Reviews - AMD Phenom II: striking back with a vengeance?

[Infinite]

Tbh im argreeing with Josh on this one, these new P2s should have been out a year ago when Intel were shifting to 45nm. And they also havent been able to catch Intel unprepared like they did to nVidia with the 48xxs because the price/performance of them at the moment are generally too close the C2 and all intel have to do now is to just cut prices by a bit which will probably happen within the week.

So now all it really comes down when buying a new mid-range system is which company you prefer Intel or AMD. And with all the marketing Intel have been doing plus the good stuff people have been saying about Core2 and Atom in the past year, Intel have probably won this game aswell.

[tickedon]

And they also havent been able to catch Intel unprepared like they did to nVidia with the 48xxs because the price/performance of them at the moment are generally too close the C2 and all intel have to do now is to just cut prices by a bit which will probably happen within the week.

Which ultimately leads to the same result - a better mid-range which forces "the other guy" - whether Intel or nvidia - to cut prices.

End of the day, if that happens, consumers like us benefit.

Intel have always been able to "out market" AMD - I can't really see that making any bigger difference now than it did last year, two years, three years ago etc...

[tonpal]

And with all the marketing Intel have been doing plus the good stuff people have been saying about Core2 and Atom in the past year, Intel have probably won this game aswell.

I believe Intel are in a position where they can do nothing but lose. Intel have had total dominance in the cpu marketplace for the last couple of years. Now AMD have brought out a quad that can compete with the Intel Yorkfield quads, which are still Intel's current mid to low range quad offering. If Intel drop their prices they lose profit, if they don't they lose marketshare.

On the AMD side they now have a couple of quad cores they can sell for more than their 65nm Phenoms and still undercut Intel.

[rabbid]

Nice to see AMD fighting back
Personally I am keen to see what a dual core part on the new 45nm can do, or even some banzai low power high clock single core Atom-izer
Indeed coupled with the upcoming 40-45nm VGA parts on a custom ITX or mATX board may well produce an interesting result.
Lets hope they can reduce power consumption even more as the parts mature.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

I believe Intel are in a position where they can do nothing but lose. Intel have had total dominance in the cpu marketplace for the last couple of years. Now AMD have brought out a quad that can compete with the Intel Yorkfield quads, which are still Intel's current mid to low range quad offering. If Intel drop their prices they lose profit, if they don't they lose marketshare.

On the AMD side they now have a couple of quad cores they can sell for more than their 65nm Phenoms and still undercut Intel.

how would they lose profit if they drop their prices? that doesnt make sence, their yorkfield cpu's are 2 years old and not that expensive to make anymore. please elabrate because from teh looks of it. its AMD thats losing and will continue to lose when teh core 2 quads go down in price AND teh new i5's come out. like i said, intel are probably Laughing their ass's off now.

The AMD P2's from what i can see only cater for the reletively small user bse they have by allowing AMD users to upgrade to this cheaply but thats where AMD messed up. instead of just pleasing their user base, they should concentrate in expanding it and right now, most newcomers to the genra of budget/mid range making pc's will probably go for a core 2 which is popular, priced same has a brand new P2 system and has been proven to be reliable and stable.

in the higher end of cpu's intel have pretty much wrapped that up quit easily with alot of time to counter ANYTHING that AMD releases again

[Biscuit]

remember this is the DDR2 counterpart of amd chips we have yet to see the AM3 chips witht he new chipset. comparing these chips to i7 really proves... well not a great deal. The fact is price performance wise they are quite similar to the midrange C2s and im pretty sure AMD can afford to scrap a bit off the cost if they need to.

[McPhee]

how would they lose profit if they drop their prices? that doesnt make sence, their yorkfield cpu's are 2 years old and not that expensive to make anymore. please elabrate because from teh looks of it. its AMD thats losing and will continue to lose when teh core 2 quads go down in price AND teh new i5's come out. like i said, intel are probably Laughing their ass's off now.

Did you skip Maths (and English for that matter) lessons in school or something? At the moment the Core 2 Quads slaughter AMD's Phenoms. Intel can price them wherever they like (within reason). The release of the Phenom IIs will force them to lower this price. If it costs them £100 to manufacture a chip that they sell for £250 then they are making £150 profit on that chip (in very simplistic terms). If they are forced to drop the price of that chip down to £200 to compete with AMD's new offerings then Intel will be making £50 less profit per sale. Thus, they are losing profit on these chips because AMD can now compete with them.

The same thing happened with the Q6600, Intel dropped the price when AMD were able to compete with it. They reduced their profit on this chip in order to retain market share.

