AMD Launches Tri-core Assault At Intel Dual-core CPUs

[zenmaster]

Some good news for AMD.
It's nice to see they are getting the B3 Steppings out.
It's nice to see a small speed bump by AMD.
The Tri-Cores should find a niche.

The author seemed slightly over-enthusiastic but not terribly so until I got to the bottom of the article. Somehow he thinks that AMD should have tried the $500-$600 price for their grand CPU.

Is this guy Mad?
It runs at the same speed as the Q9300 which lists for $266.
The Q6600 is dropping to a tray price of $224 soon.
$500 For a Phenom that at Stock can't beat either of thse?
For a Phenom that can't beat them in an OC race?

AMD took the wise approach and priced their Quads below those of Intel's which they can't beat in hopes of catching value shoppers. Hopefully the writer can collect and present data well, since I can draw my own conclusions because I certainly will have grave concerns if I had to rely upon his analysis.

I think another Idea may have been to just charge $1Billion per top CPU.
That way they only need to sell a couple dozen and they will be in the black.


"Our initial thought was, well, perhaps these processors are fast enough and convincing enough to push AMD back into the $250 segment that has been dominated by Intel for so long? Perhaps there is even a chance to touch the $500-$600 range, which is currently occupied by only one processor - the Core 2 Quad Q6700?"

 

[mi1ez]

I was a bit lost when I reached the pricing bit too, but good on AMD!

I can actually see this being the beginning of a change in fortune.

 

[Hellboy]

Some good news for AMD.
It's nice to see they are getting the B3 Steppings out.
It's nice to see a small speed bump by AMD.
The Tri-Cores should find a niche.

The author seemed slightly over-enthusiastic but not terribly so until I got to the bottom of the article. Somehow he thinks that AMD should have tried the $500-$600 price for their grand CPU.

Is this guy Mad?
It runs at the same speed as the Q9300 which lists for $266.
The Q6600 is dropping to a tray price of $224 soon.
$500 For a Phenom that at Stock can't beat either of thse?
For a Phenom that can't beat them in an OC race?

AMD took the wise approach and priced their Quads below those of Intel's which they can't beat in hopes of catching value shoppers. Hopefully the writer can collect and present data well, since I can draw my own conclusions because I certainly will have grave concerns if I had to rely upon his analysis.

I think another Idea may have been to just charge $1Billion per top CPU.
That way they only need to sell a couple dozen and they will be in the black.


"Our initial thought was, well, perhaps these processors are fast enough and convincing enough to push AMD back into the $250 segment that has been dominated by Intel for so long? Perhaps there is even a chance to touch the $500-$600 range, which is currently occupied by only one processor - the Core 2 Quad Q6700?"

So the cant beat Core 2 Duo hands down so they try a tri core to beat it..

Stinks of ATI bringing out a 3870 x2 video card to beat a card that was released 16 months ago ( 8800 GTX )..

Its pathetic, maybe if AMD released a comparable dual core they would be up in my estimation but this to me just smells of desparate times before amd remove them selves from the crap

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Everyones always saying, "get a quad, future proof yourself" Despite the facts that multi-threading is in its infancy, and hasnt shown much growth. The reason Im saying this is, I know alot of people are Intel fanboys, disgusted with AMD non fanboys, and finally AMD fanboys that are just worn out waiting for hope. These processors and the quads offer something grand. Competition! I believe if were going to see multi-threading anytime soon on most apps, then we have to have AMD with their quads, and even these tricores. I want to see benches, a wide range, Intels C2D vs these tri cores. Ill bet they compete quite well against them, beating them even oceed in some apps. And the average Joe will see that more cores are better, forcing the multi-threading were all looking towards

 

[LukeBird]

Sounds like fantastic news for AMD! I bet they'll clean up with OEMs and tri-cores!

 

[LukeBird]

So the cant beat Core 2 Duo hands down so they try a tri core to beat it..

Stinks of ATI bringing out a 3870 x2 video card to beat a card that was released 16 months ago ( 8800 GTX )..

