Is the X2 truly that bad?

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Whats up with all the amd slamming, one guy post about amd dying, another guy posts bout via, and now the performnce of the x2 is being debated, I love my x2, and thinks its a great processor.
 
Most people on this world still buy the CPU 'with more GHz', that is P4s/PDs and still see AMD CPUs as a second hand, defective, almost illegal choice.
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Very salient point there. I heard a lot of the same from a few non-techies when I built my computer and they asked what was in it.

I know man it sucks to be smart. I told a friend I got a C2D and he asked me the Ghz. I said 2.4 and he goes: "oh well mine is 2.8 (he has an 805) I saw someone with a 3.2 dual core too." So in my head I just arrrggghhhed it off and dropped the subject.
 
someone posted earlier about advertising budgets, i have an uncle who still wont buy amd because someone told him that they are not 100 percent compatible. That intel inside thing canscare off the uniformed.
 
The X2 is competitive IF:

1. The E6600 is too expensive for you and
2. You are positive you will never overclock and
3. You cannot wait for the April 22 price cuts.

Otherwise the C2D is simply the best choice at this time.
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Point 1 would apply to the vast majority of consumers. A better stated quetion would be "Do you really need to pay that much for a processor?" A vast majority would say no.

Point 2 would apply to more than 90% of people no doubt. Even a lot of enthusiasts don't overclock.

Point 3 is moot for most people as well. The current group of processors contain more power and speed than the average consumer needs.

I can totally see people recommending AMD X2 over C2D. The main reason being overall lower price. If you're the average consumer why spend $250+ on a processor when you won't even use its full potential. As long as the internet works and your MS Office works who cares??
 
Even though Intel as the better product right now it doesn't mean that x2 are crappy CPU. Sometimes have the feeling that some people think that K8 are
to C2D what Netburster were to K8 when it came out. Obviously, it's not the case.

For the average joe, x2 are plenty good enough but it won't be the choice of enthusiast.
 
I'm supprised AMD spent even that much.

Going back a year, before C2D launched, I was actually a little turned off by some of AMD's online advertising where they smugly showed their superiority. Yes, they were better than the P4/PD, but the attitude didn't help their case.

Every time I read a review in that time, I would notice a few things.

1) The X2s were far superior to the PDs.
2) The PDs were far cheaper than the X2s (again, late 2005/early 2006).

What was lacking at the time was price/performance analysis. The cheapest X2 would cost me CAN$450, while the PD820 was CAN$300. Price/performance wise, at my budget at the time, the PD was actually the right answer, but man did I wish I could afford the X2. I would also prefer to buy AMD product becuase I perceive they have better business practices.

If I go about recommending component selection to someone, the CPU is only a fraction of the total consideration. The process is simple:

1) What do you want to do (gaming/workstation/server/email)?
2) What's your budget?
3) Are you up for overclocking?
4) Slate $240 or so for mobo/ram, more if the answer to (1) was "extreme gaming".
5) If answer to question (1) was "gaming" select best video card appropriate for the budget.
6) Check out price/peformance graphs like these. And select a CPU that fits in the total budget.
7) If user is willing to overclock, I opt for cheaper CPUs and higher-end video cards.

According to the above foruma, if someone wants to do a mobo/cpu/ram/video upgrade and they're into gaming, for as little as $700 I'd suggest the p965/e4300/2GB ddr2-667/8800 GTS and then overclock the proc by 50% or more. If no overclocking, then the x2 4400+ is pretty sweet. If you're looking for value, overclocking a $160 cpu to speeds of a stock $1000 cpu is hard to beat.

Anyway, my point is that over-praising a product goes both ways. A year ago, not getting an AMD, even though it was 50% more expensive for %15-20 better performance meant you weren't a true enthusiast. I think it's a bum wrap these days that people with X2s are supposed to feel inferior in any way. Those who can afford $1000 CPUs can enjoy it, the rest of us just need to know we got the best we could for what we could afford at the time.
 
I think that the cost of the X2s were over inflated for quite a while before C2d was released and that did Core 2 bandwagon no harm at all.

AMD built a reputation for being the little guy who brought out good quality products at a low price with the K7. They then through all that out the window with K8.

I was trying to justify spending £300+ on an x2 4400 for ages until I discovered that I would be able to buy e6600 for less money and get more performance. IMO had they (AMD) stuck with the K7 price strategy I don't think that C2D would have had the impact on people that it did.
 
Totally agreed.