[drunkenmaster]

You need to remember, uncore i7 speeds are 2.16 or 2.6Ghz, on these the equivilent is running at 1.8Ghz, you'll get a 10% bump at higher clocks(maybe more with more cache now, not sure) when running at 2.2/2.4Ghz. AM3 will be 25% lower power, these chips are scalling BRILLIANTLY with voltage and temps, meaning lower power, lower temps and more headroom, the AM3's should be looking in the low 4Ghz's 4-4.4Ghz maybe with the new stepping and stock faster northbridge. While Macci has shown a retail(i believe) 940 has hit 3.4Ghz under LN2 cooling, meaning it is capable or running that speed. Maybe voltage wise if even a few can't do 2Ghz stock voltage they knocked it down but should be something you try to overclock as soon as you get the chip.

I'm fairly sure these chips are infact faster than the Q series quite easily, they just need tweaking and people frankly aren't used to them at all yet, not seen any reviews showing northbridge clocking while Macci is showing some great scores with an uber high northbridge clock.

But the real killer, the best thing AMD can do is upwards unlock all the chips and make the black edition maybe only the first 50 or 100 cpu's from a batch to give them a much better chance of great clocking, maybe any great batches that can run lower voltage can go black edition.

But if AMD get back to the old days, offering an AM3 range that works on AM2+ with cheap ddr2, a £120 lower end quad that will still do 4Ghz, they will draw lots of sales.

But remember, AMD have nothing to fight for right now, theres not all that much reason to fight for market share until their production facilities are up and running. No point fighting for market share when you simply can't make more chips. Likewise the Phenoms have been in the works for years and years, they were designed as a comprimise between core size, performance and high yields and being able to make as many as possible. The delay to 65nm and 45nm is from nothing more than limited funds and high demands on current chips and downtime in the fab's causing problems. with a 3rd fab, then a 4th that becomes almost a non issue aswell as when going for market share actually having the spare capacity to make it worthwhile.

bulldozer will be a lot less far into final specs than Phenom was before the buyout, so Bulldozer, like the switch to 45nm, will have money pumped into it to go for performance. But this chip was also in the beginnings well before they knew they had massive financial backing.

At least with the extra funding switching to new process's and fab downtime isn't really a problem now. They could afford to pay TCSM a LOT of money for 45nm equipment, and not worry about the fab downtime for one reason, deep pockets. expect AMD to hit 32nm much sooner after Intel get there than the 65 and 45nm gaps.

Basically its a great chip but ultimately was always designed as a middle chip till their 3rd fab was available, at which point it will actually be worth pumping more money and time into R&D on an uber powerful chip.

Say they spent 200mil making the Phenom, they could have spent 5billion in fantasy land with all the best engineers in the world, its 5 times faster than the i7, Dell want it, Apple want it, everyone wants it, AMD can't make it......... and now they've spent 5billion on a chip that won't be around by the time their new fab is built, waste of cash no? Once they can really push the market, expect higher funding and better chips, its simple really, AMD are in cruise control applying a little pressure and keeping "known". The phenom truly is phenominal considering the circumstances in which it was made.


Think back, the Ath 64, AMD had a far smaller market share, plenty of spare capacity, no big contracts with Dell, they spent money, built a great chip and pushed the market share up a long way. But they hit their production limit. The fact their chip compete's, is astonishing when you realise their goal/budget.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Did you skip Maths (and English for that matter) lessons in school or something? At the moment the Core 2 Quads slaughter AMD's Phenoms. Intel can price them wherever they like (within reason). The release of the Phenom IIs will force them to lower this price. If it costs them £100 to manufacture a chip that they sell for £250 then they are making £150 profit on that chip (in very simplistic terms). If they are forced to drop the price of that chip down to £200 to compete with AMD's new offerings then Intel will be making £50 less profit per sale. Thus, they are losing profit on these chips because AMD can now compete with them.

