AMD's Athlon II X3 435 & New Energy Efficient CPUs: Killing Intel Below $90
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 20, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
DivX 8.5.3 with Xmpeg 5.0.3
Our DivX test is the same DivX / XMpeg 5.03 test we've run for the past few years now, the 1080p source file is encoded using the unconstrained DivX profile, quality/performance is set balanced at 5 and enhanced multithreading is enabled:
DivX encoding performance is hot on the heels of the Athlon II X4 620, but still slower. Once more we're about the same speed as the Phenom II X3 720.
x264 HD Video Encoding Performance
Graysky's x264 HD test uses the publicly available x264 codec (open source alternative to H.264) to encode a 4Mbps 720p MPEG-2 source. The focus here is on quality rather than speed, thus the benchmark uses a 2-pass encode and reports the average frame rate in each pass.
x264 encoding performance is noticeably slower than the quad-core offerings. Even the 2.3GHz 605e is faster than the X3 435. Compared to the equivalently priced dual-core options from Intel however, the Athlon II X3 435 is without a doubt the chip to get. If you're encoding video however, you're probably better springing for the $99 quad-core.
Windows Media Encoder 9 x64 Advanced Profile
In order to be codec agnostic we've got a Windows Media Encoder benchmark looking at the same sort of thing we've been doing in the DivX and x264 tests, but using WME instead.
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yacoub - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
I'm glad they're putting these out and vying for the low-end market, but I don't see the point when apparently my E4400 Core2Duo running at 3.0GHz, as it has been for two years now, is still faster.When it comes time to replace this, I would expect after two or three years, one could buy a CPU for $99 that near-doubles the performance. I guess not?
maddoctor - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
Stick to your E4400 rather than but one of these craps. Intel is much better for you and is cheaper.SunSamurai - Sunday, November 1, 2009 - link
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=96&a...">http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=96&a...Oh look a cheaper AMD CPU outperforming a more expensive Intel CPU
SUCK ON IT.
maddoctor - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Stick to your E4400 Core 2 Duo rather than buy this rubbish. Even averages Joe know who is the brand with most powerful product. Intel is the only company with everyone know about it with the best brand awareness.mihaimm - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Well... you can do exactly that. The Athlon II X4 620 it's exactly 99$ and it OCs to 3.6GHz. I expect it would exactly double the performance of E4400@3GHz. For more than 2 threads that is...Titanius - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
maddoctor is to Intel what snakeoil is to AMD and SiliconDoc is to NVIDIA. Apart from taking different companies side, they are the same thoughtless person in personality probably on the payroll of their respective companies they obsess over.Three points:
1. Competition is the foundation of getting the best bang for the buck.
2. A monopoly might be good for a little while, but it gets corrupted by its own power and starts abusing its customers.
3. People that obsess over a particular business disregarding the facts and truths is an annoying, idiotic, hypocritical, retard or they are on the payroll of the company as an annoying marketer in charge of spamming the comments section of articles regarding their products or competing products (how much does that pay BTW, if the price is right, I might be interested...)
maddoctor - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
I believe Intel as a single source supplier is the best situation for PC Consumer and the customers. Intel will prices their stuf accordingly with the production cost. I believe someday everyone will be happy when AMD is no more.fineliner - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
How's Intel "pric[ing] their stuf accordingly with the product cost" in this case?September 2009 Price List (From Intel.com):
i7-950 (8M L3, 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 3.06GHz, 4.80GT/sec, Intel QPI 45nm) - $562
i7-920 (8M L3, 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 2.66GHz, 4.80GT/sec, Intel QPI 45nm) - $284
I see a gain of clock speed of 400MHz (~15% clock improvements) with the price nearly DOUBLEd! How's Intel treating their customers (probably you are one of them) right?
I can only see the reason behind is lack of competition. The best Phenom II X4 BE in the market is, maybe, on par with i7-920 (in some of the test, best case scenario). Performance level of a i7-950 is totally out of AMD's reach.
Grizybaer - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Competition shifts power to the buyers. how much is your computer worth to you? trade excel for your calc * paper; trade picassa for shelves of photo albums, trade ur music collection to stacks of cd's.I'm cant think of a time when a monopoly is good.
people who dont post objectively sound more and more like fox news. dont call it stupid or better; gimme some facts, gimme some numbers. Gimme some logic.
erple2 - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
The only time I can think of a monopoly being "good" was waaaay back when cable companies first started rolling along. The monopoly gave them the incentive to roll out cable to (almost) every household in the US, on the stipulation that they had "guaranteed" profits for many years. They wouldn't have gone to the trouble of rolling out cable to so many homes so quickly otherwise.Now, however, there's real competition, and those that are stuck with cable only are realizing the "problem" with cable.