My Phenom II benchmarks

[Tom128]

Hmmm while these preliminary results look somewhat promising for the Phenom II, the comments on the HardOCP front page seem to hint that there isn't much to get excited about. I wonder what is up with that? Maybe they have had time to run some more extensive benchmarks and they are not impressed with the results?

I was a bit surprised when I saw that message as well. From the posts that have made their way onto the net, it looks like Deneb will be ballpark the same performance per clock as core2's, and they very clearly clock better than Phenom's, hitting 6.3Ghz in Chicago (LN2) and breaking 4Ghz in a lot of the leaked results. My only guess is that he was stating that Phenom II will not be bringing anything noteworthy or new to the table, simply catching AMD back up to where Intel was for some time.

That said I honestly don't think Intel has one-uped themselves even, at least for a desktop part. Their i7 parts are nice but they don't really bring anything new to the table either other than a next gen performance increase.

 

[4330thgink]

Wow... hmmm... ..looks like I'll be sticking with my Athlon XP-M for another 2-3 years until the next generation of processors are out.

 

[lewchenko]

If Phenom II performance = Core i7 performance AND I can get a Phenom II + motherboard for less than an i7 package, then it's win win for AMD.

I personally am not that impressed by Core i7 (unless you are a multi core encoding whore.. who would be ?). Plus the prices are extreme, especially for the motherboards.

So even if AMD has *just* played catch up, this in itself is a feat worth congratulating.

Competition is good for us remember !

 

[ZMTToxics]

I am sure the CPU will be a fine replacement for my 5200+.

Also, it is my understanding that AM3 cpus will work in AM2+ motherboards but forced to use DDR2 mode.

Edit: typo.

 

[Silent.Sin]

Hmmm while these preliminary results look somewhat promising for the Phenom II, the comments on the HardOCP front page seem to hint that there isn't much to get excited about. I wonder what is up with that? Maybe they have had time to run some more extensive benchmarks and they are not impressed with the results?

I think he (and quite a few other journalists) are probably still a tad miffed at what happened with the Phenom I launch. Pre-launch there was all sorts of AMD-driven hooplah about 3GHz launch parts everywhere, huge 3DMark scores, blahblahblah. Then when it came time to show they fell on their face and made all the sites that posted rumors and expectations of amazing performance look stupid. I don't blame him for saying what he did. I think it's just a story of too little too late for AMD to try and go around gloating about performance numbers or try and generate hype in this manner.

That being said, the fact that the Phenom has trailed so far behind the Core2 for the past year is mostly moot to me, I wasn't in the market to upgrade during that time anyway. The last time I bought a CPU the Core2 didn't even exist yet. If when the Phenom II comes out -and with proper benchmarking- it is comparable to a Core2 that will certainly grab my attention. I will probably be looking to upgrade in the next year and I don't really think the cost of an i7 system is justified for my usage as it stands right now. If Phenom II still can't equal a Core2 for the money next year then it'll actually be a harder decision of whether or not to go to a dead Core2 platform, or spend the cash on i7 which will have some upgrade life left in it. If I had to buy right now I'd probably go with a Phenom II over a Core2 if price and performance were equal based on the possibility of future upgrades and it's a little more fun to play with since there is ACC and whatnot.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

I am sure the CPU will be a fine replacement for my 5200+.

Also, it is my understanding that AM3 cpus will workin in AM2+ motherboards but forced to use DDR2 mode.

yes.. all am3 does is enable ddr3 support there is no performance gain besides the ddr3 support

 

[MrVTEC]

My Phenom 9850 @ 3.2 completes Pi in 25 seconds, so the Phenom II @ 3.0 is still faster than my chip. I'll be dropping one in my system for sure. I just can't justify the cost for an i7 system now...

 

[funkydmunky]

If when the Phenom II comes out -and with proper benchmarking- it is comparable to a Core2 that will certainly grab my attention. I will probably be looking to upgrade in the next year and I don't really think the cost of an i7 system is justified for my usage as it stands right now. If Phenom II still can't equal a Core2 for the money next year then it'll actually be a harder decision of whether or not to go to a dead Core2 platform, or spend the cash on i7 which will have some upgrade life left in it. If I had to buy right now I'd probably go with a Phenom II over a Core2 if price and performance were equal based on the possibility of future upgrades and it's a little more fun to play with since there is ACC and whatnot.