I think AMD lost a great opportunity back when they had the performance superiority. Since they priced their chips for enthusiasts only, all they were known for in the main market is the Semptron, which, while good, does not induce pride in one's purchase. If AMD had had more reasonable prices on their mainstream products, they may have gained more market share, manufacturing capacity allowed. More market share equals more word-of-mouth advertising, making AMD a household brand name. They were on a roll, but I wonder if they fell short of critical mass by just a bit. Maybe Dell would have picked them up sooner if their pricing had been better a year and a half ago.
 
I chose the AMD system because even though Intel had just come out with C2D, they were really expensive, and I'd never had an AMD system before. With the cost of a C2D, I bought my processor and most, if not all, of my motherboard. I find my system a great one, and I recommend both the c2ds and the x2s to my friends, depending on what they're aiming for.

Now what's the REALLY funny thing is that there's a local computer shop that thinks that AMD still crushes Intel in both the desktop and laptop parts. They say that the large unified cache is worse than the small separated cache, and that in real live applications, AMD wins, as well as Turion X2's are more efficient and use less energy than Merom. Now I don't really know much about the laptop parts, because I don't have one and nor have I really shopped around or anything, but you'd think that core 2 is better than turion. What's even funnier is that all their workstations are Pentium Ds.

I maintain my right to be neutral as much as I can. I laugh at both Intel and AMD when either of them get sued.
 
I believe the x2 3800 and the e6300 cost around the same amount at the time Core 2 was released at least there was not a huge difference between the two.

Also you have to remember that AMD cut up to 50%(ish) off the price of their processors a few days after Core 2 was released.
 
And the P965 chipset being essentially in beta is a crock. The boards are proven technology and offer no less stability than any AM2 offering. You could say you should avoid Intel because you see more posts about Intel computers having problems than AMD computers (it would be hard not to have that as the case when Intel sells 3 chips for every chip AMD sells).
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Amen to that. I got one of the early P965 boards and stability has never been an issue. I can say the same thing about all Intel chipsets I've used in the past. AMD, with the help of Nvidia and ATI chipsets, did progress to the point where I can now choose them without stability concerns. That doesn't mean that the stability of systems using Intel chipsets declined. It didn't, at least not from my experience.
 
Even though Intel as the better product right now it doesn't mean that x2 are crappy CPU. Sometimes have the feeling that some people think that K8 are
to C2D what Netburster were to K8 when it came out. Obviously, it's not the case.

For the average joe, x2 are plenty good enough but it won't be the choice of enthusiast.
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Thats is the truest thing said in here, being second best does not mean bad in this case.
 
I always thought that high-end referred to construction and/or price. The Pentium 4 line was always considered high-end and the Celeron line low-end even though the fastest Celerons were sometimes faster than the slowest Pentium 4s. The Athlon 64 X2 and Pentium Ds were all considered high-end chips, perhaps save for the Pentium D 805, because they all cost something like $250 or more and were dual-core chips when dual-core chips were new. It didn't matter that the slowest Athlon X2 (3800+) was faster than the Pentium D (840) at launch- all were high-end chips due to price and type.

Today, the lines between high-end, midrange, and low-end are blurred considerably more. Pretty much every single-core CPU still being made new today is considered low-end, such as the Core Solo, Pentium E2xxx/Celeron D 4xx single-cores, AM2 Semprons and Athlon 64s and the S1 Turion 64 MK-36 single-core, as most all cost below $100 and are seen only in budget models. I'd also add the remaining NetBurst CPUs into the low-end group as they are old stock and being sold in the same entry-level machines as the previous chips.

Midrange CPUs are all dual-core today and comprise the 2MB L2 cache Core 2 Duos, Athlon 64 X2s up to about the 5200+ or 5400+ level and all Turion X2s, as well as the Core Duo and the Pentium Dual Core, which is a cut-down Core Duo. These CPUs are the meat of the non-budget sales and cost more than $100 but less than $250-300, which seems to be the dividing line between being commonly available in OEM machines and not commonly available in those machine.

All quad-core CPUs are high-end, as well as the Athlon 64 FX range, Athlon 64 X2 CPUs that cost more than $300, such as the 5600+ and 6000+, as well as all 4MB L2 Core 2 Duos.

So Intel really didn't "change the definition of high-end with the E6600" because high-end CPUs were already defined as dual-core CPUs over $300. Now if Intel chopped all Core 2 Duo prices to <$300 when they released the Core 2 Quads, then one might make a case for saying that the Core 2 Quad "changed the definition of high-end." But as it stands, your assessment kind of resembles something that might be read from some marketing literature from Intel.
 
And the P965 chipset being essentially in beta is a crock. The boards are proven technology and offer no less stability than any AM2 offering. You could say you should avoid Intel because you see more posts about Intel computers having problems than AMD computers (it would be hard not to have that as the case when Intel sells 3 chips for every chip AMD sells).
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Then in this case Intel should "average up" but that seems not to be the case.

