AMD breaks out the cigars for its very first 65nm chips

As evidenced by a certain recent trouncing, that 65nm stuff is the real deal. Now AMD has joined the party, with a nice little collection of Athlon 64 X2 dual-core desktop processors. The X2 4000+, 4400+, 4800+ and 5000+ are all available now, and priced from $169 to $301 -- the same as those 90nm forebears which the new chips are replacing. Of course, it'd kill AMD to hand out an actual GHZ number, so we're in the dark as far as that's concerned. What we do know is that AMD is boasting its lineup consumes half the power of that of Intel's Core 2 Duo chips, which seems quite the claim, but we're no watt experts. Apparently when pushed to full strength, power and heat exceeds that of Intel's chips, but when they aren't busy, the chips idle at 3.8 watts, compared to the 14.3 watts of Core 2 Duo. An actual test of real-world power consumption is a bit hard to do, and AMD's Jack Huynh says "We don't want to get caught in the processor technology game." Which he ironically follows with "We have superior power management features than our competition." Which is it going to be, Jack? Luckily, benchmark wizards will sort all of this out in a few weeks, and until then you can take solace in the fact that these are some great processors at a great price. Notebook chips should follow in the first half of 2007, and AMD is hoping to be fully caught up with Intel in 18 months at the next milestone: 45nm.

[Via ExtremeTech; thanks Ivana]

[Porkchop Flavored Cupcake @ Dec 5th 2006 10:45AM]

AMD is the greatest of all time.

[Alcaron @ Dec 5th 2006 10:58AM]

"As evidenced by a certain recent trouncing"

Shouldn't that read "As evidenced by a certain recent bit of shoddy sensationalist journalism" on your part?

By far the WORST poster at engadget. I wouldn't even mind the lack of facts, incomplete facts, or even the wrong facts, if you would drop the very frequent smugness that is imbued in most of your posts.

[Felix @ Dec 5th 2006 11:04AM]

Just as a note pertaining to performance-per-watt, the current trend is for AMD to report the ideal (lowest) power consumption, while Intel reports worst-case numbers. So without a production sample of both chips benchmarked side-by-side, the numbers are really all just smoke and mirrors.

[Alexander @ Dec 5th 2006 11:35AM]

In the end, it all boils down to "Which will run my FC6 machine the best" which I've yet to see a benchmark test do.

With every review for any peice of new hardware, it's always how fast it can run Q3/4, HL2, and Call of Duty or something.

Stuff I don't give to s**ts about. I need to know, and this is the true test of any CPU, how long it takes to do a stage-1 emerge of Gentoo with all the bells and whistles.

I swear, if I had a review site, that's what test I'd do. Game FPS are nice--but real men use compilers to test their CPU power.

[Mark @ Dec 5th 2006 1:04PM]

Does the 65nm architecture mean these have a chance of beating Core 2 Duo? Or are other factors involved?

[walk2k @ Dec 5th 2006 1:13PM]

If they are using the same model numbers as the old chips then they probably will be the same clock speeds.

Seems pretty stupid that they would re(re)-use the same model numbers. Some of those chips (4400+, 4800+) had socket 939 versions too... So that makes THREE versions of the same monel numbered chip! Very confusing! They could at least use 4400A or 4450 something.

As for clock speeds:
4000 = 2.0 ghz
4400 = 2.2 ghz
4800 = 2.4 ghz
5000 = 2.8 ghz

[chris @ Dec 5th 2006 1:19PM]

i'm looking forward to being able to meltdown my house with those 45nm chips.

[kriskkalu @ Dec 5th 2006 2:46PM]

It's funny how you mixed the comparison there. Here is the part of the article you mixed up.

But AMD's sales team is also attempting to convince customers that even its older "Rev. F" 65-watt, 90-nm chips actually consume less power than Intel's Core 2 Duo components, with the delta even more magnified when its new 35-watt, 65-nm chips are compared.

AMD's argument goes like this: modern desktop and notebook processors constantly scale up and down between full speed and an idle state, which AMD has branded "Cool 'n' Quiet". At a given time, pushed to full load by an application, AMD's chips run hotter and consume more power. But across a typical computing day � where a user might check his email or surf the Web � the processor idles more often then not. At idle, AMD's 90-nm Athlon 64 X2 consumes 7.5 watts. Its latest 65-nm chips idle at 3.8 watts. By comparison, the 65-nm Core 2 Duo idles at 14.3 watts.

AMD's 90-nm/65 watt Athlon 64 X2 chips consumed 47.6 percent the power of a 65-nm Core 2 Duo chip, the company said. A 35-watt X2 consumes 73.3 percent of the power of the same Core 2 Duo. However, directly comparing the two chips' power load, in a real-world computing environment, over the course of a day, would be a daunting task, Huynh acknowledged.

The full article is at http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2068252,00.asp

From my understanding they were comparing the core 2 duo against the Rev. F" 65-watt, 90-nm chips, and not the 65nm ones. They just went on to add the idle state of the 65nm at the end.

So basically the new 65nm from AMD consume less bot at full load and when idle.

[Dave Pevsner @ Dec 5th 2006 5:02PM]

and to think, i thought it would be better to stay with socket 939, and i didn't even think to get a 939 and AM2 compatible mobo, now the AM2 platform is actually competing with core 2 in terms of efficiency. as an investor, i love the catching up, but as a customer...

damnit. i'm broke, so forget you 65nm. hopefully i'll have some cash on hand when 45 or even 35nm comes out.

[Squirrel @ Dec 6th 2006 1:15PM]

Felix, the other way around.

Intel use everyday use. So their 70W could actually be 90W.

AMD do the opposite.

[Dan @ Dec 8th 2006 2:42AM]

I'd say 24-36 months to catch up. If they do.

Intels plans all the way to 11nm look pretty good. I've always been an Intel fan, but I don't discount AMD. Keep it pumping.

[Ashraf @ Aug 20th 2007 7:45PM]

I have a socket 939 motherboard.

Is this Socket AM2?

Will Socket 939 be available?

btw

stop posting dumbass comments!