AMD to Launch Trinity APUs on October 2

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"APUs is geraing up for launch" sp. plz.

AMD needs to get their clock cycle efficiencies up. If not for the ati acquisition, they'd be a dead duck right now. With competition coming from all sides, intel, nvidia, qualcomm, TI. AMD will need superior efficiency, not just a push to adopt more instruction sets.
We accept that AMD is doing better in graphics than intel, but until they prove they can match intel's processes per cycle people will likely get intels still. Then just wait for intel to improve their graphics division.
I really had hoped bulldozer/piledriver would be smoking out the gates.. instead the gates opened.. the horse limped out and barely galloped. STOP releasing products that aren't ready and be realistic about dates instead of pushing it back constantly.
AMD could make workstation class equipment more affordable and score huge with me.. Or try to get into my cell phone and fight for pennies. Your choice!
Click to expand...

Performance per Hz is important, but if AMD could hit three times higher frequencies with half the performance per Hz of Intel and less than 50% higher power consumption, then it'd still be a win for AMD despite having lower performance per Hz. I don't think that it matters if AMD uses high performance per Hz or high frequencies to compete with Intel so long as it works. Right now, it didn't workout too well in some ways and AMD really failed to configure their CPUs optimally with how they had designed them, but at least so far for Trinity, it has worked fairly well on the CPU side of things.
 
[citation][nom]chomlee[/nom]While I would like to agree with you, the previous apus (A4,A6,A8) blew away the competing low cost solutions in terms of gaming graphics but that didn't seem to help them. It seems that the main problem was that the processing power couln't compete with the core i3, i5, and i7.I think AMDs other problem is that they totally missed the boat on mobile cpu/gpu platform. There fore when any news comes out about desktop and laptop projections declining, it becomes a direct effect on them.[/citation]

Maybe in the desktop arena, but take a look at the laptop market. AMD clawed quite a lot of market away from Intel. The lower cost Lllano chips really excelled in the budget laptop arena.
 
[citation][nom]luciferano[/nom]Performance per Hz is important, but if AMD could hit three times higher frequencies with half the performance per Hz of Intel and less than 50% higher power consumption, then it'd still be a win for AMD despite having lower performance per Hz. I don't think that it matters if AMD uses high performance per Hz or high frequencies to compete with Intel so long as it works. Right now, it didn't workout too well in some ways and AMD really failed to configure their CPUs optimally with how they had designed them, but at least so far for Trinity, it has worked fairly well on the CPU side of things.[/citation]

Right now AMD has less performane per cycle and uses more juice to get there...
IF IF IF IF IF doesn't matter. AMD needs to perform better soon or it will continue to lose marketshare.
 
I'm excited about the Trinity APUs. My father hasn't been able to replace his aging 6 year old system due to financial constraints (I'm getting more and more frequent support calls from him...). A Trinity build would allow me to build a cheap, but relatively powerful system. I can't wait.
 
It is nice to see that AMD is finally moving forward with their Trinity cpu's.

But seriously Piledriver is what we have been oh so patiently waiting for!!!!

Come on AMD get it together !!!!

jer :)
 
[citation][nom]geraldfryjr[/nom]It is nice to see that AMD is finally moving forward with their Trinity cpu's.But seriously AM3+ Piledriver is what we have been oh so patiently waiting for!!!!Come on AMD get it together !!!!jer[/citation]
 
[citation][nom]pacioli[/nom]Right now AMD has less performane per cycle and uses more juice to get there...IF IF IF IF IF doesn't matter. AMD needs to perform better soon or it will continue to lose marketshare.[/citation]

I said that AMD doesn't need higher performance per Hz than Intel to beat Intel, not that AMD doesn't need to improve. Also, per core, AMD can actually hit higher frequencies per watt than Intel on the same process node, especially with Piledriver. Take even an FX-81xx CPU and disable the second core of each module for a fair comparison. Compare to any Sandy Bridge i5. The FX would have higher frequencies while consuming less power, although it would still lose a little in performance.
 
