Does anyone understand which AMD CPU they're buying?

THE CHAPS at MSI have gone out of their way to make things easy for the world+dog trying to understand what the heck AMD desktop CPU names and numbers all mean.

As MSI points out, the Athlon 64 is named, actually numbered, using the "PR" rule but there are different cores. Then there's the FX and the X2 series. And SOI, and other stuff.

That results, as MSI points out, that "many people just don't know the exact speed of the processor as well as the meaning of the model numbers".

So MSI has a little photograph of a chip and attempts to explain the "OPN" number to its customers. [What does OPN mean? Ed.] For example, "ADA" represents the brand name, CD represents the part definition, and "6" represents the L2 cache size.

Could anything be clearer? [Yes, Ed.] When you go along to Best Buy and Dixons and you're buying a desktop, be sure to print out the picture and the definition and show it to the sales person. She or he will then no doubt prise open the case, rip off the heatsink, and be able to tell you immediately just exactly what you're buying.

So far we haven't found an equivalent way of telling what Intel CPU you're buying, but no doubt the sales staff will be happy to do the same if you're just about to lash out on a desktop Chipzilla machine.

Surely it would only be the absurdly cynical who would suggest that a combination of numbers, letters, code names, cores, cache and the like were there to befuddle the surely already befuddled consumer? µ

L'INQ
Useful MSI page