Amen to that. I got one of the early P965 boards and stability has never been an issue. I can say the same thing about all Intel chipsets I've used in the past. AMD, with the help of Nvidia and ATI chipsets, did progress to the point where I can now choose them without stability concerns. That doesn't mean that the stability of systems using Intel chipsets declined. It didn't, at least not from my experience.
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Actually my two Abit KG7 motherboards have AMD 751 chipsets and both are still running fine.

As to my opinion on the P965's, I'm just telling you what I'm reading on the personal reviews of people that have purchased socket AM2 motherboards vs. those that have purchased Intel P965 series boards as posted at newegg.com. Not a single P965 board has a 5 egg rating.
 
As to my opinion on the P965's, I'm just telling you what I'm reading on the personal reviews of people that have purchased socket AM2 motherboards vs. those that have purchased Intel P965 series boards as posted at newegg.com. Not a single P965 board has a 5 egg rating.
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It should probably be noted that there are an order of magnitude greater number of reviews for the P965 chipset than any of the AM2 motherboards in a competing price range. While it's impressive that one AM2 board has 19 5-egg ratings, how many 5-egg ratings does the top-rated P965 board have?

You have to remember, as well, that ratings also reflect mobo features that have nothing to do with the northbridge. For example, there are mixed reviews of Gigabyte's Crazy-Cool heatsink on the back of the motherboard. It annoys a lot of people who buy it since these are also the types that buy an aftermarket CPU heatsink. This is the number one gripe with the DQ6, so these votes don't speak to the P965 chipset.

However, I am still more impressed to see 19 5-egg reviews with no reviews below this for one of the AM2 boards. That's certainly something I'll consider the next time I look for a motherboard.
 
I do not have a 965-based motherboard (latest Intel chipset I've had is the 845MP!) but most of the griping is due to there being no integrated PATA support. The JMicron PATA controller is a little buggy and many people have had trouble getting their optical drives to work nicely with the controller. While I think that Intel did drop the ball by getting rid of PATA support a little early, it's not that big of a deal, especially since SATA optical drives are becoming common and no more expensive than their IDE equivalents. Also, PCI or PCIe PATA cards based on a better chipset are $20 or so, not a big deal.
 
It should probably be noted that there are an order of magnitude greater number of reviews for the P965 chipset than any of the AM2 motherboards in a competing price range. While it's impressive that one AM2 board has 19 5-egg ratings, how many 5-egg ratings does the top-rated P965 board have?
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On the Asus P5B Deluxe you have 156/242 - 5 egg/reviews for 64.46% of the total reviews.

On the Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition you have 205/309 for 66.34% of the total reviews.

Unfortunately I'm not a statistics kinda guy so I usually just look at the overall satisfaction level of the users that did submit a review and not at the total number of reviews specifically.

You have to remember, as well, that ratings also reflect mobo features that have nothing to do with the northbridge.
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I note that the primary difficulty in the P965 motherboards is the voltage limit for the RAM. Secondary issue is the J-Micron IDE controllers. As stated in another forum, I won't use anything from J-Micron.

However, I am still more impressed to see 19 5-egg reviews with no reviews below this for one of the AM2 boards. That's certainly something I'll consider the next time I look for a motherboard.
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Looks like a ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe and a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Brisbane if my bonus comes in.
 
I know what you mean, the X2s aren't that bad, either are the AMD single cores, compared to the intel ones. In Australia prices for things are huge, and then with the exchange rate, things are even more expensive, and when most normal people want a computer they like to spend about $1000 with out a monitor, so if you went core 2, the processor and motherboard would use up a bit more than half of the $1000, but if you went AMD and bought a nice mobo and a X2 3600+ it would only use up say $300, if you look at the whole package you'd be able to see that the $1000 AMD system has money for a Graphics card where as the core 2 doesn't. And in terms of performance the difference between discrete graphics (no mater how bad) and integrated graphics or CPUs the graphics has a much more severe impact on the system. So, i say to people who get $1000 computers off me, would you like a fast core 2 processor that will give you good superpi times of a 3600+ system that will play everything on medium graphics.
 
Everyone knows that the Core 2 Duo has been dominating for awhile, and it's become almost habitual to assume it's the best solution... but lately it seems to me that people have been recommending it to the exclusion of everything else in almost every situation.
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I agree. There are too many C2D recommendations, and in some cases there is a better(performance/price) K8 solution.

