

AMD 6-core Phenom II $222 (5 times cheaper than Core-i7 980X) - ukdm
http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/amd-phenom-ii-x6-6-core-2-8ghz-processor-shipping-for-222-29-20100426/

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hga
Hmmm, not really a good article:

To get about the same clock, you need to pay $325.

The Core-i7 980X is made on a smaller process node, 32 instead of 45 nm. The
two processors aren't easily compared, the cores in the Core have half the L2
cache of the Phenom (256 vs. 512KB) and the shared L3 is twice as big (12 vs.
6MB).

As for the pricing, according to Wikipedia there's just this one unlocked Core
desktop part, vs. a couple of dozen Xeon server parts and 8 4 core dual
processor parts. It sure looks like to me like Intel is selling all the server
parts it can and is throwing out this one desktop version for the enthusiasts
with a price to match.

Anyone have an idea of what the different L2 and L3 cache tradeoffs will mean
in practice?

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pmjordan
You can't compare Xeons to Phenoms, you need to be looking at Opterons for
that. AMD recently released their 12-core Opterons (4 different models) and
they have 3 8-core and 5 6-core Opterons as well (9 if you distinguish between
2-socket and 8-Socket versions).

~~~
hga
I'm only comparing them as a business decision WRT allocating fab lines. I'm
assuming the profit margins are higher on server chips and the high end
enthusiast desktop ones and proposing this as an explanation for Intel's
product mix. There's got to be some reasons Intel is only selling one model of
the latter while selling a couple dozen of the former with this
microarchitecture and on this process node.

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meroliph
To give people a rough idea, the 1055T X6 scores 5960 points on average in the
PassMark benchmark while the i7 980X scores 10165.

As always, benchmarks are not useful for deciding how your application will
perform on a certain CPU and you should do some tests for yourself, but
considering the huge difference in this synthetic benchmark, I'd say some
people would be willing to pay difference.

~~~
anigbrowl
Or you could just spend it on a second AMD machine. Intel certainly leads on
raw power but that's certainly not the only consideration...is the Intel brand
worth 3x the price after you normalize for performance? I think AMD will sell
a ton of these.

~~~
tewks
The power consumption of two AMD machines over their lifespans, compared to
that one Intel machine, might be an issue though I've not run any
calculations.

~~~
anigbrowl
For a server farm, that is definitely a big issue. for office computers (not
maxed out most of the time), the difference is pretty marginal IMHO.

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reitzensteinm
The article is missing the elephant in the room - the 6 core Phenoms are
intended to compete against quad core i7s. Nehalem multithreading gives an
incredible boost for multithreaded apps, usually 50%+ even for heavy tasks
like rendering.

On top of that, Intel is way ahead in the IPC game. I don't know what the lay
of the land is currently, but back when it was a choice between 45nm Phenom X4
and 45nm Core i7 9x0 chips, in some circumstances a Core i7 _thread_ performed
the same as a Phenom _core_.

Relevent Anandtech article:

[http://www.anandtech.com/show/2978/amd-s-12-core-magny-
cours...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/2978/amd-s-12-core-magny-cours-
opteron-6174-vs-intel-s-6-core-xeon/6)

Which shows a _12_ core, 2.2ghz Magny Cours chip being beaten by a _6_ core
2.93ghz Xeon (the server equivilant of the 980X).

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Keyframe
If performance, compared to intel, is anything like magny-cours - it's nothing
to write home about. [http://www.anandtech.com/show/2978/amd-s-12-core-magny-
cours...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/2978/amd-s-12-core-magny-cours-
opteron-6174-vs-intel-s-6-core-xeon) I would like to see some benchmarks
though (especially rendering like cinebench).

~~~
hga
True, but it's price/performance that I think most of us are concerned about:
[http://www.anandtech.com/show/2978/amd-s-12-core-magny-
cours...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/2978/amd-s-12-core-magny-cours-
opteron-6174-vs-intel-s-6-core-xeon/15)

We're also now in a leapfrogging situation, where year by year this may
change. AMD is one process node behind Intel; I'm not sure how to count
microarchitectures, but ignoring processor interconnects (which Intel has only
just started to address by copying the AMD approach) if you consider Core to
be more advanced than K8 and Nehalem more than K10 then AMD is also one
microarchitecture behind.

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michaelcampbell
Does "5 times cheaper" equate to "1/5 the cost"?

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zokier
Price is just one factor. What about performance and power consumption?

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elblanco
The difference in price between the two processors is basically equal to the
rest of the components in a decent system. Intel is going to have to
drastically cut their prices down soon. More and more, it's the GPU that
bounds the system, CPUs have long ago surpassed the needs of most users...and
I'm not just talking about people who only use office and email.

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ck2
Until they get to 32nm like Intel, it's going to make your power meter spin
like you are running a hair dryer.

Wait a year for 32nm, then there will also be $100 4-core chips that unlock to
6!

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nearestneighbor
No hyperthreading though.

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hackermom
On per-chip performance, if price is disregarded, Intel still wins, but AMD
has since long given better performance per $, and is a far better choice for
the average consumer not keeping their machine at a constant 100% cpu use, not
requiring the best available performance for something akin to a single work-
horse type machine.