Wattage used is very important. So is requirements in terms of associated hardware.

If, hypothetically, AMD came out with a processor that was twice as good as its FX-8150 and that just blew away anything that Intel offered even on lightly threaded benchmarks EXCEPT it used 1000w to do that, the processor would straight up fail in the marketplace.

Performance per watt is an important measure and AMD is failing massively at it. When you don't have performance per watt, you have to spend a lot more money on a PSU to try to counter the effect and you have to spend a whole lot more on power bills in general. That just kills the value proposition over the long term.

Even if that 1000w AMD ultra processor was priced at like $50, the net effect on the power bill would destroy its whole value proposition without even considering that you have to pay $150 for a PSU just to run the thing.

Sure, AMD may be doing OK wattage wise with its teensy tiny dual core llanos, but that isn't going to sustain the company when every performance oriented processor gives poor performance/watt.

AMD needs all of its processors to deliver results, not the cheapest 5%. The cheapest 5% are usually making barely any profits at all or often sold at a loss just to try to hurt competitors. These don't usually keep the lights on for any kind of company.

The results of the most expensive 5% are 2x the wattage for less than 1x the performance and that just doesn't cut it.

Supall - You probably don't need Trinity to replace the 6 year old system. Your father could probably get by just fine with an A8-3870k that is already out.

Also, it really hurts the APU value proposition when you have to buy much faster RAM in order to use its capabilities. You CAN use an A8-3870k's built in graphics with 1333 RAM (and many OEM PCs ship like that), however, if you look at the benchmarks the graphics performance suffers horribly compared to what the chip is capable of.

To unlock that performance requires getting 1866, 2000, 2133, etc RAM. That is more expensive than 1333 RAM although the gap is narrowing over time. That has to be factored into the total system cost and makes the deal even worse for someone considering between APU vs Processor + video card.

When you factor in the higher performance RAM you need into the total solution cost, its usually the processor + video card setups that come out ahead, as if they aren't already ahead in every other area to begin with.

The tiny niches where AMD is the right choice are few and far between, that is why Intel sells 5 processors for every 1 AMD sells.
 
[citation][nom]Raiddinn[/nom]Wattage used is very important. So is requirements in terms of associated hardware.If, hypothetically, AMD came out with a processor that was twice as good as its FX-8150 and that just blew away anything that Intel offered even on lightly threaded benchmarks EXCEPT it used 1000w to do that, the processor would straight up fail in the marketplace.Performance per watt is an important measure and AMD is failing massively at it. When you don't have performance per watt, you have to spend a lot more money on a PSU to try to counter the effect and you have to spend a whole lot more on power bills in general. That just kills the value proposition over the long term.Even if that 1000w AMD ultra processor was priced at like $50, the net effect on the power bill would destroy its whole value proposition without even considering that you have to pay $150 for a PSU just to run the thing.Sure, AMD may be doing OK wattage wise with its teensy tiny dual core llanos, but that isn't going to sustain the company when every performance oriented processor gives poor performance/watt.AMD needs all of its processors to deliver results, not the cheapest 5%. The cheapest 5% are usually making barely any profits at all or often sold at a loss just to try to hurt competitors. These don't usually keep the lights on for any kind of company.The results of the most expensive 5% are 2x the wattage for less than 1x the performance and that just doesn't cut it.Supall - You probably don't need Trinity to replace the 6 year old system. Your father could probably get by just fine with an A8-3870k that is already out.Also, it really hurts the APU value proposition when you have to buy much faster RAM in order to use its capabilities. You CAN use an A8-3870k's built in graphics with 1333 RAM (and many OEM PCs ship like that), however, if you look at the benchmarks the graphics performance suffers horribly compared to what the chip is capable of.To unlock that performance requires getting 1866, 2000, 2133, etc RAM. That is more expensive than 1333 RAM although the gap is narrowing over time. That has to be factored into the total system cost and makes the deal even worse for someone considering between APU vs Processor + video card.When you factor in the higher performance RAM you need into the total solution cost, its usually the processor + video card setups that come out ahead, as if they aren't already ahead in every other area to begin with.The tiny niches where AMD is the right choice are few and far between, that is why Intel sells 5 processors for every 1 AMD sells.[/citation]