Funny thing is, when you look at the benchmarks for low to mid-range systems, things aren't really that clear-cut. AMD and Intel tend to trade blows in the same price range, especially when you factor in the reduced price of decent AM2 motherboards as compared to the latest (too expensive) 775 chipsets.
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The high end C2D mainboards are more expensive than the K8, but since you are talking about low to mid-range, there are very cheap C2D chipsets(ex. VIA) and mainboards around for quite some time. On the other hand, you can use any crappy DDR2-667 CL5 with the C2D system without hurting the system performance. Using such memory with the K8 will degrade the system performance for more than 5%, compared to DDR2-800 CL4.

Granted, the C2D pretty much smacks most AM2 processors around when it comes to overclocking, but again, people are ignoring actual tests that have been going around lately. The Brisbane line (especially the X2 3600+) have shown some pretty great OCing results, including fairly easy 3GHz+ overclocks on a 1.9GHz processor which comes in at half the price of an E4300.
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I guess I have missed the tests you are talking about. Would you like to provide some links to those tests, because I've seen no Brisbane 3600+ @3GHz stable or unstable. BTW, there was an article with FAKED CPU-Z image without validation from one biased site. I hope that you are not misleaded by that BS. Also with most Brisbane CPUs, 3GHz stable OC is very hard to achieve, harder than with the 90nm K8's. On the other hand, 95% C2D's can do 3GHz+ stable, which in performance is roughly same as 3.6GHz K8.

Even around the $200 range, AMD isn't getting crushed as handily as most people seem to think. Processors like the 4600+, 4800+, and 5000+ are solid offerings and trump the comparably priced E6300/E6400 in a fair amount of benchmarks.
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The E6400 and the 5000+ are roughly performing same, and both cost same. The E6300 is similar in performance like the X2 4400+, but is a little beat more expensive. If you take into account the energy efficiency, the heat dissipation and the OC-ability, than there is no AMD CPU offering nearly same as E6400 or E4300(talking about $200 range).

Yes, the high-end and overclocking crowns belong to Intel right now, but does this warrant the kind of exclusivity enthusiasts have been giving them lately?
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If you talk about enthusiast, than HELL YES. For example, I am an enthusiast and I have a $200 C2D that OC-ed beats any OC-ed K8's.
 
C2D had X2 completely beat in price/performance when I bought my X2 3800+ Windsor last summer...but now my proc is 33% cheaper! (bought for $153, now just $98 or something) After looking at some benchmarks here at THG, I found that with the most recent price drop makes price/performance between C2D and X2 to be...about the same!

THG Benchmarks, Newegg prices:

E6400: $222
Better In:
3D Mark - Graphics
AVG Antivirus
CoD2
DivX
F.E.A.R #2
LAME MP3 encoder
Powerpoint
Word
Multitasking #1
Multitasking #2
Ogg
PC Mark 2k5 - CPU
Photoshop #1
Photoshop #2
Premiere Pro
Price/Performance Index
Quake 4
Serious Sam 2
SiSoftware 2007 - Multimedia Integer
SiSoftware 2007 - Multimedia FP
SiSoftware 2007 - Arithmetic ALU
UT: 2004
WinRAR
Xvid

X2 5000+: $215
Better in:
3DS MAX
3D Mark - CPU
Clone DVD
F.E.A.R #1
iTunes
Mainconcept H.264 encoder
PC Mark 2k5 - Memory
Pinnacle
SiSoftware 2007 - Memory FP
SiSoftware 2007 - Arithmetic FLOPS
SiSoftware 2007 - Energy
SiSoftware 2007 - Memory Integer
Windows Media Encoder Streaming
WMA 9.1

Pretty good matchup, seems the slightly more expensive C2D wins in about 50% more benchmarks. I think one thing to add is that the e6400 tests were performed with DDR2-800 RAM while the 5000+ tests used slightly slower DDR2-742. It's also worth pointing out that the 5000+ has a much higher clock speed, so it's arguable that the e6400 does provide better overclocking (there's also the fact that we all know that the C2Ds are better for overclocking). On the other hand, the C2Ds just run hotter.
 
On the other hand, the C2Ds just run hotter.
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C2Ds are only "hotter" because of a different sensor. They however use much less power.

Both Intel and AMD label their heat sensors as accurate to within 1 degree Celsius of the actual. Different sensor, but I would hope they use the same temperature scale lol :)

All C2Ds are rated at 65w power draw, which yes is less than most X2s However, there are a couple lower-end 65w X2s out there. Don't get me wrong, if you're going to overclock and are willing to spend more than $230 on a CPU, I along with anyone in their right mind would recommend C2D hands-down. However, I still recommend X2s for people who already have an AM2 mobo. There are many different reasons to go with X2 over Core 2 Duo.
 
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