I agree. Does one go for a dead end 775 platform with similar costs, or an i7 platform with some big MB and RAM costs(and a rumoured socket change within a year). For me RAM is very important in a media workstation. 16GB RAM in a PII system is doable. 12GB in an i7 system is an arm and a leg, and is still not enough RAM, and I haven't even seen DDR3 4GB sticks yet nor has there been any mention of MB support.

 

[TekRok]

i have a feeling Intel is paying everyone off to say how bad the Deneb is and blah blah, afterall they have more money to pump into markets for just this, and have deals with stores that only carry intel, i wouldnt be surprised if thats whats going on here on H

whatever way you look it, the cost for i7 is so pointless, even with todays economy they hike up the prices for something thats almost not even an upgrade from current 775's.

I will be much happier to support AMD, i am just looking for a good all around system. couldnt give a rats ass about encoding or whatnot, seems you people are expecting a nasa computer to be in your room

 

[Table21]

its not bad, its very easy to O/C, and runs stuff great. However, it is just not as fast as I7. It all comes down to price. An amd platform is cheaper than intel. You also have the option of going ddr2, if you want. so long as this chip comes out cheaper than the q9550 I think it will be popular.

 

[Esstee]

its not bad, its very easy to O/C, and runs stuff great. However, it is just not as fast as I7. It all comes down to price. An amd platform is cheaper than intel. You also have the option of going ddr2, if you want. so long as this chip comes out cheaper than the q9550 I think it will be popular.

Agreed.
I was looking at i7 as a replacement for my workstation(rendering), but if I can keep my existing Opteron and place two PII's in a mini cluster for the same price, then its a no brainer. 8 Phenom II cores will outperform a Core i7 with overhead to spare.

What I would love to know, is whether or not to they could run comfortably @ 4Ghz under water.

 

[TekRok]

Agreed.
I was looking at i7 as a replacement for my workstation(rendering), but if I can keep my existing Opteron and place two PII's in a mini cluster for the same price, then its a no brainer. 8 Phenom II cores will outperform a Core i7 with overhead to spare.

What I would love to know, is whether or not to they could run comfortably @ 4Ghz under water.

only time will tell, but from tests that have been posted it can hit 4.0G with room to go

 

[DarkLegacy]

If Phenom II performance = Core i7 performance AND I can get a Phenom II + motherboard for less than an i7 package, then it's win win for AMD.

I personally am not that impressed by Core i7 (unless you are a multi core encoding whore.. who would be ?). Plus the prices are extreme, especially for the motherboards.

So even if AMD has *just* played catch up, this in itself is a feat worth congratulating.

Competition is good for us remember !

That the thing though. On par performance does not cut it now. AMD needs a CPU that is equivalent to what the AMD 64 did to Pentium 4's. AMD needed a CPU that was clearly better than the Ic7. Forcing Intel to drop there prices only hurts AMD more in the long run since those Intel processors will still sell more than AMD CPU's. Sure, some PC enthusiast may choose the AMD Phenom II but the rest of the world remains the same. Dell, HP/Compaq, Gateway/Acer will still heavily favor Intel. Apple is 100% Intel as we already know. That's where the money is at. Not with us PC gamers & hardcore enthusiast. Also don't write off any form of encoding. Guess what audio/video production studios look for? It isn't gaming performance =). The AMD Phenom II is a step in the right direction & a very good attempt but it won't change anything as it still falls short.

 

[Riccochet]

That the thing though. On par performance does not cut it now. AMD needs a CPU that is equivalent to what the AMD 64 did to Pentium 4's. AMD needed a CPU that was clearly better than the Ic7. Forcing Intel to drop there prices only hurts AMD more in the long run since those Intel processors will still sell more than AMD CPU's. Sure, some PC enthusiast may choose the AMD Phenom II but the rest of the world remains the same. Dell, HP/Compaq, Gateway/Acer will still heavily favor Intel. Apple is 100% Intel as we already know. That's where the money is at. Not with us PC gamers & hardcore enthusiast. Also don't write off any form of encoding. Guess what audio/video production studios look for? It isn't gaming performance =). The AMD Phenom II is a step in the right direction & a very good attempt but it won't change anything as it still falls short.

It's WAY cheaper than i7's and has decent performance for a fraction of the cost. Dell, HP/Compaq, Gateway and such are going to buy them up. Corporations looking for cheap powerful workstations are going to buy them up. Large corporations aren't saying "I'd rather spend more for Intel simply because it's Intel and we're Intel fanboys". Hehe. They're saying "what can I get that's cheap and powerful and current?"

