchmark the chip prior to release is similar to what they did prior to the C2D lauch and is therefore not a paper launch but simply a performance preview. Being a site for computer enthusiasts, AT would be crazy to refuse to evaluate this processor -- such a decision would only drive readers to other sites.I believe that an enthusiast site's primary duty is to remain objective when evaluating products, and in this case I feel Anand's preview of the QX9770 was quite objective, highlighting both the positives (performance) and negative (throttling at stock speeds, heat, power). Truth be told, in my many years of visiting this site, I have never felt that any review has ever been unfairly biased...
strikeback03 - Monday, November 19, 2007 - link
Well, they also went ahead and OCed the Phenom chips they had to simulate the 9900 and 9700, which are supposed to arrive in Q1 '08, i.e. roughly the same time frame as the QX9770 and X48 chipset. Furthermore the article for the most part seemed to emphasize the performance of the OCed chips and ignore the stock-clock parts, which will actually be available soon. So in a way you can say they did no more favors to Intel than AMD, in that this review here largely hangs on future processors as well.ViRGE - Monday, November 19, 2007 - link
Uhh, did you even read the article? AnandTech didn't review that processor, the fastest processor AT used was a Penryn clocked at 2.66ghz (the improvised Q9450).AssBall - Monday, November 19, 2007 - link
Oh, this must NOT be a 3.2 Intel ghz review then.....http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc...
ViRGE - Monday, November 19, 2007 - link
Good point, somehow I missed that on the front page. My bad.MrKaz - Monday, November 19, 2007 - link
Good point.Why preview something that will not be out soon?
I wonder if Intel also send Prescott’s for preview months earlier to everyone knowing that it would suck.
gochichi - Monday, November 19, 2007 - link
Have you ever played monopoly and had too good of luck for your own good at the beginning? Then your opponents start making ridiculous deals amongst each other to bring you down? I'll trade you Park Place and Board Walk in exchange for Water Works and $50. What should Nvidia do?AMD has really managed to slow progress down this year. We're still talking about beating an 8800GTX, and can't seem to find a better deal than a Q6600 for miles to come.
AMD's products aren't really terrible, but they just can't compete with the very best. I think we can talk about Intel/Nvidia b/c though they are different companies, they are run the same way... faster, leaner, more agile, more desirable.
It's interesting to look at the AMD roadmap, and see that they expect there to be an integrated GPU on the CPU by 2009. Is this why they merged? Do they really think Intel and Nvidia wouldn't cooperate if they had to on a competing product? When AMD was successful, NVIDIA was a big part of that success. Now NVIDIA has to buddy up with Intel and nobody could fault either Nvidia nor INtel for "monopolistic practices" for giving each other preferential treatment. Amd needs to choose it's opponent... is it Intel? Or is it Nvidia? Cause at this rate it's going to loose to both. They need to make sure to treat NVIDIA right when it comes to their CPU business. It has nothing to gain from buddying up with Intel... but maybe cooperating on a chipset with NVIDIA that allowed for SLI or crossfire at the same time would be good.
Anyhow, hopefully AMD can continue on until they come up with something good. CPU wise I think they're handily more screwed than graphics wise. Just to think, if Intel were under pressure it could sell a 3.0Ghz quad for $215.00 without breaking a sweat... it could do so within a month's notice. Intel is going to start releasing it's next generation because it absolutely has to in order to survive... they can't wait much longer ... and it's not about drowning AMD. It's about the fact that Intel has to compete with the Intel chips it sold last year and the year before that. Cause CPUs keep ticking for decades, and that's a huge part of the competition (paid for chips that are 80% as good as new ones, are going to beat pricey new chips, that's all there is to it).
Aenslead - Monday, November 19, 2007 - link
Well, we where all kind of waiting for something like this.Lets see if the comercial value of a new line of CPUs helps AMD at all.