AMD's Response to Intel Conroe: Energy Efficient Athlon 64 X2 CPU

Kamakazie! · 8 Aug 2006 at 23:41

Justintime said:
Hopefully they'll be back in a position where they can reinflate those prices

hopefully not. i'm liking the look of cheap X2s... especially with upgrading in mind. I will be able to drop a nice K8L dual/quad core in there next summer if i have a spare few hundred quid laying around. That's if they are a good deal better like they should be.

Inflated prices are bad for us consumers, competition is good so long as it is "healthy". Although i know what you are trying to say. I do hope they are in the position to be more competetive with Intel without slashing their margins. With 65nm they can retain these nice prices at the same time too though!

dante6491 · 8 Aug 2006 at 23:41

reinforcing the guy who said about brand recognition and stuff (sorry forgot name

) intel isnt just processors for pcs/laptops is it. they have pda chips, mobos and have/ had blue man group :eek:

that is a wining team

Justintime · 8 Aug 2006 at 23:43

Forget my name eh?

dante6491 · 8 Aug 2006 at 23:51

ah yesh sorry.... anyway

my neighbour has been into computers since like those green screen things. but he said to me about a month ago that amd always pull something out of the hat. and soon as they got a intel chip it would be reverse manufactured. so it is only a matter of time before something big on amd's front happens.

Kamakazie! · 9 Aug 2006 at 00:08

dante6491 said:
ah yesh sorry.... anyway

my neighbour has been into computers since like those green screen things. but he said to me about a month ago that amd always pull something out of the hat. and soon as they got a intel chip it would be reverse manufactured. so it is only a matter of time before something big on amd's front happens.

K8L has been in the pipeline for a long time. Quite a few of the improvements are similar to those in Core2 but its certainly not a case of reverse manufacturing.
AMD will bring out something to compete, there is no doubt about that. It's just wether K8L will be there or there abouts, or ahead.

beast20vt · 9 Aug 2006 at 01:30

i like how everyone is talking about amd's demise,its quite funny actually.remember when everyone was also talking about intels demise when amd were kicking there arse with the athlon64 and then the x2.all intel have done is brought out the conroe which has swung the market back into their favour but dont count amd out just yet because the industry's history shows that they surpass each other with each new chip

rich

Justintime · 9 Aug 2006 at 01:42

Did'nt hear much talk of Intels demise, heard much talk about Intels dishonesty and the fact that they were selling crap and relying on their name and popularity to do so

slap ed · 9 Aug 2006 at 07:39

good debate guys

satman · 9 Aug 2006 at 08:59

Yes ... and gets even now ...

August 7, 2006 - AMD announced that ATI's days are numbered. All future products developed by ATI will now ship under the AMD brand name, effectively ending 21 years of ATI brand-history.

AMD is reportedly anxious to assert that its ATI acquisition is a full take-over rather than a merger or partnership.

:mad:

Datamonkey · 9 Aug 2006 at 09:01

RIP ATI!!

hope this doesnt go the way power vr, and 3dfx went.

I dont want a market just flooded with nvidia products

not an ati fanboy or nowt.

Ricochet J · 9 Aug 2006 at 13:15

Personally, I reckon AMD will wreck ATI

I always liked the fact there were competitors for both CPU and GPUs.

Kamakazie! · 9 Aug 2006 at 13:22

eXSBass said:
Personally, I reckon AMD will wreck ATI
I always liked the fact there were competitors for both CPU and GPUs.

why?
There still will be. It will still be ATi GPU's no matter what branding it has.

To be honest, i don't think it is a good move by AMD. Not just yet anyway. I can understand why they want to, not just to assert that they are in charge but more so to bring more and more exposure to the AMD name.
Still i am not certain the name change will take place, atleast not for a while.

Justintime · 9 Aug 2006 at 13:53

Hope not.

KurTz · 9 Aug 2006 at 15:01

My belief is that the new Conroe chips are fantastic for the CPU market. Regardless of which side the river you are from, Intel's new baby is without a doubt the right step forward in terms of CPU processing power. Affordable, high performance chips is all that any of us ask for, and thats what Intel have provided.