The enthusiast's only account for a pretty insignificant percectage of CPU sales. Why would a company spend $1000+/per on 5-10,000 workstations doing a hardware refresh when they can spend half that? For business applications the PII's look pretty damn good.

They didn't make the PII to appease the gamer community or even compete with the i7. They made it to get their marketshare up where it counts, in corporations around the world.

 

[Vermillion]

They didn't make the PII to appease the gamer community or even compete with the i7. They made it to get their marketshare up where it counts, in corporations around the world.

Exactly!

I see this more as AMD is going to move their CPU's along the same lines as the GPU's did with the HD4000 series. Get it in the price points where they can make profit. Price/Performance is what they're heading towards. The enthusiast market is very, very small. Not a whole lot of money comes from that price point. So for AMD it's better to make something that costs less with very good performance instead of something that costs a fortune for great performance.

So in the long run those of us who don't have money to burn on a i7 build can get the much cheaper Phenom II solution and be happy. And competition like that will force Intel to lower prices a bit (not much but some) making it a win-win for everybody.

 

[Dan_D]

Exactly!

I see this more as AMD is going to move their CPU's along the same lines as the GPU's did with the HD4000 series. Get it in the price points where they can make profit. Price/Performance is what they're heading towards. The enthusiast market is very, very small. Not a whole lot of money comes from that price point. So for AMD it's better to make something that costs less with very good performance instead of something that costs a fortune for great performance.

So in the long run those of us who don't have money to burn on a i7 build can get the much cheaper Phenom II solution and be happy. And competition like that will force Intel to lower prices a bit (not much but some) making it a win-win for everybody.

Well eventually Intel will have Core i7's that are FAR cheaper that cut into the sub $200 price points. Right now though the Core i7 is really just on the high end.

 

[Marix]

i can't wait to see what am3 brings to the table.

 

[Vermillion]

Well eventually Intel will have Core i7's that are FAR cheaper that cut into the sub $200 price points. Right now though the Core i7 is really just on the high end.

True, but how will they perform compared to a Phenom II? Are they considerably faster or just faster? Right now C2D/C2Q are all considerably faster then Phenom. What will the final price points be for Phenom II and the lower end i7 when they're available to the public? A lot of questions yet to be answered. You may know some of the answers but we don't.

Plus there's still the added cost of motherboard and DDR3 prices versus DDR2. Of course DDR3 prices will drop as will motherboards (until the next chipset comes out) but until AM3 motherboards show up anybody looking at Phenom II will only look at the sickly low price of DDR2. $36 for 4GB OCz Fatal1ty DDR2-800 over at the Egg right now. Gotta love it.

I hope the [H] shows the difference in AM3 Phenom II performance between DDR2 and DDR3. Would be interesting to see how much speed is actually gained by moving from DDR2 to DDR3...

 

[AmongTheChosenX]

Phenom II is going to be awesome...


but I'm sticking with my 775 680i Motherboard and e8400 . probably for the next year.

 

[Dan_D]

True, but how will they perform compared to a Phenom II? Are they considerably faster or just faster? Right now C2D/C2Q are all considerably faster then Phenom. What will the final price points be for Phenom II and the lower end i7 when they're available to the public? A lot of questions yet to be answered. You may know some of the answers but we don't.

Plus there's still the added cost of motherboard and DDR3 prices versus DDR2. Of course DDR3 prices will drop as will motherboards (until the next chipset comes out) but until AM3 motherboards show up anybody looking at Phenom II will only look at the sickly low price of DDR2. $36 for 4GB OCz Fatal1ty DDR2-800 over at the Egg right now. Gotta love it.

I hope the [H] shows the difference in AM3 Phenom II performance between DDR2 and DDR3. Would be interesting to see how much speed is actually gained by moving from DDR2 to DDR3...

We will see.

Phenom II is going to be awesome...

On what do you base this expectation?

 

[AmongTheChosenX]

We will see.



On what do you base this expectation?

no i just think its going to somewhat boost AMD back to what we've been expecting of them. it may not be revolutionary, but again, i7 is nothing revolutionary either.

what about power consumption on these new phenom II chips?

 

[Dan_D]

no i just think its going to somewhat boost AMD back to what we've been expecting of them. it may not be revolutionary, but again, i7 is nothing revolutionary either.

what about power consumption on these new phenom II chips?

Core i7 provides a huge leap ahead of Core 2 Duo in the right applications. No it isn't as much of a performance enhancement as what we saw going from Pentium D to the Core 2 Duo, but it is close in some areas.

