AMD Phenom's pricing destroys value proposition against Intel Core 2 Quad

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AMD's Phenom 9600 launched today with an average £180 SRP in the UK. HEXUS re-evaluates the value proposition against its direct competitor, the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600. Find out if it sinks or swims.

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It's probably just the usual release hyped up prices, cashing in on any early adopting fanboys. It fully expect it to drop to the prices you estimated in relation to the Q6600, and perhaps even lower probably by Christmas or new year.

Any comment from retailers as to the high prices?

Just like the early 790FX motherboards, 8800GT cards and 3870 cards, prices will be high when supply is short around the product launch. When there are more products in the retail channel, prices will drop. Retailers just want to profit from early adopters...

The fact is that the processor price is only one of the many factors that separates Intel from AMD in terms of performance per dollar...

A quality AM2 (not AM2+) motherboard with reliability and overclocking potential is easy to find for $75 (some would even say less). This includes integrated video that runs Aero! A fair Intel board will run you over $100 easy and force you to use more expensive memory.

The processor is only 15-25% of the cost of a "Bang for your buck PC".

Forgot to mention that the Quad Core will fit in a AM2 board with slower HT speeds. Not sure the performance hit yet (will be testing shortly).

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Originally Posted by corecomps

A quality AM2 (not AM2+) motherboard with reliability and overclocking potential is easy to find for $75 (some would even say less). This includes integrated video that runs Aero! A fair Intel board will run you over $100 easy and force you to use more expensive memory.

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??

DDR2 costs the same, regardless of what kind of motherboard chipset you are using. And there's very little difference in cost between a budget AMD board and a budget Intel chipset.

But anyway, people scraping the barrel for every saving will not be buying either Phenom or Quad core chips just yet.

AMD REALLY need to sack their Marketing team. When the Althon first came out I have to say that it was a beardy name but at least is was a good piece of kit and similarly with Duron. They started taking the p!ss with Sempton but the new Phenom is the final straw. Its got to damage their reputation and just look at those logos... a school kid could design better. Heads need to roll.

If Hector Ruiz was going to remain as CEO of AMD, then I'd expect the prices to remain high. :angst:

However, since that should change I think you'll see the prices drop even lower than those given for the intro. We just need to wait for production to be ramped up. However, I've harped on the topic of this article all over the net. I'd be willing to buy a Phenom, despite the fact it doesn't really have performance parity with Intel's Quad Cores. But I won't do so at the current price point.

See I have a secondary computer that's still largely AMD/ATI. (Manchester core 4600+, Radeon Express 3200 chipset, and X1900XT graphics card...) I want to upgrade that soon and keep it using AMD/ATI parts. However, I have a spare Intel P965 chipset board (an Asus P5B-Plus) and some RAM, so all I need to get that system to Intel parts is drop in a CPU and a new Video card. If I want to go with a Phenom I have to also get a motherboard. So Unless AMD is prepared to price the Phenom so it's a decent value, I can't justify the extra expenditure. Otherwise it makes so much more sense to buy another Q6600...

In light of these facts, I really appreciated this article.

I think AMD are comiting financial suicide and Intel are supplying the rope to help them, I've always gone where the value is and at the moment I use Intel.

The way I see it, the Phenom, at this point, is for those who are on the AM2 platform, with a relatively older CPU, wanting to upgrade but not change motherboard for any reason. The problem is, that Phenom is not in a splendid position to compete in a price war. Firingsquad noted that the Phenom is 285^2, whereas the Yorkfield is 214^2 - and Intel probably have the economy of scale on their side in the first place. I suppose that at least AMD will not encounter difficulty in supplying enough chips to satisfy demand this time round. As long as Dell do not drop AMD (they really picked the wrong time to pick up AMD), I think they'll live.

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Originally Posted by corecomps

I actaully registered on the site just to make fun of it. The fact is that the processor price is only one of the many factors that separates Intel from AMD in terms of performance per dollar...

A quality AM2 (not AM2+) motherboard with reliability and overclocking potential is easy to find for $75 (some would even say less). This includes integrated video that runs Aero! A fair Intel board will run you over $100 easy and force you to use more expensive memory.

The processor is only 15-25% of the cost of a "Bang for your buck PC".

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Well, this is a fair but inaccurate argument. The expensive memory part, you can find boards that will OC well, accept Penryn and the latest 45 nm processors which use integrated graphics capable of Aero and uses DDR2 memory, just a cheap as AMD's memory. The fact is, AMD processors require the fastest highest quality (lowest latency) memory to extract all the performance because of thier inferior caching technlogy.

In short, you don't need uber fast uber expensive memory to extract the performance from C2D...
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I forget where I saw it recently but Intel's profit figure is astronomical.

I bet they are caching :) in on their performance but could afford to be selling the Core2x for less.

corecomps, I'm not sure why anyone would pair a quad core part with an onboard GPU that can "run Aero" whoop-de-do and consider themselves an overclocker?

Edit:
As for the HT speed, FSB 1:1 ratios for performance died with Socket A years ago. With A64 CPU speed is king DFI-Street Forums

So they are slower and yet more expensive than a q6600.. and dont forget that a q6600 can overclock way over 3ghz as well.. New Penryn cpus will only widen the gap! :shocked2: I just dont see why anyone would want to build a new system with one of these phenoms now.. i expected them to be alot cheaper.