Ive been an AMD man for years, tried, tested and trusted and as such I believe that the Conroe's are great for the AMD lovers out there.

What it does is force AMD to come back with something to not only to match the Conroe's but to better them in someway.

The benefits of which are always passed on to the end-user, which is good not only for our PC's and wallets, but for the companies themsleves.

If AMD do-not come back at Intel with something new, they will lose this particular bout and Intel will reign supreme for the for-seeable future.

Dolph · 9 Aug 2006 at 19:04

Justintime said:
Exactly, the clockspeed jump was'nt that great. The best i've seen AMD in good form was with the XP cpus, using that .18nm process all the way up to 1.73Ghz when even Intel could'nt get thier P6 much past 1Ghz on .18 (1.1 if you count the Celeron Coppermine).

The XP was at least one generation ahead than the P6 cores, not to mention that the limit on that core was architectural, not something that could be solved with a die shrink....

Die shrinks on their own rarely result in any real clockspeed increase. In most cases a die shrink is combined with other changes to yeild better performance.

Conroe isn't faster than the current AMD chips becuase it's on a smaller process, but because it's a much superior design. It would still be as fast if it was on 9nm or 13nm (although it would be much bigger and more expensive).

Kamakazie! · 9 Aug 2006 at 19:26

Dolph said:
Conroe isn't faster than the current AMD chips becuase it's on a smaller process, but because it's a much superior design. It would still be as fast if it was on 9nm or 13nm (although it would be much bigger and more expensive).

It would surely also run hotter/consume more power too though?
This means it probably wouldn't OC so well on air. With money no object cooling it should still get up to the same sorta speeds mind.

Durzel · 9 Aug 2006 at 19:53

I think a lot of people are so used to seeing CPUs that all look the same, and just hearing about process changes that they assume that how the chip actually works will never change.

As Dolph has said - the reason Conroe is doing so well is that it is a whole new architecture. It's not a Pentium with a bit more cache and smaller process - it's an entirely different chip.

Fact is - AMD will need to do likewise to stay competitive because there is no way in hell they are going to squeeze 4GHz out of their current A64/AM2 lineup, which is the sort of clockspeed needed to even get close to Conroe.

Kamakazie! said:
It would surely also run hotter/consume more power too though?
This means it probably wouldn't OC so well on air. With money no object cooling it should still get up to the same sorta speeds mind.

You're forgetting the fact that the E6700 was shown to be considerably faster at stock than an FX62, let alone what its like when you overclock it.

Justintime · 9 Aug 2006 at 19:57

Dolph said:
The XP was at least one generation ahead than the P6 cores, not to mention that the limit on that core was architectural, not something that could be solved with a die shrink....

Die shrink did'nt solve it? Explain the Tualatin then

They weren't really any different then coppermine apart from being .13nm cpus and some had 512kb L2. The situation is reveresed, AMD now need high clockspeed with thier current chips to perform similar to conroes of less clockspeed.

Kamakazie! · 9 Aug 2006 at 20:10

Durzel said:
You're forgetting the fact that the E6700 was shown to be considerably faster at stock than an FX62, let alone what its like when you overclock it.

No i am not, i am just querying.
I am not disagreeing that AMD need more than just the shrink to 65nm. I was just saying that a die shrink doesn't just mean smaller/cheaper cores. It also means cooler running, less power hungry cores. This should in effect mean better OCing on air, although OCing as said, is mainly down to the process tweaks and architecture.

EDIT: Just to make clear, i wasn't mentioning the lower OC because i think this will bring AMD closer to Intel performance wise. I was just wanting to clarify that a process shrink brings a bit more to the table that just what was stated.

Justintime · 9 Aug 2006 at 20:13

Yea the perfect outcome of a die shrink is a slighly faster clock for clock, lower power consuming, cooler and faster clocked chip.. history of both AMD and Intel has proven this hardly pans out