X-bit labs

Started by: TAViX | Date 01/30/08

Comments: 114 | Last Comment:  05/01/08

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1. No comments to add except this: AMD is DEAD!!! That's the hard truth. The Phenom procs. sucks even more than 64 X2, so if they don't cut the price at half, at least, they will go bankrupt or somethin'...

You aint too bright is ya. So I will....talk .....real.....slow for.....you.....O.....K.....

If AMD goes down we will all be in touble and you will see Intell CPU prices go through the roof. Plus you will be stuck with the Core architecture for the next 100 years.

O BTW AMD aint going nowhere..........dude...............

We will only be"stuck"with core architecture until Q4 of this year when Nehalem architecture
is released.I don't want to see AMD disappear but I'm not going to spend my $ on an inferior
product either.I also don't remember AMD cutting us any slack pricewise when their chips
were the best-an FX used to cost $1000+ not so long ago.Brand loyalty is bullshit-I will buy
whatever is the best bang for my buck.

So who do we thank for these low prices? Both Intell and AMD as I remember were cutting no one slack. Even netburst Intell chips were way over priced and people still purchased them. I agree best bang for the buck but the whole amd sucks I hope they go out of business is kinda childish. Plus a lot of AMD cpu's are still going strong. Look at the charts. If you have a high end AMD chip there is no need to even upgrade at this point just drop in a better GPU. In regards to the Intell chips, why would you ever buy the high end Intell chips when you can just over clock the cheap ones.

Intel does'nt need to gouge us when their chips are selling faster than they can make them.They
are'nt charging anymore for Wolfdale than Conroe based cpu's as the article points out.I don't
believe Intel is as evil as a company like microsoft[pray Ballmer never signs on with Intel-then we
will all be paying $300 for a Celeron].Even if AMD folds Intel will still face competition from
VIA down the road in the low to mid range segment[some of their new cpu features are supposedly superior to Intel's designs].At the moment Intel basically has no competition anyway.

If AMD died and was bought out by Intel, that would be better because they would be able to work together to create a better processor.

If AMD died prices would not rise as people are spoiled now and wouldn't shell out the extra money for processors that they don't need.

I don't see why anyone would stop being interested in computers just because there was no competition.

2. Please correct page 2 - the C2D E4xxx series does NOT have VT.

Also the street prices for the 8400 is quite a bit higher than the MRSP (most places sell it for around $220 USD).

And the 8200 is almost a paper launch with availability looking to be in April.

Finally my personal choices in each price range would be the E8400, X2 5200+ (65w 2x1MB L2 core) and the E2160 (but only if OCed).

Corrected, thanx

3. Just to clear up, i made a quick look in newegg for this processor prices and the amd procs are cheaper than the retail prices listed here, while the intel procs are higher priced than the retail prices listed here, so for the low end at least they have equal performance corresponding with their prices. anyway, great review overall.

4. BTW very nice article! And I'm not surprised to see something like this at Xbitlabs ;)

The price points and performance near the low-end are all quite close so it other factors become quite important such as temps, if OCing, MB pricing, etc.

Agreed--great article. The results are definitely of practical use, too.

I'll third that.

Nice chart work on page 9.

5. To no include overclocking in this day and age is a disgrace - i really like this site too!

To compare the 3.18ghz E8500 to 3.2ghz amd cpu that is clocked to max is right out of the amd play book!

Try comparing a E8500 at 4ghz or 4.5ghz then rewrite this. Sorry guys you do good stuff but no overclocking kills the article.

Note sure if your guys heard this, but HP and Dell now overclock computers! Its main stream and part of configuring a good system. Fix the article please!

I think there is a good justification for not including overclocking--it's too dependent on factors other than the CPU model for sensible evaluation of price vs. performance. For example, it might be that X-bit's E8200 overclocks better than their E8500, but this is not likely to be the case for all samples of those processors. A more serious problem is that performance-per-watt figures are unlikely to fall out in a sensible fashion given overclocking, because the overclocked power dissipation of different samples of the same processor can be wildly different--and the nominal ranking by that metric will also change depending on how far someone chooses to overclock. X-bit always tests overclocking when reviewing new CPUs, but I think overclocking misses the point of this particular article somewhat for these reasons.

