AMD lands triple whammy
FAR BE IT from the INQ to plug the competition, but leafing through the pages of Computer Shopper this weekend, we noticed something which confirmed a suspicion we've had for a while. AMD, the little playground kid that Intel likes to beat up on, seems to be making a Rocky-style comeback.
Computer Shopper, arguably one of the biggest-pulling paper magazines still around, recently printed a 'PC Mega Test' for machines in the low, medium and high ranges, with British box builder Mesh Computers winning all three categories for three separate AMD processor-based systems.
Since the launch of Intel's champion chip Conroe almost three years ago, AMD has been hard pressed to throw a punch, much less win a round in the highly competitive world of pugilistic processor pounding. So a PC-Mega Test win across three price categories bloodys Intel's nose somewhat and indicates things are trending up for AMD, with the advent of Phenom II helping the firm claw its way back into the ring.
"Twenty two years in the business has taught us that our customers prefer whatever technology wins," noted Mesh's sales and marketing director, Tony 'Rock Hard' Riccardi, adding that, although his firm was processor agnostic, "right now, AMD has a credible offering at a number of different price points and the value is really impressive."
Riccardi was quick to warn against complacency, however, emphasising, "Intel is always at its most dangerous when it feels threatened." He added that Chipzilla would likely launch an all-out offensive in April, with its Nehalem EP.
Still, if AMD can hold on to a modicum of momentum, the firm may still be able to give Intel a run for its (piles of) money in the ring. µ
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i7 beats the socks off everything AMD. This has to be fake. Or maybe AMD paid them.
It is a systems review across THREE PRICING CATEGORIES. They didn't say they were willing to throw down whatever cash was necessary to get an i7 with all the bells and whistles.
Never heard of them... Are they like Cyrix?
Right now most people are looking very hard at the entire platform price, not just the price of the chip.
AMD have some very attractive options here. You can put together a very respectable system for about 700 Euro using an AMD processor & motherboard & a 4850 Graphics card, then fit it out with a big HDD and a ton of RAM.
Most people aren't using their PC to do anything dramatic. A bit of casual gaming, and then work applications, so there's no need to go for the fastest possible option.
Yes Intel can be faster, but if it's not really going to make a difference to you then why pay more?
I have been a fan of AMD for years and what will make me stick with them is that even though the phenom II isn't "officaly supported" by my M2n32-SLIdeluxe, it works. yes, the AM3 works on my AM2 board(not to be confused with AM2+) saving me hundreds of dollars. That is something the i7 CANNOT do. I can use my old ram, mobo, and video cards. Go AMD, you got a win today, don't listen to the Intel fanny's, that expensive DDR3 they bought didn't leave any room for the pocket pussy's in their budget. I play at 1920X1200 and I don't need anything higher than a tri core phenom, runs everything great with my 8800GT SLI.
TY, and good morning...afternoon EU?
Personally, I think this is great news. Having had AMD processors for many years and then being disappointed by my Intel C2D x6800.
Where AMD wins really is bang for buck. Considering the top of the line Phenom II chip is roughly £200 and it'll cater for most peoples needs. The trouble with Intel is they know their high end parts are out of normal peoples reach and also usually not used to their potential until nearer the end of their service life. As a result they can charge £800 or so for the top end i7. If you spent £200 on an AMD processor per year, you'd end up 4 years in with probably an AM3+ in an AM3 board which runs far faster than the top of the line i7 you bought today and you'd have 3 spare CPU's if you haven't already put them into other PCs.
Intel CPUs as much as anything are for people who want bragging rights at LAN parties or who want to 'future proof' their computers, which as we all should have learned by now is a false economy. The remaining Intel fans buy them because they have more money than sense and want the best thats out now and probably only use 10% of it's power.
I will immediately subscribe to Computer Shopper. I have been looking for a while for a mag that does not take the Intel shilling.
Well I don't know about anyone else, but is it just me or is Core i7 more of an ego thing than anything else? It really seems like a "mines bigger than yours" arguement these days. I mean, these days more and more of the transcoding and rendering stuff is getting handled by the GPU anyway, so really I can't see Core i7 having any real benifits over either C2Q or PhII (cept for those extra 2 FPS in Crysis lol). And now that Intel has decided to bone its customers with Core i5 (a bit like AMD did with Socket 754 - with the whole "budget" socket), I feel like screwing Intel over for once and sacrificing those 2 FPS in Crysis or 4 nanoseconds of memory latency. Ohh, and pocketing an extra 200 dollars on the way...
At how retarded intel fanbois are.
The Inq should do some research and an article on whether or not intel fanbois are more retarded than nvidia fanbois.
Seriously, what makes these people so brain dead that they actually feel good 'supporting' these horrible companies?
IF IT WASN'T FOR AMD YOUR SYSTEM WOULD COST AT LEAST DOUBLE THE PRICE YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER MORONS.
It will never be in Intel's interest to crunch AMD. One reason being that if you have a 100% market share, you have to adjust the production all the time according to demand and you will end up with redundant production capacity, and that is not competitive.
The perfect situation for Intel is to have say 80% market share and keep all prodution capacity running at full speed and adjust the demand with the prices to either eat or give of the last 20% and that is what they are doing.