Trinity and even Llano have had a decent battery life and power consumption advantage over Intel for quite a while. Ivy didn't destroy this and Haswell might, but Trinity's successor will probably bring that to a halt regardless of Haswell's success compared to Llano and Trinity anyway.

If you simply disable the second core of each module, not even going into the more complex but still not too difficult P state altering, AMD's gaming performance per watt goes up incredibly. For the FX-81xx CPUs, you cut power consumption by 35-45% while increasing gaming performance in all but the most highly threaded of games by a decent 15-25%. By these easily obtained numbers, worst case scenario, the 81xx CPUs increase gaming performance per watt by over 50%. These CPUs are excellent at undervolting too, so we could easily throw either that or overclocking into the mix. Without increasing the voltage, overclocking shouldn't hurt power efficiency. This does nothing for AMD's stock power efficiency, but if they wanted to, an OEM or whoever could set this up in their pre-builts for AMD and so could any other group/company that sells computers.

The difference between PSU required for Inte's CPUs and AMD's CPUs is minimal. It'd be like the difference between needing a 400W and a 430W or 450W PSU for the same job.

DDR3-1600 and even DDR3-1866 kits can be found for about the same price as to slightly more expensive than 1333 and for those who want to, there's RAM overclocking.
 
People who buy processors off the shelf don't want to have to change tons of BIOS settings and hope to come out ahead. They want to come ahead out of the box.

They don't want to have to OC to come out ahead in the programs they actually use, or any of that stuff.

Also, the 2500k is a 95w processor. The 8150 has to do a large OC to even match that. The 8150 starts at 125w and power only scales up from there. The wattage need to actually catch up to the 2500k's base speed would be a whole lot more than the base difference of 30w.

That doesn't even take into account that you want to keep the load on the PSU down to a certain percentage. If you are fine running your PSU at 100% load (I wouldn't suggest it) then 60w higher processor usage would only require 60w more for the PSU.

On the other hand, if you aim for more like 2/3 PSU usage then +60w used means you need more like +90w on the PSU. The difference is not inconsequential.

Also, same quality but faster RAM chips generally don't cost the same. If you are willing to scale back in RAM quality as you scale up in speed, then maybe the costs will be comparable, but you have other drawbacks as well.
 
[citation][nom]Raiddinn[/nom]People who buy processors off the shelf don't want to have to change tons of BIOS settings and hope to come out ahead. They want to come ahead out of the box.They don't want to have to OC to come out ahead in the programs they actually use, or any of that stuff.Also, the 2500k is a 95w processor. The 8150 has to do a large OC to even match that. The 8150 starts at 125w and power only scales up from there. The wattage need to actually catch up to the 2500k's base speed would be a whole lot more than the base difference of 30w.That doesn't even take into account that you want to keep the load on the PSU down to a certain percentage. If you are fine running your PSU at 100% load (I wouldn't suggest it) then 60w higher processor usage would only require 60w more for the PSU.On the other hand, if you aim for more like 2/3 PSU usage then +60w used means you need more like +90w on the PSU. The difference is not inconsequential.Also, same quality but faster RAM chips generally don't cost the same. If you are willing to scale back in RAM quality as you scale up in speed, then maybe the costs will be comparable, but you have other drawbacks as well.[/citation]

It's not a ton of BIOS settings. You can do this in the BIOS, but even then, it's quick and easy. It'd literally take less than two minutes to disable the four cores. Anyone who buys a K edition CPU from Intel is willing to do much more work with overclocking, so this is not unreasonable at all. Don't mistake TDP with power consumption. They are not the same, so you should stop treating them as if they were the same.