All the rumors on the internet suggest that Phenom II just gets a die shrink and more L3 cache compared to the original Phenom. This would hardly change things in regard to what we are seeing out of AMD right now. I'm betting that at most we see the Phenom II equal Core 2 Quad Q6x00 (Kentsfield) and I expect that it will fall short of Core 2 Quad 9xx0 (Yorkfield/Yorkfield XE). I also suspect that if the rumors are true about what is actually being changed with Phenom II then I'd bet on Phenom II being WOEFULLY short of meeting Core i7's performance levels.

In short, I don't expect much out of Phenom II and I have to wonder if expectations I've read about are based on something I've not heard or if they are based on "positive thinking" and hope that AMD can put out something more competitive than what we've seen with the original Phenom. You have to understand that engineering a semi-conductor this complex takes time. AMD didn't get Phenom right and or (probably a combination of both) underestimated Intel and Core 2 Duo/Quad. So until they can get something designed, fabricated and tested they won't be releasing any processors based on a completely new architecture. That's what it is going to have to happen for AMD to catch up to Intel. Phenom isn't going to do it. Throwing a die shrink and more L3 cache on Phenom won't cut it.

Take that for what it is worth. I've been saying this for some time now. I'm not trying to bash AMD or anything, but face facts, Phenom II isn't going to be a whole lot better than Phenom I was based on everything I've read out there.

 

[Silent.Sin]

It's WAY cheaper than i7's and has decent performance for a fraction of the cost. Dell, HP/Compaq, Gateway and such are going to buy them up. Corporations looking for cheap powerful workstations are going to buy them up. Large corporations aren't saying "I'd rather spend more for Intel simply because it's Intel and we're Intel fanboys". Hehe. They're saying "what can I get that's cheap and powerful and current?"

The enthusiast's only account for a pretty insignificant percectage of CPU sales. Why would a company spend $1000+/per on 5-10,000 workstations doing a hardware refresh when they can spend half that? For business applications the PII's look pretty damn good.

They didn't make the PII to appease the gamer community or even compete with the i7. They made it to get their marketshare up where it counts, in corporations around the world.

That all depends on what options are offered that sport the new PIIs from the vendors and what kinds of bulk deals they can make. There are a lot of caveats with AMD, one is that they are nowhere close to Intel in manufacturing capacity so availability of CPUs can be tight at times. Another is that AMDs marketing is almost nonexistent and is going up against the behemoth that is Intel. The past few years have been good for AMD in that their name has gotten out there a bit more in the laptop space and such where people are forced to look at the little AMD sticker on the keyboard every time they open it. However, they are still largely an unknown to people not "in the know". I remember telling my roommates about my sweet new AMD X2 in college and they just sort of looked at me like I was speaking gibberish. If I would have told them I had a new Intel CPU they would have definitely at least known what the hell I was talking about.

Intel is on the exact opposite of both spectrums so they are able to make a big stink when it comes to supplying CPUs for large orders from a vendor to corporations by making deals you basically can't refuse. They are pretty entrenched in the corporate world and it is/will be pretty hard to unseat them. That is AMD's whole argument with the anti-trust cases. Even if they had the manufacturing capacity to supply a much larger corporate base, they probably couldn't actually get in there and get those businesses to buy them.

This is going to be a very tough year for AMD. The PII basically must match the Core2 for performance so it can compete with it in the consumer/business space on price level. The i7 and Intel's next tick are already top-dog and will not be challenged by AMD so AMD has to go after the remaining Core2-level market, read: low to midrange. The new Opterons are set to be executed publically when the Nahalem based server chips start coming out so AMD will lose their one top-tier stronghold they have right now. I do think that if any company knows how to compete when backed into a corner like this it is AMD, though. They will probably try to do as their graphics division has succeeded in doing, emphasize cheap scalability over raw, expensive single-unit power. 2 Shanghais must beat 1 Nahalem at something out there, they just have to concentrate on that niche.

 

[brucedeluxe169]

i suspect the lower end, dual channel memory Core i7s (i5?) will handily beat the Ph II (PII = Pentium 2 dammit) in price/performance, while the wolfdales and current q9xxx's will demolish it in the low end

remember people, the current penryn based Cores aren't going anywhere once Ph II and i7/i5 are out in force... (well, except way, way down in price...)

