when would you stop worring about overclocking. Only hardcore gamers will do that. Mainstream clients don't want to risk and they just want to know a plain what's best for my money answer. Business customers care about overall system performance.

For example, can you evaluate if VMware is running faster on this or that system. VMWare is a very demaninding system.

Very thorough and objective...great article!

In response to comment number 1. Why would you want overclocking information excluded? For any enthusiast, that's a deciding factor. Without it, you'd be mistakenly lead to believe that that an AMD processor from the article would provide a better price/performance ratio, when that's clearly not the case when both are pushed to potential (this coming from a long time AMD customer). I've been overclocking for almost ten years and have never killed a processor...even when I was new to the game and didn't know what I was doing. It's never been easier; especially when the amount of software tools that almost completely automate the process today are taken into consideration. An article about processor performance without overclocking information is only half the story and anybody with any level of do it yourself experience will keep looking when that's the case. Again, great job on this article...keep up the great work!

X-Bit Labs -> When we evaluated the performance level and price of the Core 2 Duo E6420, E6320 and E4400 processors in the previous article, we said: “…AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ should cost no more than $180, and Athlon 64 X2 4800+ and 4600+ - no more than $140, if they want to successfully compete with the new Intel CPUs…”. These words turned out prophetic.

And what was the remainder of your sentence ?

You said this : "...AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ should cost no more than $180, and Athlon 64 X2 4800+ and 4600+ - no more than $140, if they want to successfully compete with the new Intel CPUs. However, we doubt that a price cut like that will ever be possible."

Notice the difference ?!
" However, we doubt that a price cut like that will ever be possible."

X-Bit Labs -> "These words turned out prophetic."
Simply ridiculous !

- ~ - ~ - ~ -

Old comments -> http://www.xbitlabs.com/discussion/3788.html
The new prices are lower than my forecasts !

Great article guys, thorough and to the point. I like your overclocking evaluation also, as Knibbo said it's so easy nowadays it's almost universally done amongst enthusiasts, and the last time I checked Xbit is an enthusiast site. ;)

Damn, I wonder how much these two companies are marking up the processors from the baseline manufacturing cost?

Articles like this made me XBIT labs reader. It is not biased at all. I stoped reading tomshardware long time ago - Intel pays them too much :)

Great article. Great information. Great stock and overclocking info and evaluation, with good testing decisions. I'm truly impressed, and I got a lot of good info from it.

Wow great article. This is really great, and not biased like previous articles were.
I hope your next reviews will be on the same level, with same price/performance ratio. So people that have eyes will see what is better to buy for normal users.

Well, the article is offering a great variety of CPUs tested and of benchmarks, that is becoming rare these days when website will just test the 2 or 3 latest CPUs received from the mail.
But anyway I find the analysis lacking in some situations, letting it as an exercise to the reader is sad after so much time spent doing the testing.
For exemple you don't adress the fact that the X2 3800+ is vastly bettter than the X2 3600+, but also better than the X2 4000+ in most benchmarks , maybe due to the odd 2100 MHz frequency of the X2 4000+ (and of some of the other 65nm AMD's offerings).
That's why I have to disagree with that part of the conclusion :
"And although, if we take a closer look at the results, there are certainly some deviations from this rule, they are not so crucial."

HELLO EVERYONE!!
I know this isn't the subject & the right place but I have some intresting tidbits & info for you to enjoy with!!!

THE SPECS FOR THE UPCOMING nVIDIA GPUs
IS HERE!!!(provided to me by some unknown source...
I have some intresting information to youL:
nVIDIA is releasing their 8800 Ultra and 8950GX2 as well as other GPUs in the 8300,8400 and 8600 series on the 17 of April...prices and specs are as follows :

8950 GX2 (192 Stream Processors working at 1.70GHz)
Core Clock : 575MHz
Dual GPU design comprised out of two GPUs each of which has 96 SPs for a total of 192 SPs clocked at 1.70GHz..
640-bit memory bus (320bit*2)
96 TF/48 TA
Memory Size : 1280 MB GDDR4 Memories at 2.0GHz
160 GB/s Memory Bandwidth
8950GX2 comes with optional Water Cooling thogh water cooling won't be the retail version
The version of the 8950GX2 sold in stores will not have water cooling of any type!!!
price : 649 USD