If they want to expand above that, they need to look for new markets, and that is what they are doing.
Off course it would be good for Intel, if AMD where a little less clever because then Intel could save money on the development of new technology.
We should look the mainstream budget which is up to £450.
None has £400 for CPU only, or want to pay 140 for DDR3.
I sold my Q6600/9600GT/SLI motherboard, and with the money I got P2 X3 720/4870 1GB/Xfire motherbord. (same price).
And the people who bought the Q6600 thought it was bargain comparing with what they can buy from Intel atm for the same money.
Did the article take overclocking into account? To me, that made Intel the clear winner in my personal computer choices. My 1.8GHz C2D runs perfectly at 3.14GHz aircooled and with stock voltage. Anything AMD had at the time I purchased by upgrades (over 1 year ago) was more than twice as much. From everything I've seen, it looks like about the same now (buy a "low-end" Intel C2D for cheap and overclock the snot out of it).
Companies advertise till market is established. Who thinks Sis, well still making controllers, SSD ones, too. today announced the first generation solid-state drive (SSD) memory controllers --- LVT820 and LVT815 which manage the latest solid-state memory devices and support external DRAM interfaces to meet the advanced SSD hard drive performance requirements. No Speed quote, however. With AMD/Intel, Two beats One by Bunch. Yet 3 seems to be strong solution. i controller core & two effector cores. Most of larger sounding cpu cores are still controller (or often NO controller core) with two branches of effectors, 2,4 or More effectors (controller NOT Counted). Yet tranie count & complexity of design seem to indicate More is close at Hand. X2 kept AMD Swinging, Now complex of greatness, in being small & Effiecent. Yet big stuff needs mapping & controlling for Maximum quality & response time. When AMD has its glitch+ Market, maybe widget TV is start, Cyrix does banks & Sis. Intel Does Everyone, so Leader by Default. Its Messy SchoolHouse, Yet Moving Forward Faster Than ever. Perfect Three,6,12 core units & Game Begins. Its Nicht, Not some dumb/Fake Larrabee. AMD Is Headed Into Storm With Good Sail.STeWie Drashek Ahso, Small Form Factor Deviecs is where Catch Up Monie is Being Spent, People Love Smart Phones & Thats Where Work Been Done recently.
And if Intel didn't put out Core 2's, you'd never have gotten Phenom II's out of AMD.
Have you seen some of the phenom II OC's? I got my 720 BE to 3.8 on AIR! 3.5 with stock vcore. not to mention that it is possible to unlock the 4th core. Like to see you do that on your 3.14ghz C2d.
Computer Shopper know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Their reviews are entirely dictated by the bottom line without regard to quality.
That's not to say that the Core i7 isn't overpriced at the moment, though.
Personally I'm sticking with Conroe for the next few years. It'll be a while before a fast quadcore with lots of memory is inadequate for most activities.
Don't leave out the fact that motherboards for Intel CPUs have skyrocketed in price as Intel has driven everyone else out of the Intel compatible chipset business.
We've simply returned to the situation where the fastest PCs are expensive Intel systems, and the best value PCs are AMD. This will continue until either Intel allows AMD to catch up by failing to innovate, or Intel decides to take market share from AMD by competing on price/performance.
So what else is new?
Would you nimrods post a LINK to your sources once in a while? You've turned this site from slightly-credible rag into a downright idiotic blog.
I wonder if anyone noticed that the reviews are for PRE-BUILT machines.
Things may turn out a bit different for all the DIY kits. You know, for the people who build their own computers.
To the people who are bashing this news because it's AMD and not INTEL or Overclocking rubbish etc. It's not about that for gods sake its about looking at 3 zones and looking at the best hardware for the money in the low, mid & high end.
Price = Performance
They did tests on which was the best for your money and AMD won all 3 no ones on the general market uses there PC's to the max. Like Video encoding or music converting and vid editing is the only one that would use a decent amount of CPU power. Even photo editing would do but most general owners don't use Photoshop CS3/4 or the high stuff just programs that came with there printer.
For that a i7 is seriously overkill and not needed general surfing and a decent set-up for light gaming AMD won simple because in this recession saving money would be most welcome by all.
"Would you nimrods post a LINK to your sources once in a while? You've turned this site from slightly-credible rag into a downright idiotic blog."
Oh dear... The source is a paper mag. How exactly do you expect them to provide you a link to an article in a paper mag? Bad Monday morning, eh?
Oh meh! Really?
Computer Shopper announced they are ceasing publication with the April 2009 issue. First PC Magazine, then Computer Shopper. I guess PC World is next.
Every price point has different winners and losers. That is as true for complete systems as it is for CPUs or any other component. Put a Ferrari up against a BMW X5 against dragster... which one wins? Depends - right? Curvy F1 tracks favour 1 style of car, off road another and 1/4 mile strips a 3rd. MESH has been making award winning systems in the UK for over 20 years - and we're very proud of that fact. Some years the majority of our sales are with Intel (486 DX2-66, P133, Q6600 etc). Other years with AMD (DX4-120, 2700+, FX). MESH, like the market, adapts. You guys - the customers - are smart enough not to get dragged in to the fanbois culture. Just consider your budget, what you want to achieve and the quality/performance you need... then do some research. THEN you can make a smart/informed choice :~)