The same thing happened with the Q6600, Intel dropped the price when AMD were able to compete with it. They reduced their profit on this chip in order to retain market share.

but they gain that profit back if not more for all those who buy their high end i7 stuff and lets face it. people who want to buy the fastest cpu will buy the i7.

so they lose £50 on a 2 year old cpu, is that such a loss for intel? every product u buy thats old weather theirs competition or not always go down in price. if pricing the core 2 lower then AMD'S p2, hows that a loss when they will maintain their huge user base while keeping AMD quiet. surely having a strong user base is the key to a business success? maybe im wrong but i still dont see how intel are losing.

look guys i really want AMD to do well and start competing with intel on all fronts. why? because A, im not a fanboya nd buy whichever product is best at the time and B, competition is good for me and you as both rival companies will be cutting their costs of their products and/or releasing newer and better tech.

you think im laughing and enjoy amd's so called comeback? no sir i am gutted actually and wished AMD had a cpu that can rival the i7's

[Biscuit]

bt did you really expect the P2 to compete with the i7? Even AMD knew that it wouldnt be a direct competitor but at the same time you have to remember an i7 mobo costs £190-270 and the CPU is 230+ wheras the P2 is 50-150 for the mobo and 170/210 for the CPU which is a huge difference. Il say it again though... wait for the AM3 before you start comparing to i7.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

when will the AM3 come out then and yes i was expecting them to start competing with Intel seeing as they have not been doing so for 2 years

[Biscuit]

Feb i think. Dont get me wrong i dont expect it to be that impressive in comparison but price will be much more important here as i cant see AMD asking for extortionate amounts for their motherboards... especially seeing as they wont be both SLI+crossfire compatible so they wont have to pay royalties to both companies.

But it does comptete with intel... just not on pure performance.

[scaryjim]

when will the AM3 come out then and yes i was expecting them to start competing with Intel seeing as they have not been doing so for 2 years

AM3 is scheduled for about halfway through this year, i believe, and frankly you know nothing about tech.

Core 2 was a massive leap forward, but remember it came - what - 4 years after Athlon handed P4 it's arse? AMD is now in the position Intel was in the early 2000s, with an uncompetitive product that's a generation behind. Even with Intel's huge R&D budget it took them several years to rebuild their core from the ground up - but man did they do a good job of it! My guess is that the shame of being beaten by a tiny upstart like AMD hurt Intel's pride so much that they've tripled their R&D budget - something they have plenty of money to do - as their published strategy now is to have a new architecture every two years (with a process-shrink in between). AMD simply don't have that R&D budget, so it will take them a lot longer to get a new architecture out the door.

What all that means is that AMDs new architecure (bulldozer, is it?) won't be available until late 2010 at the earliest: in the mean time Intel will have die-shrunk Core i7 to 32nm and will be ready to bring out their next generation. Unless AMD can find a huge input of R&D cash in the next 12 months (or get Phenom II stock clocks over 4GHz), I fear they will be left behind permanently...

[kalniel]

I think we'll see phenom II at or over 4ghz, that's doable. But it's not enough to compete with core i7, which also has some headroom in the clockspeed department - the real fight is going to be between mature phenom IIs and core i5. Core i5 has the potential to be a cracking chip - close to i7 in non-memory hungry applications, possibly even beating it in some cases (games?) while being able to work off a cheap as chips motherboard design at or lower than AMDs motherboards pricing. That'll give them all the headroom they need to win the performance mainstream market, leaving AMD to get the performance on a budget crowd, like me, with chips like the X3.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

AM3 is scheduled for about halfway through this year, i believe, and frankly you know nothing about tech.

Core 2 was a massive leap forward, but remember it came - what - 4 years after Athlon handed P4 it's arse? AMD is now in the position Intel was in the early 2000s, with an uncompetitive product that's a generation behind. Even with Intel's huge R&D budget it took them several years to rebuild their core from the ground up - but man did they do a good job of it! My guess is that the shame of being beaten by a tiny upstart like AMD hurt Intel's pride so much that they've tripled their R&D budget - something they have plenty of money to do - as their published strategy now is to have a new architecture every two years (with a process-shrink in between). AMD simply don't have that R&D budget, so it will take them a lot longer to get a new architecture out the door.

What all that means is that AMDs new architecure (bulldozer, is it?) won't be available until late 2010 at the earliest: in the mean time Intel will have die-shrunk Core i7 to 32nm and will be ready to bring out their next generation. Unless AMD can find a huge input of R&D cash in the next 12 months (or get Phenom II stock clocks over 4GHz), I fear they will be left behind permanently...

if i know nothing about tech i wont know what intel and AMD is i wont also know how to build a freaking pc with the right parts.

i may not know how cpu's are built or most of their technology terms that goes behind one but i damm sure know that intel have the fastest cpu's out at the moment whilst having a fantastic reliable and proven range of budget/midrange cpu's where P2 is suppose to be competing with

[Splash]

To be honest at this price point I can see them shifting a fair few units - My family are all due an upgrade from P4s, and while I would have been holding off for i5 I'm not sure they need that much grunt.