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

i suspect the lower end, dual channel memory Core i7s (i5?) will handily beat the Ph II (PII = Pentium 2 dammit) in price/performance, while the wolfdales and current q9xxx's will demolish it in the low end

remember people, the current penryn based Cores aren't going anywhere once Ph II and i7/i5 are out in force... (well, except way, way down in price...)

Once i5 is out it seems it would be an opportune time to pick up a Q9650 then. Currently they're almost twice as much as a i7 920...

But getting back on track, I highly doubt the Ph II 940 will compete clock for clock with a Q/QX9650.

 

[DarkLegacy]

It's WAY cheaper than i7's and has decent performance for a fraction of the cost. Dell, HP/Compaq, Gateway and such are going to buy them up. Corporations looking for cheap powerful workstations are going to buy them up. Large corporations aren't saying "I'd rather spend more for Intel simply because it's Intel and we're Intel fanboys". Hehe. They're saying "what can I get that's cheap and powerful and current?"

The enthusiast's only account for a pretty insignificant percectage of CPU sales. Why would a company spend $1000+/per on 5-10,000 workstations doing a hardware refresh when they can spend half that? For business applications the PII's look pretty damn good.

They didn't make the PII to appease the gamer community or even compete with the i7. They made it to get their marketshare up where it counts, in corporations around the world.

You can't expect much system retailers to back a company that is on the brink of becoming a penny stock. Even when the AMD 64 was was tearing Intel CPU's to shreds, many of the popular retailers pushed the Pentium 4 as there default choice. Intel has an iron grip on the entire market & AMD will have a damn hard time convincing companies to choose them over Intel. It's like picking the Detroit Lions to win over the NY Giants at this point. As I said before, nothing is stopping Intel from dropping there prices if it leads to that. They may take a hit on the stocks but it will hurt AMD much more than it would hurt Intel. Intel is in a position where they can absorb loses. AMD is not.

 

[Dan_D]

It's WAY cheaper than i7's and has decent performance for a fraction of the cost. Dell, HP/Compaq, Gateway and such are going to buy them up. Corporations looking for cheap powerful workstations are going to buy them up. Large corporations aren't saying "I'd rather spend more for Intel simply because it's Intel and we're Intel fanboys". Hehe. They're saying "what can I get that's cheap and powerful and current?"

The enthusiast's only account for a pretty insignificant percectage of CPU sales. Why would a company spend $1000+/per on 5-10,000 workstations doing a hardware refresh when they can spend half that? For business applications the PII's look pretty damn good.

They didn't make the PII to appease the gamer community or even compete with the i7. They made it to get their marketshare up where it counts, in corporations around the world.

I disagree. Many people in IT recognize the Intel brand name and still look at AMD as "that knock off processor maker" and avoid them like the plague. They've been gaining some favor in the server market for their performance in multi-CPU machines but sadly that makes up a very small amount of the server market in terms of sales. Uni-processor, sub-$2k servers are more common than you might think. Not to mention that on the desktop side, the AMD processor based systems aren't that much cheaper. I've been working in IT for a long time and I've rarely ever seen AMD processor based workstations or servers in IT. AMD has also had quite a bit of negative publicity regarding Phenom because of the TLB bug on the B2 chips which did delay their server offerings for some time. This isn't helping them.

IT purchasing decisions are budget minded but reliability is a concern. People know Intel, they tend to stick with Intel as a result.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

I disagree. Many people in IT recognize the Intel brand name and still look at AMD as "that knock off processor maker" and avoid them like the plague. They've been gaining some favor in the server market for their performance in multi-CPU machines but sadly that makes up a very small amount of the server market in terms of sales. Uni-processor, sub-$2k servers are more common than you might think. Not to mention that on the desktop side, the AMD processor based systems aren't that much cheaper. I've been working in IT for a long time and I've rarely ever seen AMD processor based workstations or servers in IT. AMD has also had quite a bit of negative publicity regarding Phenom because of the TLB bug on the B2 chips which did delay their server offerings for some time. This isn't helping them.

IT purchasing decisions are budget minded but reliability is a concern. People know Intel, they tend to stick with Intel as a result.

i think he was refering to the OEM world and pre-built systems.. AMD has gained a lot of popularity due to the lower prices meaning that they can put a little extra headroom(profit) in the pricing of their systems.. but i agree with you on the server side.. but i think where AMD has more benefit over intel is the quad socket setups.. i havent really been paying attention to it much in the last year or so but if im not mistaken intel still only has dual lga-771 socket boards... but correct me if im wrong please....