6. Shut up Dragonsprayer. Your comments clearly show you have been caught in the marketing hype of overclocking. Overclocking can only do so little and that is why their benchmarks prove the numbers don't mean anything more than token. Now companies see gullible fools like you that they begin introducing OC versions that increase performance by 1% yet charge 50 dollars more than the stock!

wow a complete..... well raising fsb does nothing? what about memory bandwidth? yes i am well known and have plenty of amd enemies - your true green amd colors show!

as we all know if the best amd cpu and the best intel cpu where properly tuned (overclocking too noobies) the intel lead would be proportional to the overclock or about 25% higher.

now that i see some fire on this site i will spend more then 1 min typing my opinion. Again. xbit should have overclocked the chips too - i love this site. I am really disappointed in the fact that you did not overclock and show the real potential of the 8000 series chips.

Warpedsystems is shipping 4.25ghz air cooled E8400 systems for less then $2000, go head and try that with the amd cpu!

Lots of people don't overclock, the article is useful without it.

Why would someone spray a dragon?

99% of the computers purcased out there in world are not over clocked. Do your own over clocking. Again there are too many variables. Yea I have seen a few OC systems being sold paired up with crappy video cards. But that is the exception not the rule. Most people don't over clock. Hell it is probably less than 1% that over clocks.

7. Another great article, your the only place that reaches the level of depth I need, and simultaneously present your findings with clarity and eloquence.

Keep it up. Thank you.

8. Great article! Ilya, keep up the good work!

AMD really needs to step it up so that they release a competitive processor really soon. I don't think Phenom will be enough. They need a processor redesign and to move to 45nm.

9. Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles and Ten thousand thundering typhoons. Shut up BestInTheNest. OC is one of the most important deciding factors when it comes to purchasing new hardware, specially the CPU(for enthusiasts). Overclocking is made real simple, turn up the fsb and get your q6600 working at 3.0GHz no problems and us gullible fools get the performance of a $1000 chip for $270. OC had been present in almost all the previous xbitlabs reviews, would've been nice if we had it in this one.

thank you - I like to add I own warpedsystems, I build a pc a week myself custom. WSZ only sell's overclocked systems, we have since 2003 and we back up every system with a 3 year cpu warranty! Ask our customers - zero failures since 2003!

Back to the debate as "best" says a 1% gain? Ya try 25% plsu! We all know that there is huge difference in responsiveness for nothing there is not cost to oc the system. Why do HP and Dell only oc their flagship systems?

Unlike Dell and Hp who only overclock their $7000 flagships we oc every system. We do it first and we do it better they anyone.

Good luck!

ps: xbit please redo this excellent article with oc! Yes, i am critical but i still gave it a 10!

Dude, stop pimping your business here. X-bit doesn't get any ad revenue from people like you.

10. Very good article and a valuable business tool at that, I can use this to make the right choice for the business environment where it would be needed.

Regards

11. Excellent summary.

The price/performance plots are excellent.

12. Those e8400's look awesome!My e6750 is going on ebay soon.
R.I.P. AMD.

13. Those XY graphs are BEAUTIFUL!!!
I've been asking every site for that kind of information for a looong time
You definitely are the ones closest to the needs of the average consumer
Thanks a lot

14. My E8400 test system is running 4.25ghz and its super fast! The cpu runs about the same as an E6420/E6600 clocked to 3.4ghz.

Kudos! Very thorough and interesting article.
I was started to get disappointed in Xbits lately because of their very late video card reviews, but their handling in regard to the CPUs as of late has been very impressive indeed.
And no, contraty to what "Dragonslayer" (how old are you, 10?) says, not including overclocking results does not "kill" the article. Most buyers do not overclock and I think most are much more interested in aspects such as power consumption heat and price/performance.

To not o.c. a core2duo is criminal dude-they are MADE for it!If you are worried about damaging
your chip/system just leave the voltages alone.The worst that can happen is that you will have to
clear the CMOS to get going again-oooooooh scary!!!

