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  • OcHungry - Wednesday, January 3, 2007 - link

    I was wondering if there was a way to PM or email you.
    I would like to bring to your attention a few concerns regarding the forum and the moderators that you need to be aware of. Is there an email or can I PM you in any way?
    I would appreciate your respond.
    Bayad shoma bedaneed.
    tashakore
  • SilverMirage - Saturday, December 23, 2006 - link

    I understand that we are looking at limiting games by the CPU and not the graphics card, but lets be a little realistic...some of those performance per watt figures aren't what an end user is going to be seeing when comparing his options.
  • Wwhat - Saturday, December 23, 2006 - link

    Perhaps a weird thought but AMD bought that new ZRAM process that theoretically could put a huge cache on a small space with the flaw that it had so-so latency, then they later bought version 2 of the same but so far they didn't use it.
    Now what if this is an experiment with that technology, or a preamble, because at some time you would expect them to start using stuff they bought the license off, although at the time of the ZRAM announcement people were projecting use in a very far future that might not be what AMD has in mind, or the situation might have changed as to the performance of current versions of ZRAM.
    What do you think, any link to it?
  • Tujan - Friday, December 22, 2006 - link

    If you look,you'll see a story here in Anandtech.com for the first AMD X2s dated June 2005. The processor there was the 'top notch,for something unheard of in the processor industry. And even so doing with DDR400 memory.

    What is strange in these processor scenarios. There is Moores law. And there is the 'business quarter law. The article here,of wich I am commenting to,if the first of the detail in the "new processors"-the 65Nm processors. The AMDX2xs where also "new" when the 2005 articles was published. Today,as of reading this article,the "old"(and then top notch)is no longer being supported ..or as per use,no longer maintaining the subject cache sizes. AND well,point me if I am not correct,but the "old"processors are no longer going to be manufactured.

    Well I have usually considered that in these events of "new,and old"technology that somehow,if something is 18 months past.I can actually afford it. This changes a little with the new Intel setups. Since the Intel lineups finally seem to break this cycle of the previous as I explained here.

    For an entire year,I saw article after article,putting AMDs top notch as base line for performance. Ney user could address something of a culminating relationship to what had performance and what they could afford. And AMDs "top notch" an "industry standard" wich of course nobody could afford. At least if somebody was passing the buck,it wasn't happening with me.

    Annyway,I would just like to say I wish AMD good luck.Yet I cannot be ashamed to say that I can now put together a system for less than 1000$ with the same parts as that '"top notch"industry standard seen for the permiating part of 2005.

    Am I better for thinking that way ? 18 months passed,and my dollars are spendable but not supported ? I dont think that anybody could consider an AMD setup a 'low-end setup if for example the 4800+1Mb l2 can be had for 230$.

    That is the enevitable consequence is the final exhaustion of the supply of the component. Yet I could say that I have a "top notch" 2005 version of AMD technology. With 2007 PARTS! Being on the exhausted end,I dont know who could feel better about this.

    Wish AMD luck. Still with their record,I probably should say that I do not wish to look forward to exhaustion,at the same time as extingusishment,as in the mentioning of taking a break to what one pays for.

  • mino - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Just my pint into the fire:

    X2 4200+EE & GF6150 board (MSI K9NGM2-FID)
    $240 (170+75)

    E6300 $ G965 board (ASUS P5B-VM)
    $285 (185+100)

    Conclusion:

    Anything cheaper is K8 vs. Netburst so Intel is no contender.
    Anything more expensive is K8 vs. C2D clock/clock so AMD is no contender (4800+65nm is more expensive than E6400 it matches by perf.)

    For decent IGP-free boards the difference is comparable.


    So, going for
    stock performance the choice is simple:
    <$300 for CPU+MB combo go AMD X2
    >$300 for CPU+MB combo go Intel C2D

    for overclocking:
    <$240 for CPU+MB combo go AMD X2
    $240-$285 -> wait and then Intel C2D
    >$285 for CPU+MB combo go Intel C2D

    for power consumption (i.e. PC's for office use):
    AMD X2 3800+EE to 5000+EE (anything above or down is a waste of money in this case)

    for single core:
    <$190 for CPU + MB combo -> go AMD A64
    $190-$230 for CPU + MB combo -> go AMD X2 at $240
    >$240 see dual-core recommendations

    That IMO sums up the whole Desktop PC market as of now.
  • mino - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    $190-$230 for CPU + MB combo -> go AMD X2 at $240

    should be:

    $190-$230 for CPU + MB combo -> go AMD X2 3800+ at $200
  • mino - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    The prices are Newegg based.
  • Shintai - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Anand, can you test the 65nm K8 with lower res in games and a broader selection of games so we can more truely see the difference?

    http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_athlon_64_...">http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_athlon_64_...