The 8120, with this done (8150 is just an 8120 with the voltage and CPU frequency bumped up and it doesn't even have better binning, so it's a waste of money for anyone who overclocks), is right behind the i5s in performance while using a little less power and it does so at a lower cost. Undervolting can also be thrown in to increase the power consumption advantage far more than doing it on Intel would help.

You don't need to drop out on quality. G.Skill, Corsair, Crucial, and several other good brands for RAM have plenty of great DDR3-1600 kits from $40 to $30 and DDR-1866 kits can hit around $40 for two 4GiB modules from these companies increasingly often these days. That's about where the DDR3-1333 modules sit for the same capacity from these companies to a little higher than them. DDR3-2133 and such is often much more expensive, but DDR3-1600 is not and DDR3-1866 is often not expensive either.
 
[citation][nom]Wisecracker[/nom]My understanding is the graphics engine on Trinity is a Turks HD6000-series.Kaveri (the Trinity successor) will integrate 28nm GCN graphic cores - likely a cut down HD7750, on FM2.[/citation]

Trinity uses VLIW4; Trinity has a scaled-down Cayman GPU. Your view on Kaveri is accurate AFAIK.
 


I'm old, and suffer from dementia and delirium tremens (likely from inhaling too much thermal insulating materials). Ignore my ramblings from time-to-time.

:lol:

My understanding is *The Stilt* from over at XS is working on a basic tweaking tool for Trinity APUs to assist in OC'ing (but it might be Piledriver, as I'm going MAD!)





 
[citation][nom]Wisecracker[/nom]I'm old, and suffer from dementia and delirium tremens (likely from inhaling too much thermal insulating materials). Ignore my ramblings from time-to-time. My understanding is *The Stilt* from over at XS is working on a basic tweaking tool for Trinity APUs to assist in OC'ing (but it might be Piledriver, as I'm going MAD!)[/citation]

Trinity uses Piledriver CPU cores 😛

A tool that works with Piledriver (Vishera) CPU overclocking should work on Trinity even if it needs a minor update to work.
 
These are exactly the kind of chips that would be perfect for SFF HTPC builds, I can see every home having a rig which is used for XBMC, Netflix and other visual but not demanding tasks. The power consumption is ideal for an always on set-top box. The fact that at least some basic gaming can be done is a bonus, even the HD6310 in the current gen is the same as a discrete GeForce 6800XT and anyone who even had one of those knows how good they were.
 


Here is the thread at XS from *The Stilt* --- I failed that miserably, too

It's for Trinity APUs, including *ks* and it ain't so simple -- he has noted over 300 potential adjustments. The iGPU core clock (SCLK) is adjustable between 100-1900MHz ....

I smell some fried chips - LOL - but it looks as if he has back-stopped some functions to prevent obvious mistakes and user errors.

 
I'm waiting for the E2's.

I've been testing out C-60 motherboards from ASUS with 6Gbps SSD's and Windows 8 just flies on those systems. Trinity is interesting, but when you look at pricing of getting CPU cores in "the mainstream" along with HD and 3D capabilities for the average user that just wants to surf, do email, and maybe play some casual games like Fruit Ninja, to get your system build in the sub-$500 price range, you're making concessions on the drive - and that's where your bottleneck is. For casual games and basic GPU accelerate functions of the OS, you don't need much more than a WEI score of 4.0, yet the C-60 already gets far above that (high 5.0's, which the Vista Premium high water mark was 5.9). The CPU cores score in the mid-3's, which is all you need for Office work and such. Add a SATA 6Gbps SSD (I use Crucial m4's, which are by far the best value SSD's money can buy IMO), and it makes the entire system feel more responsive than systems that sell for a couple hundred bucks more with a hard drive. I really think that when you go with an SSD, you'll never want to go back (especially with Windows 8). ASUS sells their E-450 mobo for ~$100 more than their C-60 board. It has WiFi, Bluetooth, HDMI, and an ~50% processor performance boost, but I would gladly put up a 1GHz C-60 with an SSD against a 1.66GHz E-450 with a hard drive any day and let any user try to tell me which one is faster for your "average" PC user. My money would be on the C-60. I would probably put it up against a Trinity APU with a hard drive, and would still find it difficult to condone the added cost of the CPU. Adding an SSD to a Trinity puts it out of the respective target price market too.