 

[Dan_D]

i think he was refering to the OEM world and pre-built systems.. AMD has gained a lot of popularity due to the lower prices meaning that they can put a little extra headroom(profit) in the pricing of their systems.. but i agree with you on the server side.. but i think where AMD has more benefit over intel is the quad socket setups.. i havent really been paying attention to it much in the last year or so but if im not mistaken intel still only has dual lga-771 socket boards... but correct me if im wrong please....

Intel has had quad socket compatible processors and 8-way configurations for longer than AMD has. They just use a seperate socket for Xeon MP than they do for Xeon DP.

 

[Riccochet]

I disagree. Many people in IT recognize the Intel brand name and still look at AMD as "that knock off processor maker" and avoid them like the plague. They've been gaining some favor in the server market for their performance in multi-CPU machines but sadly that makes up a very small amount of the server market in terms of sales. Uni-processor, sub-$2k servers are more common than you might think. Not to mention that on the desktop side, the AMD processor based systems aren't that much cheaper. I've been working in IT for a long time and I've rarely ever seen AMD processor based workstations or servers in IT. AMD has also had quite a bit of negative publicity regarding Phenom because of the TLB bug on the B2 chips which did delay their server offerings for some time. This isn't helping them.

IT purchasing decisions are budget minded but reliability is a concern. People know Intel, they tend to stick with Intel as a result.

I fail to see your perspective on corporations avoiding AMD. I work in IT for a fortune 500 corp that has over 100,000 AMD based workstations and servers. Reliability is not a concern, they fail no more than the Intel based systems we deploy. AMD has been around long enough that anyone "in the know" that's making the purchasing decisions for corporations would consider them a viable option. Chevy vs Ford if you will. With the enconomy tanking, layoffs taking place and corps trying to "green" up their budgets whoever comes in at the right price point is going to win over corporations.

Personally, I'm not a fanboy of either camp. I would just like to see AMD gain some ground so they can fund a new architecture. Without AMD around we'd be stuck kissing Intel's ass for price cuts on their already overpriced products.

 

[funkydmunky]

One thing not being discussed much is now AMD is a full line-up company. Competitive CPU, market leading GFX, and MB chipsets, with a very competent(read: kicks intels A$$) integrated GPU. Real GFX and HD media performance out of the box has to be attractive to the big vendors.
They have designed a complete platform(spider/dragon) with O/C'ing as a forethought not an afterthought. If one is going to compare a PhII with an i7 platform, just subtract the $$ difference then add that to the lower priced PhII platform in additional GFX cards and we would see who kicks ass in games for the same price. Enthusiast's are not all living in Moms basement with more $$ then brains. A complete AMD/Ati setup is looking quite nice.

 

[Atech]

Personally, I'm not a fanboy of either camp. I would just like to see AMD gain some ground so they can fund a new architecture. Without AMD around we'd be stuck kissing Intel's ass for price cuts on their already overpriced products.

If you think they are overpriced, don't buy?
I work for an ISP and we have zero AMD rigs or servers...and it's not like we have to pay blood a bones for our Intel stuff.

 

[Casper312]

table whats the highest clock you have gotten? Just the 3.9ghz?

 

[Vinnard]

You're on engadget now
http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/amd-phenom-ii-processor-bought-benchmarked-coveted/

 

[Casper312]

haha cool

 

[Exeodus]

One thing not being discussed much is now AMD is a full line-up company. Competitive CPU, market leading GFX, and MB chipsets, with a very competent(read: kicks intels A$$) integrated GPU. Real GFX and HD media performance out of the box has to be attractive to the big vendors.
They have designed a complete platform(spider/dragon) with O/C'ing as a forethought not an afterthought. If one is going to compare a PhII with an i7 platform, just subtract the $$ difference then add that to the lower priced PhII platform in additional GFX cards and we would see who kicks ass in games for the same price. Enthusiast's are not all living in Moms basement with more $$ then brains. A complete AMD/Ati setup is looking quite nice.

Awesome reply!!! Well said, and I completely agree with you

 

[Riccochet]

If you think they are overpriced, don't buy?
I work for an ISP and we have zero AMD rigs or servers...and it's not like we have to pay blood a bones for our Intel stuff.

I think you misread my statement. How screwed do you think we'll all be if AMD folds? Let me tell you. ROYALLY SCREWED. $1000 for their flagship desktop processor today will be $2000 tomorrow. People will simply have no choice but to pay their inflated prices. IMO, $1000 for a processor is just retarded. Anyone paying such a price should have some sense beaten into them.