    If these numbers hold water, then 65nm K8s is a disaster in terms of gaming performance.
  • mongoosesRawesome - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    I'd be interested in seeing these same performance/watt graphs using the 965 chipset. The 680i is a power hog.
  • mino - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    The same power hog is 590SLI for AMD.

    Actually 965 vs. RD580 would hurt Intel even more ... So, go figure.
  • Schugy - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Being able to sell more chips is not an argument for consumers but for AMD. Brisbane is not like Prescott - AMD has done a good job. Further development is needed but first 65nm units are running and are the basis for new architectures with increased transistor count.
  • Yoshi911 - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Hey all, I know that Socket 939 is obselete now but I think It'd be awesome if they'd make a 939 65nm core.. I still have my Opteron 144 at 3.1ghz on my Lanparty board and would love to see a core I could update to before the nextgen AMD achatecture makes it out.

    Anyone know if this is a possibilty??
  • Spoelie - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    get a 165 for 150$, overclock it to at least 2.8ghz and you have fx62 like performance

    that's the best thing you will ever get on socket 939 I'm afraid, now and in the future.
  • peldor - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Practically, it's never gonna happen. The market wouldn't be worth the effort.
  • OcHungry - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    I don’t understand why anyone or any review expect stellar overclocking or performance from these 65nm’s?
    Did AMD promise any? No. AMD promised a transition to 65nm and on time. That’s what we all should expect and appreciate the successful transition.
    Do you remember the first batch of Intel's 65nm Core 2’s? It was not as good as what you see today. Frankly I think AMD did much better in 65nm than Intel back then, and this first release is giving Core 2 due's matured chip a run for the money. After all the review here clearly shows AMD is on tract w/ 65nm’s performance per watt and energy consumption. Don’t forget its still K8 architecture competing w/ the latest and the greatest of Intel's.
  • IntelUser2000 - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    quote:

    Do you remember the first batch of Intel's 65nm Core 2’s? It was not as good as what you see today. Frankly I think AMD did much better in 65nm than Intel back then, and this first release is giving Core 2 due's matured chip a run for the money. After all the review here clearly shows AMD is on tract w/ 65nm’s performance per watt and energy consumption. Don’t forget its still K8 architecture competing w/ the latest and the greatest of Intel's.


    Which first batches?? The ones XS has been receiving far before the official Core 2 Duo release?? What's the OC that AT got??

    http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...

    X6800 went from 2.93GHz to 3.6GHz with default voltage. On a very good air cooler and voltage increased, it reached 4.0GHz.

    E6700: 2.667GHz to 3.4 default, 3.9 highest
    E6600: 4.0GHz highest
    X6800 stock cooler highest: 3.4GHz
    Tomshardware: X6800 to 3.46GHz
    Xbitlabs: X6800 to 3.4GHz, 3.6GHz with +voltage

    Brisbane 5000+
    2.6GHz to 2.925GHz, on stock cooler, 1.475V.

    It's not that bad for Brisbane IMO. It seems more like an architectural limitation than process or thermal limitation. Core 2 Duo still has ways to go and roadmaps sort of reflect it. Though the increase in L2 access latencies may mean it was done to increase the clock speed potential.
  • peldor - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Going to 65nm shouldn't move you backwards in performance though. There's no excuse for that from the consumer's POV unless the price also goes down (certainly a possibility if yields are good).
  • ydoucensor - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    could the increase in latencies have something to do with "trusted" computing and the need for attestation?
  • fitten - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Pure speculation, but the L2 latency increase may be a result of work going into the three level cache controller logic getting ready for K8L or whatever it's going to be.
  • mino - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    My thoughts exactly.
  • Spoelie - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    This is not the first time this has happened, it may be easy to forget, but do you guys remember the thoroughbred?

    Thoroughbred A was the first 180nm to 130nm shrink and had a hard time reaching the speeds the mature 180nm cores were getting. It wasn't till AMD added another layer to the core (Thoroughbred B) that we saw the expected speedups from a die shrink.
  • PetNorth - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Anand:

    Why don't you set manually the voltage, to know really what's the improvement with 0.65 transition?
    1.30v to compare it with 5000+ 90nm, and 1.25v to compare it with 4600+ EE 0.90nm.
    It would be a good thing IMO.
  • yyrkoon - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    There are already people who believe that odd numbered multipliers offer worse performance compared to even numbered multipliers. I cant help but wonder why AMD chose to start implementing floating point multipliers now. The first thing that comes to mind, is maybe to refine their pricing ? Although, I've never really noticed much performance (if any) difference using odd vs even numbered multipliers, I can not help but wonder if floating point multipliers will play a factor in performance.
  • Regs - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    AMD has been stepping in baby steps in their innovation merits. Ever since the IMC and the enhancements from K7 to K8 it seems like they improve little by little. I hope this gives them a rude awakening to how competitive the market can or could be in future. If they did it before they can do it again.

