News - AMD Phenom II X6 "Thuban" processors priced?

[HEXUS]

Under $200 for a hexa-core CPU clocked at 2.8GHz, says Bahrain-based retailer.

Read more.

[Percy1983]

There is no arguement that intel hold the best processors, but AMD do keep making great deals for us 'normal' people who don't have unlimited pockets.

Will be interesting to see how this lines up in the benchmarks.

[cordas]

These seem a tad cheap to me when compared against intel's pricing. Either these chips are woefully short on performance when compared to the 980x, we are in for a bargain unseen since the days of the celeron 300a or this information is just wrong.

[scaryjim]

... Either these chips are woefully short on performance when compared to the 980x, ...

You have been reading reviews of Phenom II vs i7, haven't you?

I think it's pretty obvious that hexacore Thuban isn't going to get anywhere near the i7 980X. The top clocked Phenom II Quad Core can't even compete with an i7 920, after all. Thuban was always going to be 6-core for the mainstream, and with high clock speeds, a turbo mode, and 6 actual cores, it should compete very well against the lower i7s, so a $295 list price for the top end model would make a lot of sense. We'll have to wait for Sandy Bridge and Bulldozer to see if AMD can challenge for the extreme performance segment - in the mean time, this looks like it could be a good stab at the lower end of the enthusiast market...

Now we just need to wait for benchmarks... *sigh*

[kalniel]

Quite - it's about targeting different sectors of the market. At the moment the only >4 core chips from Intel are extreme enthusiast grade or pricey server ones. Their mainstream offerings are quad or even less as they seem to be pushing towards dual core.

If you do have a reason to use multiple cores then this is the only mainstream option.. assuming AMD can hit the pricing right.

[R3MF]

It is irrational, but 3.2GHz is a magic number for me, i want one!

[Terbinator]

It will be good to see how this compares to the i7 920.

[Darren]

This is like a massive downer for me after having just picked up an i7 -930.

I can't see this being anything other than a killer blower to Intel's lower i7 range on the 1366. You've got two more physical cores in a smaller TDP envelope at a near enough even price. It'll likely be around the same performance as the 920/930 on everyday tasks but will have the advantage in multi threading. When you take into account the infastructure cost difference, e.g. motherboards being a good deal cheaper for the AMD part it just ends up making even more sense.

I was expecting the AMD part to have this kind of performance, it is not a surprise, but for about $200-300 more. To say it is a kick in the teeth having gone the Intel route is an understatement , it looks like they're not even attempting to compete in the ultra high end but for the lower 1366 region.

Where they'll get in overclocking is the interesting part I reckon.

[Terbinator]

I think your worrying about nothing, the i7's will still probably come out on top - but by how much in a cost: performance sense will be interesting.

[nibbler]

Will these be 32nm?

[scaryjim]

Will these be 32nm?

AFAIK, no. AMD aren't due to go 32nm until the Llano APU either very late this year or at the very start of next year. Given how much of an advance moving to 32nm would be I suspect we'd have been seeing a lot more about it if they were!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I beat Hexus again:

http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...rboards-2.html

[Brewster0101]

Would this require a new 8xx series chipset to use this or will the old 7xx series chipset work with the new CPUs?

[kalniel]

Old ones work fine.