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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Chef Brian - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
The review was a little down on the P-M. The reviews I've seen show that a 2ghz dothan is about the equivalent of an athlon 3700+ -, so yes the price-performance isnt much better than an Athlon. I will seriously consider a Yonah when they're released...Pentium M's rule. Best CPU architecture ever!
Zebo - Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - link
Even at the so-called high price thier charging the forum is full of them.. at least 40. Same at xtreme. same at techreport. Guess how many Pentium dually I've seen at anandtech? Zero. I wonder why? Could it be the cheapest 4200 out performs the $1100 840EE?
WTF?
Furen - Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - link
I think they meant that no one would use the argument "AMD has the weaker dual core".Furen - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
#22 I dont think anyone said anything negative about the pentium M but since I'm just skimming through the post so I might have missed it.They are the best gaming cpus clock-for-clock, but perform slower at pretty much everything else. Also, a 2GHz dothan costs about the same as a 2.4Ghz San Diego, which it will, most certainly, not outperform at ANYTHING.
Yonah sounds great, though.
Chef Brian - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
Pentium M weak my ass...clock for clock it's the fastest gaming processor, period.KristopherKubicki - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
KeithDust2000: I agree with Furen. We don't know when the 3800+ will show up and what the actual price might be. If it shows up in the channel in September, the D820 might be $50 cheaper (as will 945P boards no doubt). It's not really worth speculating about until the chips hit the channel in my opinion.Kristopher
Furen - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
"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."He's comparing the currently available X2 chips to the currently available PDs ($515 for an X2 4200 and 90 bucks for an NForce4 mobo). The X2 3800 is not available right now and who knows what the price and availability will be at launch...
KeithDust2000 - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
@ Kristopher:P-D 820 + board= 241+130=371
A64 X2 3800+ = 345+90=435
I´d say that´s pretty close, and if you already have
S939... Anyway, you also get a much better product. That´s 2x3200+ instead of 2x2.8Ghz, und the additional power savings, the architectural benefits...
Your $605 number makes no sense, or what am I missing?
KeithDust2000 - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
@ Jarred Walton:From another thread, but what exactly makes you think that Conroe and Merom will hold the performance lead in their respective segments for "quite a while"?
@ Kristofer:
The Athlon 64 X2 3800+ @ $345 (street prices tend to be lower than list) may not be the cheapest chip on the block, but it should imho be the best
price/performance chip on the market.
With it, AMD has basically the Pentium D 830, 840
and EE covered (in terms of price) - and that despite Anand´s earlier
insistence that X2 would may not be available at all this year, or very late this year, at retail. It should also have the Pentium
D 820 covered for those that already own a S939 board. Not bad at all for the little manufacturer.
BTW, die size of the part amounts to 147mm^2, which is the same size as Newcastle. AMD should be able to make quite a few of those should the need arise.
KeithDust2000 - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
Hi!