Its pathetic, maybe if AMD released a comparable dual core they would be up in my estimation but this to me just smells of desparate times before amd remove them selves from the crap

I'm sorry, couldn't disagree with you more!
Your comment on the 3870X2 is frankly idiotic in my mind (no offence chap, just your comment ), would you have preferred it if ATi had released the 3870X2 18months after the 8800GTX instead?
But as my above comment says, this is going to fly off teh shelves with OEMs I reckon, as consumers love cores nowadays. Doesn't matter if its worse than a P3 1GHz, it has 3-cores so it must be better! :lol: Remember the P4 2.8's being better than Athlon's because the numbers were bigger?

 

[jimmysmitty]

I have seen a few benchies with the tri core vs C2D and only in heavy multithreaded apps does it get competative. Even in some multithreaded benchies the C2D was keeping up.

I just think it will be interesting as the higher yeild AMD gets on their quad cores, the lower amount of tris possible so we may just see this as a small phase to help get AMD a bit of money.

But if AMD continues to consitently put out tris(meaning their yeilds just suck that bad) it may forc Intel to go quad core and up only thus causing the quad core market prices to drop quite a bit and become the norm CPU.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Exactly. Competition. Force Intels hand. Make an impact. At the same time, bringing acceptance quicker of quad core and higher, and dragging multithread to a higher pace

 

[Grimmy]

Couldn't they just make a 3 1/2 core?

 

[jimmysmitty]

Couldn't they just make a 3 1/2 core?

No. They keep the extra 1/2 cores as a build up and add them together to make the dual cores.....

 

[zenmaster]

I have seen a few benchies with the tri core vs C2D and only in heavy multithreaded apps does it get competative. Even in some multithreaded benchies the C2D was keeping up.

I just think it will be interesting as the higher yeild AMD gets on their quad cores, the lower amount of tris possible so we may just see this as a small phase to help get AMD a bit of money.

But if AMD continues to consitently put out tris(meaning their yeilds just suck that bad) it may forc Intel to go quad core and up only thus causing the quad core market prices to drop quite a bit and become the norm CPU.

All true, but it's all about margins.
If they can sell instead of toss a Quad-Core they have made some money.

Also, while it can't beat a Core2Duo, you don't have to be better.
You just need to sell.

If you are looking at a Dual-Core vs Tri-Core and did not know much about computers and a sales guy at BestBuy was trying to sell you a PC, you may go for the Tri.

This is an improvement for AMD.
It will help AMD Loyalists stay loyal a little longer.
It's unlikely to win many converts among enthusiasts.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Anands "AMD's plan is quite ingenious, keep the TLB bug CPUs out of the hands of the enthusiasts who will complain and use them to keep OEMs happy as well as use them for the first triple-core CPU" I think itll work

 

[chaosgs]

Wolfgang Gruener Is an AMD fanboy, Not that i care or am complaining. Thats my response to this. He always cuts Intel short and makes AMD look better, you can see it how he writes his articles.

"The author seemed slightly over-enthusiastic but not terribly so until I got to the bottom of the article. Somehow he thinks that AMD should have tried the $500-$600 price for their grand CPU. "

 

[chaosgs]

Oh and im not using this article as evidence he is a fanboy for those of you going to attack me for calling him a fanboy, if you want evidence look up his CPU articles.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

That doesnt change this strategy any. 3 is better than 2. He maybe hyping it, but it does make sense for the most part.

 

[zenmaster]

We all need to keep in perspective what AMD has just done.

#1) They released a new STEPPING. Not a new CPU. It fixed some problems. Allowed for a small speed bump. This is good, but will not revolutionize the world.

#2) They took come CPUs they would otherwise need to discard and repackaged them to be decent CPUs in the right market.

From an Company standpoint, this is good for AMD.
AMD did not expect this step to turn the x86 CPU market on it's head.

It should do what AMD had hoped. (Which is not the $500-$600 Marget Segment.)

