AMD to cull processor range

[Rys]

The mighty Damage over at The Tech Report has, following musings over at Dailytech, confirmed with AMD that yes, certain 1MiB per core processors are to be dropped from AMD's Socket 939 and AM2 ranges, along with some Semprons on 754.

With cache size doing less for AMD's integrated memory controller CPUs than clock frequency or the memory subsystem, it makes some sense in order to cut costs across the board. Opteron is unaffected (and we await Opteron 1xx on AM2), as is the FX-62 on AM2 and FX-60 on 939.

Check out Damage's analysis of the situation here. It's mandatory reading for those looking to invest in an AMD desktop platform in the coming weeks and months.

What do you guys think? A dent in your plans at all? Did you care about cache size with your AMD CPU purchase? For me, I do run apps that benefit, although I can't say I'd notice either way in real world usage, so I'm not too bothered (and I'm going to be an AMD customer in the near future).

Thoughts?

[Goreblast]

drop in prices perhaps to clear old obsolete stock?

[chrestomanci]

About 2 years ago, I brought a S754 XP3200, and went to a lot of trouble to get the 1Mb cache version. Two different retailers sent me higher clocked 512Mb versions which I had to RMA.

Scan even sent me the wrong one after I specificaly asked for the 1Mb version, and specificaly told them to take care picking the correct one, so I had to RMA it a second time.

I guess what I am trying to say, is that the amount of cache on a CPU is important to me. I know that the integrated memory controler has a lower latency, but it is still many times slower than the L2 cache, and if the working data for the program your are running fits entirely into the L2, it will run hugely quicker. That might not be the case for games or microsoft boloatware, but for media encoding or system apps it will be important.

[OV3RCLOCK3R]

I definatly like the extra cache and when i went from 512k to 1mb, notice some difference in encoding and stuff.

[greektony]

i'm hoping to get a s939 3700+ but they havent really dropped in price, whats going on!!!!!

[NightshadowUK]

As long as they don't drop the S939 Dual-Core Opteron's, there's hope for me yet.

<3 1MB cache.

[athlon_xp_2800]

i'm hoping to get a s939 3700+ but they havent really dropped in price, whats going on!!!!!

I have this cpu and it has dropped in price, but not as much as we might have hoped.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=211678

I am still quite happy with this set up, see sig. Can't see any reason to upgrade the cpu as yet.