    As for the transition to 65nm, it was no surprise that these parts could not over clock very well. The K8 is showing its age and I think there are no more ways you can breathe life back into it especially when Core Duo is out in the market.
  • mino - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Why awekening, and why rude? The fact is AMD kept PARITY with intel on power AND performance inthe lower end with 90nm!!! part with Intel beeing at 65nm for a year allredy!
    In other words, When AMD's 90nm process is FAR better that Intel's ever was. Same happened with 130nm. Two words: SOI,APM.
    No confusion, all thi means no one should avaluate AMD vs. Intel on process_used base. Simply put, as of now(at stock) Intel rules on perf&power while AMD rules on idle_power and price(up to 4200+/E6300 combo).
  • IntelUser2000 - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    quote:

    The impact of higher voltages on power consumption also applies to Intel as well. As you will see in our power comparison, in a number of cases our Core 2 Duo E6300 required even more power than the E6600 we tested last time. The reason being that our E6300 sample runs at a core voltage of 1.325V vs. 1.2625V for our E6600 sample. Just things to keep in mind as you look at the power results over the next few pages.


    Intel bins Core 2 Duo by power consumption.
  • xsilver - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    just to clarify further; all e6600's will have lower stock voltages than e6400's and all e6400's will have lower stock voltages than e6300's?

    at both idle and load?

    how successful are the conroes at undervolting?
  • Accord99 - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Pretty good, my week 25 E6600 is stable at 2.6GHz/1.1v (My P5B-dlx doesn't go any lower) with dual-P95. The heat output is easily cooled passively by a Scythe Ninja.

    Here's a thread, one person has a E6600 that does 2.4@/~1v

    http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php...">http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php...
  • blackbrrd - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    I have seen a E6600 running at 1,0v at load... It was obviously very cool running :)

    My E6400 is running at 1,15v at idle (2133MHz) and 1,25v at load (2133MHz)

    Power saving features were off in both instances...
  • haugland - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    AMD win in one aspect...

    I you really consider power consumption to be important, it is much more important to look at idle power consumption than power consumption at full load. Most business PCs idle a lot of the time, and AMDs CPUs are much better at saving power at idle.

    EIST was designed for P4, and for a 3+ GHz P4 it makes sense to drop the multiplier to 6. However when the E6300 normally run at a multiplier of 7, you don't get much of a power saving by dropping the multiplier to 6. AMD C'n'Q allows for much lower settings.
  • MartinT - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    AMD - Best CPU at doing nothing.

    This seems to be AMD's new mantra, no wonder given how hopelessly behind in performance and performance/Watt they are.
  • mino - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Nicely said.

    Or better:

    CPU using the least power while doing nothing...
  • DigitalFreak - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    LOL
  • Beenthere - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    I doubt many PC enthusiasts place much importance on CPU power consumption. If they did Intel would never have sold any P4 chips. With Video cards drawing 200+ watts per card, a 65 nano AMD chip is a sweet piece.

    From my perspective, this is the first AMD 65 nano chips and like most process drops there is little performance gain just in lowering the nano size. AMD has a lot in the pipeline and as it arrives I suspect PC enthusiasts will be quite satisfied with both the CPU options and performance.

    It should be pretty obvious that 99.9% of the market doesn't need faster CPUs, dual cores, quad cores, etc. until we get a decent O/S that can use these CPU features and full 64-bit function. How friggin long will we have to wait for quality 64-bit software to arrive? That is something that would help PC performance significantly, yet we've been waiting two years and the software folks have delivered almost nothing.
  • Sh0ckwave - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    You're right, enthusiasts don't care about power consumption at all. We care about performance and overclocking ability.

    The average user does not need a faster CPU.

    Why doesn't Anandtech write articles for enthusiasts anymore?
  • mino - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Also, many enthusiasts work at IT depts making decisions what architecture to go for.

    I mean, for 100s/1000s PCs deployment... An believe me, there, power IS taken into account.
  • Final Hamlet - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Quote: I doubt many PC enthusiasts place much importance on CPU power consumption.
    If they did Intel would never have sold any P4 chips.

    That is where you are wrong. Say it after me: Million-dollar-marketing-campaign.
    Not the best product wins, but the best advertised.