15. amd got pwnd which means we will be boned :(

16. I would be interested in knowing if for AMD vrs Intel processors the use of 64 bit,over 32 bit poses any advantage for AMD.

It would seem that AMD would have an advantage since its processors utilize higher specs on its L1 caches.

Just curious.If the numbers would change at all using the same charts and tests.Just loading the Vista 64,or XP 64. With them.

I think 64 bit is generally over-looked as for many people there are too many issues with XP and Vista 64 bit for mainstream usage to be a sensible option. It would be interesting to see the results but as there are so few 64 bit applications that I wonder what they’d test!

Think that more memory usage is the wave of the future. Even though software programs are tending to get bloated. With the speed of memory there is certainly no way that you would not want to use it. I have read several satisfied persons articles about 64-bit computing.Using Vista.One in Sudhian,and one in a Commentary within ExtremeTech.
If you look,the large PCI 2 machines from Intel are rather long on realistics. As least as far as the desktop I have here. When and If the newer chipset concuring with X38,x48 are m-atx then perhaps I will see them as realistic for me. 600 watts or less for me. And 64 bit.

There is an older article on this site comparing 64bit performance of an A64 FX-62 vs C2E X6800: http://xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2duo-64bit.html

The Intel bus speeds are 1333 megahertz here,and the caches on the fastest part of the processor are 6x that of the AMD parts. While the CPU of AMDs has an instuctrion set wich is about the same multiple as that of the size of cache (about 6x).This is wuring around at the top center of the CPU in megahertz. Where it would seem that a single cycle of instruction would certainly be accomadated better than the Intel CPU. The output of those parts Intel,and AMD are mathmatically distributive to their quanties. Bus Speed and size,Cache Speeds and size,Memory speeds and size.
Given the 64-bit option,where the single cycle doesn't meet any misses.
AMD will probably have 'somewhere,where that CPU feature shows its strength.Though for the case of its actual overal value,it doesn't necesarily outpase the Intel CPU.
I want an AMD,and an Intel setup...a practical upgrade solution from AMD would as well be good.

17. "This way, competitors from AMD will be less preferable for quiet performance systems, at least according to common sense."

I'm not sure about that last time I checked AMD CPUs where much cooler.
Why do you guys think Intel doesn’t release 3.4, 3.6, 3.8, 4.0Ghz CPU out of the box it they OC that high? AMD has 3.2Ghz CPUs manufactured at antic 90nm!!!
Maybe thermals is the answer, or the stupid lack of competition is still the common excuse?
I didn’t saw AMD halting the release of faster Atlhlons64/X2 just because the Pentium4/D sucked.

Also AMD systems have much better IGP for its platforms. Last time I checked Intel IGP still suck at all tasks except linux.
Remember all those facts when you see read the article.

PS: Where the E6xxx go? Seems like Intel no longer sells those.

‘AMD systems have much better IGP for its platforms.’

For mainstream desktop usage the difference is negligible although for a HTPC AMD have more interesting solutions. HTPC is a very small chunk of the market so in affect it’s not such a big deal. Personally I’d rather go with a discrete VGA card in which case the platform choice becomes mainly irrelevant.

18. Great article. reminds me of the one you did right after the April 2007 price cuts, at that point Intel and AMD were neck-and-neck in price/performance ratio. now Intel has turned on the Afterburner and blown away the competition.

no reason to buy AMD now...except the HD3870.

How about a Sampr0n for granny? B-)

19. in a previous test you (xbitlabs) showed that the new intel wolfdale cpus consume about 3 watts in idle. but the total system consumes in this test here 171 watts. the 8800GTX consumes according to xbitlabs 70 watts. (70+3)/0.7(bad psu efficiency)=74W.

Where does the rest (97 watts) go?

I would love to see the breakdown(memory, NB, hdd, vrm) of the power consumption in an future article. But i think it will be too hard to measure, even for you guys.


the mentioned previous test: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/intel-wolfdale_11.html#sect0

wops messed up with the calculation somehow.
(70+3)/0.7(bad psu efficiency)=104W.

Where does the rest (67 watts) go?

20. Ordering a new 8400 right now. Sorry, AMD, better luck next time.

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