Don't buy. As if that is an option.

 

[Atech]

I think you misread my statement. How screwed do you think we'll all be if AMD folds? Let me tell you. ROYALLY SCREWED. $1000 for their flagship desktop processor today will be $2000 tomorrow. People will simply have no choice but to pay their inflated prices. IMO, $1000 for a processor is just retarded. Anyone paying such a price should have some sense beaten into them.

Don't buy. As if that is an option.

Ah, you are just a fallacy-troll.
If the prize is to high for you taste, don't buy...and don't whine.
Your "sense" of value is subjective, not some universal law all us others have to abid.

But I hope Phenom II makes AMD go out of the red moneywise...perhaps they are selling too cheap for their own good.

 

[brons2]

I disagree. Many people in IT recognize the Intel brand name and still look at AMD as "that knock off processor maker" and avoid them like the plague. They've been gaining some favor in the server market for their performance in multi-CPU machines but sadly that makes up a very small amount of the server market in terms of sales. Uni-processor, sub-$2k servers are more common than you might think. Not to mention that on the desktop side, the AMD processor based systems aren't that much cheaper. I've been working in IT for a long time and I've rarely ever seen AMD processor based workstations or servers in IT. AMD has also had quite a bit of negative publicity regarding Phenom because of the TLB bug on the B2 chips which did delay their server offerings for some time. This isn't helping them.

IT purchasing decisions are budget minded but reliability is a concern. People know Intel, they tend to stick with Intel as a result.

My Exchange 2007 server is running 2x dual core Opterons with 12GB of RAM. It's the most highly visible app for many people and it's powered by AMD. HP BL45p.

Really, we are pro-AMD, but there is a relative paucity of AMD systems offered by Tier-1 vendors. That's the problem for many larger organizations. They are only going to buy from Tier 1 vendors with worldwide support operations, etc. And there just aren't a very good variety of them from HP, Dell, IBM, etc, etc.

We used to buy AMD based desktops but we were having to get them from a local white box vendor. When their support started to tail off, we switched to HP's DC7xxx business desktops. Well surprise it's mostly Intel stuff we have to choose from. We're on a 4 year replacement cycle so the single core P4's will be replaced this year with C2D DC7900 sff which will make all our desktops Intel dual cores. If HP offered an AMD system with similar specs, features and form factor we'd consider it. But, they don't.

[edit]See this is what I am talking about:
http://government.hp.com/products.asp?prodid=663&agencyid=64&state=TX
Out of 7 lines of business desktops, only 2 of those 7 are AMD based, and nothing in the 7000 series, which we feel offers us the best manageability features, and in the last two fiscal years of purchasing drive encryption from SafeBoot (HP Branded) is included for free, which is a direction we are going in, encrypted hard drives on all machines.

 

[Dan_D]

I fail to see your perspective on corporations avoiding AMD. I work in IT for a fortune 500 corp that has over 100,000 AMD based workstations and servers. Reliability is not a concern, they fail no more than the Intel based systems we deploy. AMD has been around long enough that anyone "in the know" that's making the purchasing decisions for corporations would consider them a viable option. Chevy vs Ford if you will. With the enconomy tanking, layoffs taking place and corps trying to "green" up their budgets whoever comes in at the right price point is going to win over corporations.

Personally, I'm not a fanboy of either camp. I would just like to see AMD gain some ground so they can fund a new architecture. Without AMD around we'd be stuck kissing Intel's ass for price cuts on their already overpriced products.

I can understand where you are coming from but I've worked for a ton of different IT outsourcing providers and I've been a contractor on a number of different sites. More than I can easily count. I've almost NEVER seen any AMD servers or desktops. When I do it is usually in the smaller businesses where they either build their own or buy white box systems. In those situations cost is everything to them and that's where I see AMD desktops. On the server side, yes AMD's Opteron has had numerous advantages over Intel's Xeon MP platform for some time. With that said the 4 and 8-way servers make up a small amount of total servers running out there. You'll see them in larger data centers and larger companies will run them. The performance information gets around and companies like Sun and to a lesser Extent HP do pimp the Opterons to a large degree.

Still I've spoken to a number of IT directors and people who make the purchasing decisions and many of them flat out don't think of AMD at all. Many of them think of them as that "knock off processor company." I know that is far from the truth these days and their lack of knowledge astounds me but still, I think that attitude is more prevalent than most people realize. Your experience seems different, but this is how mine has been.