Remember: a lot of users are getting by with old computers and tablets with inferior ARM processors (but ones that will still play HD video and have somewhat-decent graphics capabilities). How much processing power do kids need for schoolwork or to update their Facebook page? Or how much does your mother need to type a letter in Word or look up recipes or watch some YouTube videos or whatever? This is what "average" computer users do. It's mostly basic CPU tasks that practically any CPU can handle (ARM runs Office too), and some GPU cores for graphics and GPU compute in multimedia applications. I think it's getting to a point where very few pieces of software actually require high-end CPU's anymore. Even in games, I can think of less and less parts of the computational load of game that would benefit more from being processed by the main CPU over the GPU. You have graphics, physics, AI & logic processing....what other parts would make more sense being processed by the CPU? Microsoft seems to get that with the way that WinRT is designed. AMD is moving to completely heterogeneous processor cores too, so I think AMD and Microsoft are destined to have a symbiotic relationship that Intel won't be a part of.
 
[citation][nom]waethorn[/nom]I'm waiting for the E2's.I've been testing out C-60 motherboards from ASUS with 6Gbps SSD's and Windows 8 just flies on those systems. Trinity is interesting, but when you look at pricing of getting CPU cores in "the mainstream" along with HD and 3D capabilities for the average user that just wants to surf, do email, and maybe play some casual games like Fruit Ninja, to get your system build in the sub-$500 price range, you're making concessions on the drive - and that's where your bottleneck is.[/citation]

Crucial M4 can't come very close to Vertex 4 in value nor in performance. Also, I can easily make a $500 build with a Phenom II x4 BE CPU and a Radeon 7850 with an excellent cooler and without skimping on parts except for the storage which would need to be a 500GB hard drive or thereabouts, but skipping the 7850 considering that your context here is a much less high-end context and simply going for an integrated graphics solution, a $500 build with a much better CPU than Brazos has to offer and an excellent SSD such as a Vertex 4 256GB shouldn't be difficult at all to get together.

It might be doable with a lower $400-450 budget and dropping down to a Celeron G520 or a Sempron with core unlocking (far superior to any C or E APU) or something similar in price could bring it below the $400 mark even if a cheap Radeon 6450 or something similar is necessary for better than integrated graphics.
 
[citation][nom]luciferano[/nom]Crucial M4 can't come very close to Vertex 4 in value nor in performance. Also, I can easily make a $500 build with a Phenom II x4 BE CPU and a Radeon 7850 with an excellent cooler and without skimping on parts except for the storage which would need to be a 500GB hard drive or thereabouts, but skipping the 7850 considering that your context here is a much less high-end context and simply going for an integrated graphics solution, a $500 build with a much better CPU than Brazos has to offer and an excellent SSD such as a Vertex 4 256GB shouldn't be difficult at all to get together.It might be doable with a lower $400-450 budget and dropping down to a Celeron G520 or a Sempron with core unlocking (far superior to any C or E APU) or something similar in price could bring it below the $400 mark even if a cheap Radeon 6450 or something similar is necessary for better than integrated graphics.[/citation]

Yes, I am aware of OCZ SSD's. In fact, you can say that I have much more intimate knowledge of them after building 20-some systems with Vertex 3 and 4 drives, and having over a dozen of them fail. The price difference from NewEgg in the US is $5, yet I would (and do) pay that in exchange for better reliability. In the 64GB models, the Vertex 4 has faster write speeds, but the m4 has faster read speeds.

