AMD Adds FM1 CPUs Athlon II X4 638 and Athlon II X4 641

[acerace]

Go Mal.

 

[Cazalan]

It's a shame they didn't make a 32mn Athlon2/Phenom2 to begin with.

 

[JonnyDough]

[citation][nom]bustapr[/nom]Im not sure, but if the Llano CPU is stronger than a normal Athlon 2, it should be a great budget buy. Sad to see AMD killing off the phenom 2 line.the thing i really dont understand is, why would AMD make a faster CPU, but also include deactivated graphics, thats undoubtably taking up space. Why not include some L3 cache and make it a budget phenom 2 on FM1? I may be talking jibberish, but I really want AMD to be competitive performance-wise in this area, because the new pentiums are pretty good[/citation]

The reason they sell these chips without graphics is because the graphics section of the APU is broken. So they sell the chip as a CPU instead of an APU. Both Intel and AMD have done the same thing with multi-core CPUs now for years - i.e. In a four-core processor, when one core fails to work properly they simply disable it and sell it as a two (or three for AMD) core model.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]billybobser[/nom]Looks interesting, but the disparity between a quad AMD and a dual core Pentium means the Intel is the value leader in anything remotely consumerist.And if you're a professional, not a consumer, you'll need something pricier (maybe).Not to mention that FM1 without a graphics core is a particularly odd choice (although, the FM1 boards are very feature rich) given that you're limiting your options taking this route.My view, if one of these AMD quads could be clocked to compete with a bottom i3, it would be an interesting option.[/citation]

its a process shrink from the 45-32nm correct?
the athlon II at least in gaming was already comparable to phenom II, a die shrink would mean a bit more performance correct, or am i missing something.

[citation][nom]bustapr[/nom]Im not sure, but if the Llano CPU is stronger than a normal Athlon 2, it should be a great budget buy. Sad to see AMD killing off the phenom 2 line.the thing i really dont understand is, why would AMD make a faster CPU, but also include deactivated graphics, thats undoubtably taking up space. Why not include some L3 cache and make it a budget phenom 2 on FM1? I may be talking jibberish, but I really want AMD to be competitive performance-wise in this area, because the new pentiums are pretty good[/citation]

they lock sections of a chip for a reason, usually they are bad sections of the chip, yea you can unlock some and they are all good, but many cant be.

they are selling these locked because the graphics didn't preform right but the cpu was working.

[citation][nom]iam2thecrowe[/nom]Maybe they should make an "Athlon FX" for this socket with more/faster cache and more cores and drop their AM3 FX range. Its ok to admit you made a bad CPU with bulldozer AMD. The sooner you stop production of that horrible cpu, the better. Its just money down the drain.[/citation]

not really, look at how things are going in computers... consumer end is dragging their feet, but almost everything is going toward more cores = more performance. i mean the bulldozer had a 5 year dev time, amd obviously thought consumer end would be geared toward multi cpu now, seeing i don't believe a real single ore cpu has been around for what 6 years? but there are still single core applications.

amd was correct with the bulldozer, if consumer didnt drag so much, we would have seen it consistently between the i5 and i7 with some better than i7 and some worse than i5, not the majority of consumer applications dragging because they are single core.

because its their first generation thread solution, the single core was going to suffer regardless, we just never thought that it would be as bad as it was.

piledriver is most likely the response to that, increasing single core performance, even if it sits between phenom II and the i5 i think that would be just fine.

[citation][nom]malmental[/nom]that's where you are wrong, it doesn't.period.[/citation]

um... yes it does? do any games that are played on it fail to go passed 30fps at 1920x1200?
it may not be the best value, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have enough power.

 

[kinggraves]

[citation][nom]JonnyDough[/nom]The reason they sell these chips without graphics is because the graphics section of the APU is broken. So they sell the chip as a CPU instead of an APU. Both Intel and AMD have done the same thing with multi-core CPUs now for years - i.e. In a four-core processor, when one core fails to work properly they simply disable it and sell it as a two (or three for AMD) core model.[/citation]

And what you end up with is an Athlon II on a 32nm process.

I really wish these would get more coverage to discover whether they draw less power or have more OC room compared to their Athlon II equals. Releasing these now is kind of too little too late though.

I'm not sure what's with that 638 either. If it's a GPU disabled version of the current models, it would have to either be the dual core 2.7 Ghz at 65w, or a turbo core variant at 65w.

[citation][nom]billybobser[/nom]Looks interesting, but the disparity between a quad AMD and a dual core Pentium means the Intel is the value leader in anything remotely consumerist.And if you're a professional, not a consumer, you'll need something pricier (maybe).Not to mention that FM1 without a graphics core is a particularly odd choice (although, the FM1 boards are very feature rich) given that you're limiting your options taking this route.My view, if one of these AMD quads could be clocked to compete with a bottom i3, it would be an interesting option.[/citation]

Compared to an Intel in this price range like the g840, an Athlon II or one of these GPU disabled Llanos does much better at multithreaded applications, which many day to day applications are becoming.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/405?vs=105

An i3 brings hyperthreading into the picture which helps bring it's multithreading performance closer to the quad core Athlon IIs, but it's still fairly close in some tests and it does cost more.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/289?vs=105

 

[AMD X6850]

If AMD had chosen to shrink the Phenom II to 32nm instead of Bulldozer, I think people would have complained just as much because AMD "were sticking with an old uncompetitive architecture" instead of developing a new one.

 

[tomfreak]

When is the time they can push Desktop price below USD200? Gonna love here this especially for poor people/Children in the third world countries.

 

[caskachan]

fm1 prices are too high around here, i was gonna buy a fm1 X4 2.8 (180$) but i went for an am3 x4 960be($100) that unlocked and overlcoked to x6 3.6ghz stock,