One thing not being discussed much is now AMD is a full line-up company. Competitive CPU, market leading GFX, and MB chipsets, with a very competent(read: kicks intels A$$) integrated GPU. Real GFX and HD media performance out of the box has to be attractive to the big vendors.
They have designed a complete platform(spider/dragon) with O/C'ing as a forethought not an afterthought. If one is going to compare a PhII with an i7 platform, just subtract the $$ difference then add that to the lower priced PhII platform in additional GFX cards and we would see who kicks ass in games for the same price. Enthusiast's are not all living in Moms basement with more $$ then brains. A complete AMD/Ati setup is looking quite nice.

Intel has been a full platform company for some time now. AMD does not have a monopoly on this. If you think AMD designed Spider and Phenom with overclocking as a forethought instead of an after though you have no idea what you are talking about. HTT/BUS overclocking on AMD processor based motherboards using the 790FX chipsets is pathetic at best. Only since they added AAC with the SB750 south bridge has it become anything more than laughable. Most boards were capable of between 25 and 50MHz bus increase and that's it. Sure some boards can do better but almost none that I have ever tested could do it. One of the best overclocking boards as far as HTT/bus clocking went was based on an NVIDIA chipset. Hardly something designed as a "forethought" by AMD. Initially AMD hadn't even planned to release Black Edition Phenom's. Once they were convinced that it needed to be done they did it. Without a Black Edition CPU your overclocking endeavors are likely to be disappointing at best. Again this hardly shows "forethought."

As I've said before. There are plenty of Intel processor compatible motherboards that can be had in lower price ranges and Intel has several processors that are more than a match for Phenom clock for clock, overclocked or not at nearly the same price. You can go with DDR2 or DDR3 and still get outstanding performance. So again the "AMD is better for the money" argument is almost baseless.

If you think they are overpriced, don't buy?
I work for an ISP and we have zero AMD rigs or servers...and it's not like we have to pay blood a bones for our Intel stuff.

There are plenty of reasonably priced Intel offerings. And for people who don't remember, AMD was charging a shit load of cash, in fact in many cases MORE than what Intel charged when the Athlon 64 and X2 were king of the hill in performance.

I think you misread my statement. How screwed do you think we'll all be if AMD folds? Let me tell you. ROYALLY SCREWED. $1000 for their flagship desktop processor today will be $2000 tomorrow. People will simply have no choice but to pay their inflated prices. IMO, $1000 for a processor is just retarded. Anyone paying such a price should have some sense beaten into them.

Don't buy. As if that is an option.

Bullshit. Intel wasn't charging $2,000 for flagship parts before when AMD and Cryrix (and no one else either) could remotely challenge them performance wise. That was also back when most Intel chips were over $300.00. All AMD has forced Intel to do recently was be more competitive on the lower end of the spectrum.

My Exchange 2007 server is running 2x dual core Opterons with 12GB of RAM. It's the most highly visible app for many people and it's powered by AMD. HP BL45p.

Again I didn't say that AMD had no presence in IT or that no companies used them. This isn't true at all. However I've rarely seen IT organizations or businesses that were extremely "pro-AMD."

Really, we are pro-AMD, but there is a relative paucity of AMD systems offered by Tier-1 vendors. That's the problem for many larger organizations. They are only going to buy from Tier 1 vendors with worldwide support operations, etc. And there just aren't a very good variety of them from HP, Dell, IBM, etc, etc.

This is a good point.

We used to buy AMD based desktops but we were having to get them from a local white box vendor. When their support started to tail off, we switched to HP's DC7xxx business desktops. Well surprise it's mostly Intel stuff we have to choose from. We're on a 4 year replacement cycle so the single core P4's will be replaced this year with C2D DC7900 sff which will make all our desktops Intel dual cores. If HP offered an AMD system with similar specs, features and form factor we'd consider it. But, they don't.

Agreed. They don't. Still even when AMD had Intel covered on the lower end and beat them in regard to performance, most IT departments and businesses were buying Intel based desktops. AMD had much greater success during the Athlon 64 and Athlon X2 days in the retail and do-it-yourself markets. The Opteron didn't have the market share that the Xeon had either. However their market share grew very quickly to what it was at its peak. I'm pretty sure that has backslid some, especially on the 2-way CPU side.

Personally on 2-way servers I'd rather have a Xeon. On 4-way and 8-way systems the Opteron has numerous advantages which Intel will take away once Core i7 derrived Xeon's hit.