PROS:
8950 GX2 will be 50% faster than a 8800GTX
CONS:
high PSU requirement and power consumption..
At 649 USD the 8950GX2 is VERY expensive

........................................................
8800 Ultra (128 Stream Prcessors at 1.80GHz)
Still on a 90nm process at TSMC
modified to support higher clocks than before
64 TF/32 TA
Core : 650MHz/
768MB GDDR4 at 2.2GHz /105.6 GB/s memory Bandwidth
8800 Ultra will be 30% FASTER than a 8800GTX in real world apps & Video games
& optimizations to the core to allow higher clocks (Remember 7800GTX 512 ??)
price for an 8800 Ultra : 549 USD
NO WATER COLLING FOR 8800 ULTRA!!
Cons: prices might be higher due to low supplies.(supplies will get better overtime & prices will go down)
price:549USD
......................................................
8600 GTS Spes & prices:(G84)
midrange GPU.
80nm 300 million transistors at TSMC
64 Stream Processors at 1.65GHz
32 TF/16 TA
Core Clock at 675MHz
Memory Clock at 2.0GHz (1ns)
128 bit Memory Bus /256MB-512MB GDDR4/32 GBs Bandwidth
price : 229USD for 512MB version and 199USD for 256MB version..
pros: 8600GTS is 50% faster than a Radeon X1950 XTX 512MB in real world apps & video games..
Cons : narrow memory bus
pros: amazing performance & best bang for the buck!!! (8600 GTS 3Dmark2006 score is
6500 points in 1280x1024 res on a stock X6800 Conroe CPU)
......................................................
8600 GT Specs:(G84)
same as 8600 GTS just with lower clocks
64 SPs at 1.30GHz
Core at 540MHz
128 bit memory bus
Memory Clock :1.40GHz using 1.4ns 256MB GDDR3 memories
performance for an 8600GT: same as an X1950 XTX & 7900GTX..
Cons : narrow memory bus
price : 169 USD

.....................................................
8500 GT Specs (Cut down G84)
48 Stream Processors at 1.20GHz
Core : 470 MHz
256MB GDDR3
performance : same as an 7900/7950 GT
cons: no cons for its class...
price 129 USD
................................................
8400 GS (Cut-down G84) Specs
48 SPs at 1.0 GHz
Core at 400MHz
Memory at 1.20GHz
256MB GDDR3
performance: in the range of 7900GS
Cons: No cons for its class
price: 99 USD
...................................................
8300 GS (c G86) Spes
32 Stream Processors at 1.0 GHz
Core : 400MHz
128/256MB GDDR3
performance : in the range of a 7600 GT
price: 79 USD
...............................................
After the this product release the prices MSRP for the 8800 GTX will go down to nice 449 USD..While the price for the 8800 GTS will go down for an impressive 299USD for the 8800GTS 640MB version and 249 USD for the 8800GTS 320MB version...

source : http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=8659

Hope you liked the GPU info I put.
As for the CPU prices drop...that's very good for gamers on a budget...But as for me I'll just wait
for the Core 2 Quad Q6700 to come in Q3 so I can buy that at a very nice price of 530 USD..

thank you xbitlabs, great job

Quite an eye-opening look into future price wars between the chip giants. However, still happy I stuck with Intel as the overclocking potential of the core 2 duo is amazing.

Ah? Ok! So AMD isn't that far behind.
At least they stay about neck and neck for stock performance vs. money spent.
I thought it was far worse.

Well... nice it means that there is atleast some hope for AMD in the future.

"Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 (LGA775, 1.8GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB L2, Allendale);" = E4300?

Why in the world is E4400 faster or very simular in E6320 in many bench mark tests??!!

How about the overclocking performance Athlon 64 X2 3600+? There is an economic incentive to overclocking so why not stick in the bang-for-buck graph to compare 3600+ with E4400 and see which one is the better buy?

With all due respect, April is NOT the start of a price war between AMD and Intel. The price war started over ten years ago and just continues today. Intel has tried in desperation to maintain their illegally gained monopoly, but despite "fire sale" prices on their products, AMD continues to take market share from Intel in every single market segment.

Things will only get worse for Intel now that AMD is releasing Barcelona and it's many iterations.

intel is for jews