Also, try to find a distributor that actually carries Phenom II's anymore. Retailers may still carry them, but disti's have already EOL'd them long ago. And no, most Semprons don't have working multi-cores. And yet you still missed the point that at low-end processor points, average users won't see the difference - except in loading speeds.

Also, my price is less than $400 at retail - with Windows.
 
[citation][nom]waethorn[/nom]Yes, I am aware of OCZ SSD's. In fact, you can say that I have much more intimate knowledge of them after building 20-some systems with Vertex 3 and 4 drives, and having over a dozen of them fail. The price difference from NewEgg in the US is $5, yet I would (and do) pay that in exchange for better reliability. In the 64GB models, the Vertex 4 has faster write speeds, but the m4 has faster read speeds.Also, try to find a distributor that actually carries Phenom II's anymore. Retailers may still carry them, but disti's have already EOL'd them long ago. And no, most Semprons don't have working multi-cores. And yet you still missed the point that at low-end processor points, average users won't see the difference - except in loading speeds.Also, my price is less than $400 at retail - with Windows.[/citation]

Vertex 3 is unreliable, but I've never had reliability issues with Vertex 4. It uses a Marvell controller like Crucial M4, although it is significantly faster and does also use a little more power (they're both still SSDs, M4 is still far faster than a hard drive and Vertex 4 is still using a fraction of the power that even eco/power-friendly 5.4KRPM and 5.9KRPM hard drives use).

If I can buy Phenom II and Sempron online in a dozen places (which I can), then IDC if they're EOL or not because they're still available new. (well, not used, new would be relative). Semprons have a near perfect unlocking ratio, it's only the higher end families that have poor unlocking ratios.

I didn't miss your point, I simply disagreed slightly while saying that I don't need to use weak parts like that anyway. I may not be an average user, but even doing average work, I'd easily see a difference between a decent quad core Phenom II CPU or better and the very low end single/dual core Brazos (and Brazos successors) APUs. It's not worth paying about the same for far less performance unless power consumption is so important to you that you can't use a higher end system.
 
[citation][nom]luciferano[/nom]Vertex 3 is unreliable, but I've never had reliability issues with Vertex 4. It uses a Marvell controller like the Crucial M4, although it is significantly faster and does also use a little more power (they're both still SSDs, the M4 isn't slow by any measure and the Vertex 4 is still using a fraction of the power that even eco/power-friendly 5.4KRPM and 5.9KRPM hard drives use).If I can buy Phenom II and Sempron online in a dozen places (which I can), then IDC if they're EOL or not because they're still available new. (well, not used, new would be relative). Semprons have a near perfect unlocking ratio, it's only the higher end families that have poor unlocking ratios.I didn't miss your point, I simply disagreed slightly while saying that I don't need to use weak parts like that anyway. I may not be an average user, but even doing average work, I'd easily see a difference between a decent quad core Phenom II CPU or better and the very low end single/dual core Brazos (and Brazos successors) APUs. It's not worth paying about the same for far less performance unless power consumption is so important to you that you can't use a higher end system.[/citation]

Sorry, but you're wrong. Vertex 4's use Indilinx controllers. Indilinx is a subsidiary of OCZ.

Also, you DID miss the point: for general computing tasks, the average customer is better served putting their money towards a faster drive subsystem. You can take a system that is less than $300 in hardware and compare it to a $500 system with a rotational hard drive, and with what decline a user would see in processing is more than made up for in super-responsive drive access, and yet they still have enough power for multimedia that compares favourably against the pedestrian, but still capable capabilities in ARM.

And yes, AMD authorized disti's haven't carried Semprons for over a year now (except for embedded channels, but those are a different ball of wax altogether) and the only Phenom II's you can buy from them are BE's, but the prices haven't come down that.

