AMD keeps it dark with Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition

Barely a month after showing off its Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Black Edition, AMD is apparently hoping to rope in a few more followers with a lower-priced CPU in the same family. This processor reportedly hums along at 2.6GHz, is built around 65-nanometer technology, boasts 1MB of L2 cache and will play nice with the firm's "580x or upcoming 700-series chipsets." 'Course, enthusiasts will love the "customizable clock multiplier for tunable performance," and word on the street has these new chips "available to channel partners" for just $136 apiece in groups of 1,000.

[Via InformationWeek]

[anonymous @ Sep 26th 2007 12:14PM]

unfortunately I don't have need for 1000 of these.

[Shibathedog @ Sep 26th 2007 1:35PM]

Yeah but the store/online retailer you would buy one from does. And you end up with it for probably 150/160. The number was provided in order to make guess as to how much it will cost consumers when it goes on sale. Although don't take my guess on the price as a concrete estimate or anything.

[Edwin @ Sep 26th 2007 1:57PM]

I am still bitter about the premature cancelation of socket 939. That alone turned me off AMD for a good long while.

[Gil @ Sep 26th 2007 2:20PM]

Tell me about it. I want to upgrade my 3500+ single core to an X2 and I'm flat out of options because my mainboard uses 939.

If I change the mainboard I have to change the RAM too and I don't have the cash to change all 3 at once.

[o29 @ Sep 26th 2007 3:10PM]

Uhh, you can get an OEM socket 939 Athlon 64 X2 4200+ for as cheap as $70 on Newegg. There are still options for socket 939, they're just old options. They might not really compete with Core 2's, but if you don't want to switch out your entire motherboard, there are decent X2 socket 939 processors for mostly cheap prices.

[John B @ Sep 26th 2007 3:20PM]

Yup. There it is.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Toledo 2.2GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103053
$69.99
Free 3 Business Day Shipping

Throw in a good video card (7600GT, for example) and you'll still have a sweet gaming system.

[WhyNotV2 @ Sep 27th 2007 8:29AM]

heck, spend the $80 and upgrade your board to a socket AM2 then you have a host of choices for years to come.

[Edwin @ Sep 28th 2007 1:41AM]

It's not a matter of cost I suppose. (I already have one X2 4800 and one X2 4400)

It's a matter of principle: AMD made a tactical choice of going AM2 due to a number benefits. However it was a strategic blunder in the sense that:

1. The AM2 upgrade was only marginally superior to existing 939 performance
2. It was significantly inferior to Core 2 Duo.
3. AMD showed it was fickle enough to abandon a whole socket with not so much as a single phase-out series of CPUs (The opposite of say... the concept of AGP port video cards that were phased out gradually over several years, with PCI-E being gradually phased in).

It made a lot of the AMD user base feeling unstable and mistrustful of investing time/money in the next socket as it may be replaced wholesale seemingly overnight.

While people still held AMD processors in high regard, Socket 939s cancelation left a very bad "feeling of uncertainty" and lacking confidence towards AMDs policy. The tide shifted back to "Old reliable Intel" over "hotshot AMD" some time late last year.

[Silverfrog @ Sep 26th 2007 4:35PM]

AMD is getting inventive with its overclock-friendly processors. I applaud them for making more options available to enthusiasts. It keeps the AMD/Intel power struggle interesting still. The danger here is distributers selling overclocked processors and claiming a higher CPU model than what it actually is. Of course, tech savvy users will be able to run CPUID, but the rest will be hornswaggled.