Intel Dual Core/High-End CPUs
While AMD has just finished launching their new platform, we're still waiting for retail availability of the Intel Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors. All of the preview testing that we have conducted is extremely promising, and while there may be a few benchmarks that AMD can continue to win, we're quite certain that Intel will hold the overall performance crown in the near future. The one major question that remains unanswered -- and we're not too optimistic here -- is what the retail availability of Core 2 Duo parts will be at launch. Intel's prices on Core 2 Duo parts are pretty competitive, but if supply can't keep up with demand we expect to see some price gouging in the short-term. It may be that your best bet for getting a Core 2 Duo configuration near launch will be by purchasing a computer from a system vendor: Dell, HP, Falcon Northwest, VoodooPC, etc. That's all in the future, however, so let's look at the current processor offerings.
Intel seems well aware of the fact that everyone is waiting for their new processor line to launch. In the meantime, how do you get people to buy your current products? By making the prices more attractive, naturally. You can see that Intel made some major price cuts on most of their Pentium D offerings about two months ago, and while they continue to draw more power and run hotter than the Athlon X2 processors, their prices are far more compelling.
Roughly matching the X2 3800+ in terms of performance (though it remains slower in games), the Pentium D 930 is now selling for $176 [RTPE: BX80553930] -- you could almost purchase two of these for the price of the cheapest Athlon X2 chip. If you're more interested in spending the same amount of money, you can add an extra 400 MHz and pick up the Pentium D 950 for $328 [RTPE: BX80553950]. Either of those options is more than reasonable, but perhaps the most interesting Intel processor right now remains the Pentium D 805 [RTPE: BX80551PE2666FN], going for $112. The slower FSB speeds hamper performance, but it also means that you can usually get reasonable overclocking out of almost any motherboard. 3.5 GHz appears to be a relatively common result using the included heatsink, and even without overclocking it's hard to beat the price/performance offered by this chip.
At the other end of the price/performance spectrum, you can find Intel's Pentium Extreme Edition offerings. Dual cores along with hyper threading give you the ability to run up to four threads simultaneously, though whether or not people will realistically be able to make use of such a configuration is debatable. If you're looking to spend over $1000 on a processor, we definitely recommend AMD's Athlon FX processors over the current Intel Pentium XE chips. A better recommendation would be to wait for the launch of the Core 2 Extreme, as it will carry a similar price while offering more performance and lower power consumption.
While AMD has just finished launching their new platform, we're still waiting for retail availability of the Intel Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors. All of the preview testing that we have conducted is extremely promising, and while there may be a few benchmarks that AMD can continue to win, we're quite certain that Intel will hold the overall performance crown in the near future. The one major question that remains unanswered -- and we're not too optimistic here -- is what the retail availability of Core 2 Duo parts will be at launch. Intel's prices on Core 2 Duo parts are pretty competitive, but if supply can't keep up with demand we expect to see some price gouging in the short-term. It may be that your best bet for getting a Core 2 Duo configuration near launch will be by purchasing a computer from a system vendor: Dell, HP, Falcon Northwest, VoodooPC, etc. That's all in the future, however, so let's look at the current processor offerings.
Roughly matching the X2 3800+ in terms of performance (though it remains slower in games), the Pentium D 930 is now selling for $176 [RTPE: BX80553930] -- you could almost purchase two of these for the price of the cheapest Athlon X2 chip. If you're more interested in spending the same amount of money, you can add an extra 400 MHz and pick up the Pentium D 950 for $328 [RTPE: BX80553950]. Either of those options is more than reasonable, but perhaps the most interesting Intel processor right now remains the Pentium D 805 [RTPE: BX80551PE2666FN], going for $112. The slower FSB speeds hamper performance, but it also means that you can usually get reasonable overclocking out of almost any motherboard. 3.5 GHz appears to be a relatively common result using the included heatsink, and even without overclocking it's hard to beat the price/performance offered by this chip.
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Calin - Monday, June 19, 2006 - link
The only reason you could have to buy an Sempron (AM2) over an Athlon would be the lower power use (35W TDP for the new Semprons compared to the 65W TDP of the Athlons64 AM2 (or 89W of the X2 versions).Could there be an evaluation of the difference in power use between the same frequency Sempron and Athlon64 processors? Thanks
johnsonx - Monday, June 19, 2006 - link
The low power Semprons aren't available yet, nor are the low power Athlons at the current time. Currently shipping Semprons and Athlons are all 65W TDP.Looking at the recent price lists, I'd make a bet that all the single-core Athlon64's are going away before long, with the possible exception of the highest performing parts. It's the same logic that applies to the 1Mb cache parts: single-core A64's cost AMD more to make than Semprons, yet AMD can't really charge more money for them because of their convoluted model numbering system.
Having an Athlon64 3000+ that is clocked the same but has 4x the cache as a Sempron 3400+ just makes a mess of things.
mino - Tuesday, June 20, 2006 - link
Well they are :)AFAIK pretty much any 90nm Sempron(doesn't matter which socket) is in the 20W-35W power consumption range.
Calin - Tuesday, June 20, 2006 - link
I saw on offers Sempron (AM2) processors with TDP of 35W, compared to the Athlon64 (AM2 versions) with TDP of 65W and the dual cores (again AM2) with 89W TDP.I suppose the low voltage versions are not here yet, but the power rating in offers still remains
JarredWalton - Monday, June 19, 2006 - link
You will also be able to get low power X2 and Athlon 64 chips in the near future. I will see about testing an Athlon 64 3000+ (AM2) compared to the Sempron 3400+ (AM2). My experience in the past is that AMD's TDP power numbers have been extremely conservative, so I would be surprised if Sempron chips are more than 5 Watts lower. That might matter for notebooks/laptops, but for desktops 5 W is basically meaningless -- you're looking at $5 (or less) for power costs over the course of an entire year, assuming the system is running 24/7/365.Calin - Tuesday, June 20, 2006 - link
Thank you very muchSonicIce - Monday, June 19, 2006 - link
I can't belive how cheap single core Athlon 64's have gotten. This is a very good thing! Hopefully dual cores will fall soon.jelifah - Tuesday, June 20, 2006 - link
That's what Jarred was trying to say in his article when he said 'if you can wait a month'July 24th AMD is expected to slash prices by around 50%. And yes that includes the pretty little X2 3800+, which should be available for $150. Now the only question is how quick NewEgg can ship them on that day, because I WILL place an order at that price.
I'm actually going to be paying LESS for a dual core than I paid for my socket 939 3000+ single core 18 months ago.
ChronoReverse - Tuesday, June 20, 2006 - link
I'll be watching prices very carefully in the upcoming months. Right now I'm still undecided as to getting an used s939 3800+, a new AM2 3800+ or getting the $160 Conroe.Great times ahead now that there's competition again.
Rebel44 - Monday, June 19, 2006 - link
Yeah they will - I´m just waiting for release of new Intel´s procesors because AMD announced to lower prices of X-2´s by up to 50%:-)