I don't disagree on your assessment that Phenom II's are faster - anybody would be stupid to disagree with that. What I disagree on is that you claim that Brazos systems with an SSD are the same price as a Phenom II with a hard drive when I already know that's far from the truth. What you're paying for in just a cheap Phenom motherboard (and who would buy one cheap for a processor like that in the first place anyway?) you can get a motherboard and C-60 board and processor.

....and I haven't even gotten into power requirements of the Phenom. For what? YouTube and Facebook games for the average consumer?
 
[citation][nom]waethorn[/nom]Sorry, but you're wrong. Vertex 4's use Indilinx controllers. Indilinx is a subsidiary of OCZ.Also, you DID miss the point: for general computing tasks, the average customer is better served putting their money towards a faster drive subsystem. You can take a system that is less than $300 in hardware and compare it to a $500 system with a rotational hard drive, and with what decline a user would see in processing is more than made up for in super-responsive drive access, and yet they still have enough power for multimedia that compares favourably against the pedestrian, but still capable capabilities in ARM.And yes, AMD authorized disti's haven't carried Semprons for over a year now (except for embedded channels, but those are a different ball of wax altogether) and the only Phenom II's you can buy from them are BE's, but the prices haven't come down that.I don't disagree on your assessment that Phenom II's are faster - anybody would be stupid to disagree with that. What I disagree on is that you claim that Brazos systems with an SSD are the same price as a Phenom II with a hard drive when I already know that's far from the truth. What you're paying for in just a cheap Phenom motherboard (and who would buy one cheap for a processor like that in the first place anyway?) you can get a motherboard and C-60 board and processor.....and I haven't even gotten into power requirements of the Phenom. For what? YouTube and Facebook games for the average consumer?[/citation]

Sorry, but you're wrong. Vertex 4 uses a Marvell controller with OCZ in-house Indilinx-branded firmware. Vertex 4's successor will use and the Octanes already uses in-house controllers with in-house firmware, but Vertex 4 uses a Marvell controller. It was probably part of the same deals that went towards the OCZ/Marvell PCIe SSDs, but that part is speculation on my part.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Octane-Vertec_4-Marvell-Indilinx_Everest_2-ssd-controller,15304.html

You missed my point. I can make a system with comparable motherboard/CPU/GPU costs to your low end choice so that I can get a great storage system too, but with much faster CPUs and maybe somewhat better graphics, depending on how I go about it.

I can get a Phenom II x4 955 BE for $85, so I don't know what you're going on about with their prices. Even Newegg and several other such sites carry Semprons, a;though some such as Newegg do so on and off which can be considered enough of a problem for my example to go Intel instead (Celeron G530s and comparable Ivy models are still being sold en mass on Newegg and many other places because they aren't EOL). So, my point extends to more than EOL AMD CPUs. It can also be argued with Llano models that are still in high supply at many places with good pricing.

The motherboard would be cheap, but it wouldn't need to be low-quality.

I can in fact make a good Phenom II/Athlon II/Sempron/Celeron/Pentium build with a comparable storage system at a similar price as a low end Brazos system.

I use Youtube, Yahoo Mail, and although not Facebook too much, other such sites and I can say that between even my Turion 64 X2 system has a faster than Brazos CPU and a highly optimized copy of Windows Server 2008r2 x64 (much less bloat and somewhat better thread management than Windows 7 x64) and a good Phenom II x4 system, I can easily tell the difference when using well-threaded browsers such as those that are based on Google Chromium.
 
EDIT to above: I have a Turion 64 x2 TL-64 CPU (it runs at 2.4GHz and is basically a cut-down, dual-core, and low-power variant of Athlon 64) and the system that I compare it to has a Phenom II x4 955 at 3.8GHz CPU frequency, 2.8GHz CPU/NB frequency. They both have the same 90GB Mushkin SSD and although their memory is different (DDR2-533 on the laptop and DDR2-800 on the desktop), although I don't think that the memory would change much for average usage such as web browsing. I suppose that I could do a comparison with identical memory performance if you want.
 
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