 

[jimmysmitty]

That doesnt change this strategy any. 3 is better than 2. He maybe hyping it, but it does make sense for the most part.

It does make sense but you have to remember. CPUs are like car engines. They are only better with more if it is built and desgined good. So even with a 3rd core it wont automatically mean its better than a dual core.

Kinda like how a V8 Vette can easily take a V10 Viper. 2 more cylinders mean nothing since the engine just isnt built to par.

All it would take is a little advertising from Intel showing a real time benchmark of the tri core vs the C2D and people would think the C2D is better. Of course I have yet to ever see an Intel advertising vs the competition.

 

[chaosgs]

Ive never seen an AMD advertisement in my life, and Intel's advertisements suck, people who know very little about computers dont even know what they are advertising (they dont even know its computer related).

 

[chaosgs]

Speaking of which when they were advertising P4's (before i learned about computers) i kept asking people what a p4 was, no one ever knew so i didnt find out till June 2006. (when i learned alot about computers)

 

[jimmysmitty]

Speaking of which when they were advertising P4's (before i learned about computers) i kept asking people what a p4 was, no one ever knew so i didnt find out till June 2006.

Dud I knew what a P4 was. They had the Blue Man Group advertising for PIII and continued for P4. It was easy to recognize Intel since my first 2 PC's had Intel in them and I loved PC's since I was 9.

But most people know who Intel is, not AMD. And the BMG commercials ruled.

 

[chaosgs]

You might have known but i didnt, i seen the commercials but asked myself what is a P4 whats it look like and what does it do.

 

[chaosgs]

Oh and i was like 13 years old at the time. Than again my parents didnt know what it was.

 

[chunkymonster]

We all need to keep in perspective what AMD has just done.

#1) They released a new STEPPING. Not a new CPU. It fixed some problems. Allowed for a small speed bump. This is good, but will not revolutionize the world.

#2) They took come CPUs they would otherwise need to discard and repackaged them to be decent CPUs in the right market.

From an Company standpoint, this is good for AMD.
AMD did not expect this step to turn the x86 CPU market on it's head.

It should do what AMD had hoped. (Which is not the $500-$600 Marget Segment.)

I'm glad you pointed this out. Sometimes you have to state (what shoud be) the obvious to keep the discussion in the proper context. It also sounds like AMD is expecting the increased clock speeds and performance gains to come from the 45nm Phenoms due out the end of this year.

Releasing the tri-core phenoms at that price point and pushing them out to the OEMs is a smart move. I can already hear the conversations...
Joe Average: Yeah but this computer has 3 cores instead of two.
BestBuy Flunky: But the Intel processor is faster.
Joe Average: But that one costs $100 more than the computer with 3 cores.
BesBuy Flunky: But you'll get better performance in most applications from the Intel processors.
Joe Average: Yeah but it has 3 cores and is $$100 cheaper!

Heck, Intel may even be a victim of their own marketing in this situation, if "Dual Core, Do More" sounds familiar then three cores must be better than two! This is not a knock against AMD or Intel, both companies push the idea that more cores are better.

 

[chunkymonster]

It does make sense but you have to remember. CPUs are like car engines. They are only better with more if it is built and desgined good. So even with a 3rd core it wont automatically mean its better than a dual core.

Kinda like how a V8 Vette can easily take a V10 Viper. 2 more cylinders mean nothing since the engine just isnt built to par.

All it would take is a little advertising from Intel showing a real time benchmark of the tri core vs the C2D and people would think the C2D is better. Of course I have yet to ever see an Intel advertising vs the competition.

What are you talking about, more is not better?!?!?!

Advertise benchmarks?! You're crazy!

 

[mi1ez]

Ive never seen an AMD advertisement in my life, and Intel's advertisements suck, people who know very little about computers dont even know what they are advertising (they dont even know its computer related).

Intel ad circa 1994
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwiFW5WVHAU

AN AMD ADVERT!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCzFUmO5vLI