    Think back to P4-times: Some average I-know-that-I-have-to-press-the-big-button-to-make-my-compie-start-Joe would enter a big (online) store like DELL where his only choice was a P4 - end of selection.
    Asked why he should buy it he would receive something like this: It has 3 REAL GHz, other manufacturers have _only_ about 2GHz. And then he would buy.


    PS I'm no AMD-fanboy. One has to clearly admit that Intel did a marvellous job with it's Core2. Only reason to buy is aforementioned power consumption in idle (my PC is idle 90% of the time) und the nice low price.

    Too strange. If you read hardware sites you could come to the conclusion that there are no single core CPUs anymore.
  • feelingshorter - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Looking at those benchmarks, I think Intel won based on per/watt performance. AMD had lower watt usage but also lower performance. Given that a cpu can work harder, then be idle, i see per watt performance as the most important thing. I would have expected AMD to do better, but they did not come through.
  • mino - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    No offense, but the moment one takes into account the fact of average PC spending >90% of time at idle, well, C2D eats X2's dust.

    From energy efficiency perspective, of course.
  • Accord99 - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Only if the C2D gets paired with a hotter chipset. The P965 motherboards tend to use 10-20W less on idle and load.
  • mino - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    RD580 is even lower than P965 ... NF i680 and NF 590 are both power hogs.
    They are not ideal (as well as 8800GTX) for power-comparison but they are BOTH pretty hot in their respective markets.
  • JackPack - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Where did you pull that "90%" figure out of? If a PC is idling more than 90% of the time without going into standby or hibernate, the user is an idiot.

    Hardly any PCs operate at pure idle. No real-time antivirus scan, no file indexing in the background, no email autochecking, no IE7 open with at least one Flash ad, etc.
  • mino - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Well, how would you like Your PC to standby(not to mention hibernate) while typing or listening to MP3's ???
    At these moments (most common usage of a PC BTW) the average CPU use is 1% to 5%.

    ... ;-)
  • mino - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Sorry fo no reading the second sentence, the first one was too crazy to continue reading back then ... So"

    Wwhat is "pure idle" ? CPU is able to go between C-states in (micro-to-mili)seconds, How fast can you type?
    AV checking? when you type? to check whether one is coding some exploit? :)
    Backgroung file-idexing? no thanks, I prefer on-MY-demand search to on OS's demand.
    Email-autocheck? done in 0.1s at 5% CPU used, once in 5 minutes...
    IE7? no, thanks, not required for Windows Update...
    Flash ad open? no, thanks, flash enabled only for reasonable sites or the ones requiring it(a few). Also, an usuall Flash is only up to 10% K8 core at 1000MHz
    etc.
    You may ask, why X2/C2D then when no background BS? Well, as of now I'm pretty happy with my Q1 install of Win2k on A1.66/512M/R9200/dualUXGA backed up by ~ 2TB NAS(with 3G P4C :). The system is more responsive than nearby mate's X2/1G with all that "necessary" bloat you mentioned.
    Me having loaded 50+ webpages and 5-10 active apps a common sight...
  • mino - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Now I figure, maybe, maybe, the average PC has become so bloated and unmaintained as to not even be able to put CPU's to Sleep states?
    I have not seen this except outrageously malwared machives yet. However my sample size may be unrepresentative a bit too much.

    If it is so, to abandon PC and return to calculus at primary may be a good idea.
  • JackPack - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    That's not idling.

    Nice strawman, BTW.
  • mino - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Well, wrote "90% of time" ... did not write how big the chunks of time are - they vary pretty much from tens of microseconds to tens of minutes.

    P.S. that post of mine from 10:19 was written before yours 10:13.
  • JackPack - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    ...and AMD wants to accelerate their transition to 45nm? Maybe they have a magic lamp somewhere in their Sunnyvale office.

    Seems like the increase in L2 latency might be a contingency plan for GHz or more cache, in the event Agena doesn't meet its Q3 target.
  • Locutus465 - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    I upgraded to an S939 X2 earlier this year, so I'm going to be out of the serious upgrade market for a while (might pick up a better CPU or graphics card that's about it). So personally I'm waiting for K8-L and co-processors to see how things shake out. I do have to say I had hoped better from AMD, but after 3 years of dominance I think a stumble like this is just what they need to get them back on the war path of innovation.
  • peldor - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    AMD's vision of coprocessors is 2009 stuff. You'll be out of the market a long time if you're waiting on that.
  • theteamaqua - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    man i hope this thing overclocks like conroe.... otherwise no one will get quad father

    but i already have E6400 @ 3.4GHz ...

    might get Q6600 , Q6400 or Yorksfield or Altair ... ill what see what happens
  • clairvoyant129 - Thursday, December 21, 2006 - link

    Right here,
    http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...

    Nothing special though.

    Better to stick with the 90nm X2 then this piece of junk.

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