AMD already showed us yesterday what kind of graphical prowess could be crammed into a
sub-$100 GPU, and today it's attempting to pull the same kind of stunt on the CPU front. The Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition -- a 2.8GHz chip with 2MB of L3 cache and loads of overclocking potential -- has just been loosed, and with a downright stunning $69 MSRP, we'd say it'll have budget gamers across the nation paying attention. Reviewers across the web voiced their appreciation for the low price, and while the processor didn't burn any barns down along the way, it did manage to garner a sufficient amount of praise while on the bench.
NeoSeeker seemed to capture the general consensus with this: "the Athlon X2 7850 is a decent processor that is able to power even the latest games." 'Course, the performance-per-watt was a bit lacking given the 65nm manufacturing process, but it's not like you can have your cake and eat it too.
Read - NeoSeeker ("a decent processor")
Read - HiTechLegion ("performed very well")
Read - Guru3D ("packs decent muscle and has reasonable overclock potential")
Read - Bit-tech ("unsurprisingly underwhelming compared to the 7750 Black Edition")
Read - Overclocker's Club ("impressed with the increased performance")
Read - Benchmark Reviews ("an incredible value")
Read - Detailed specifications
Read - AMD press release
posted Apr 29th 2009 12:18PM
Screw video games, I just want a cheaper faster solution and this looks like it.
looks pretty good:)
I'll be glad if AMD is on the comeback trail.... Competition is good for consumers. One company dominating an industry isn't.
yea i have seen more and more amd's in computers on the market
lol what? Where?
How can you dominate an industry if only one company's in it?
Yep, right now is AMDs best shot at everything! The budget, performance/price, and performance/watt focused markets have never been more important. For the first time in a decade hardware has caught up to software and operating systems whereby even a budget CPU (not talking Atom) is more than enough power for the average person and most of the market.
Because of this, people are less interested in having the fastest system and more interested in having better portability, better battery life, lower power usage, lower noise, etc.
Also, people want better non-CPU components like graphics cards to play HD video and modern games. And now with cards like the $99 AMD 4770 and $100 Nvidia 9800GT, people can play modern games at High-res on a budget. Even light laptops/netbooks and SFF PCs that use the integrated Nvidia 9400 chipset can run HD movies and light-weight gaming.
------- On the other hand, (as an aspiring developer) I can't wait to finally see completely new applications of all this CPU and GPU power. Currently, there are very few uses of powerful CPUs (and GPGPU processing) outside of a few specific niches like 3D gaming, Pro graphics/video/modeling apps, scientific simulations, etc. I think an entirely new breed of software development will arise that uses all of the available processing power for never-before-seen applications and features that have been unavailable outside the lab and will greatly enrich the experience of the average user.
For example, think of easy-to-use but highly advanced image processing built into apps like Picasa or iPhoto where a novice can easily click a few buttons and:
- change/eliminate complex backgrounds in pictures
- flawlessly remove an individual out of a picture and have the remaining gap intelligently filled in to fit with the existing background.
- change the clothing styles or hairstyle of people in a picture
- intelligently combine multiple photos to take the best elements from each or to add different people together into one pic
I'm sure the possibilities with video will be even more amazing. and I'm not just talking about making things easier that currently require an expert, but wholly new ideas that are impossible today and which can be made possible with new algorithms and a lot of processing power...
ok you get the picture.. I've been typing too long..
i dont see why they need to come out with a BRAND-NEW cpu that's 0.1ghz (100mhz) better than the last (7750) i wouldn't mind if they up it to 3.0ghz and call it a 8000 and shrink it to 45nm
as far as Kuma's concerned 7750 is still better price wise and 7850 is pretty much a marketing tool to size up the Kuma series IMO.
I was thinking the same thing i saw this and thought how is this any diffrent from the 7750 Kuma? I have a 7750 one of my systems and its been great built and entire HTPC that can handle some pretty heavy gaming for about $500.
its about time AMD started really pushing price wise to force one over Intel, consider me in :D
gotta admit i find it very funny the in this environment we all agree competition is a good thing... but with OS's Engadget commentators find it impossible to say the same thing xD peace out
OEMs need to sell AMD more.
And AMD needs to make better mobile chips.
well Intel give 'incentives', w/ all the $ AMD is losing i'm not sure exactly how AMD is gonna compete w/ that financially..
Well AMD needs to move to 45nm or smaller, it's not a silver bullet, but it would help greatly with their perf per watt and the fact their chips run a lot hotter than the latest Intels do.
Dude.. that comment combined with your avatar was priceless.
Why can't we all just get along?
So AMD GPUs are Last years cutting edge under $100; AMD CPUs are good enough for a great price.
When you don't have the budget to develop cutting edge, I guess it's best to find ways to shave down the price.
Peraps this is the Honda Civic that gets people onto the lot where the Accords and, better yet, Acura Integras are also sold.
I wouldn't call the new 4770 old technology, hell it is the first 40nm GPU. It's still under the 4000 series moniker, so they don't claim it to be brand new tech. If they called it the 5770 that would be fishy :)
They didn't do an NVIDIA and rebrand an old card as a brand new unit :P E.g. 8800 to 9800 (8800 with die shrink) to GTX 250 (exact same card as the 9800) :)
Looks good, but I only have the old AM2 (Motherboard: Asus M2N-Sli Deluxe)
I am not sure if upgrading my +4200 to this is that much... even so I have a credit card I should pay off and some students loans...
ARGH this makes me angry.
Get it. It would be a good upgrade. And its AMD, so this chip will work in your AM2 board. Go for it, the 8750 is calling you.
Used to be a die-hard Athlon 64 user but nowadays I'd rather have a Celeron or Pentium Dual Core.
Ur kidding me right? Celeron!?!? Those last what....like 1 year before they crap out. Must not have been a die-hard Athlon 64 fan to go over that easily. I would take a Athlon 64 over a celeron or pentium dual core any day.
First price...second, performance.
I like some of Intel's CPU's, but if your looking budget don't seriously go for their "budget" over what AMD can offer at the same price.
I haven't used a Celeron in awhile, and while my impression was that the higher clock speed never compensated for the smaller cache, I've never had one crap out. CPUs rarely fail.
Ok so pantium dual cores are obviously crap at stock (mine came clocked at 1.6Ghz) however since it overclocks to 3.2GHz and cost £35 I hope some of you noobz might understand why I don't buy AMD anymore, Jesus are you all beginners ?
Would it be easier for you if he stamped Troll in his comments?
@ SlaterGS
My old Athlon64 3000+ was a 2 in Vista, my £35 Pentium Dual-Core e2140 overclocked to 2.5Ghz was a 5.5.
You do the maths oh fount of knowledge.
Since I was an Ex-AMD user I really don't see why people assume I was trying to start an argument, I was stating a fact, most AMDs don't overclock to well compared to Intel chips, so there.
Jez AMD fans are getting as bad as Apple fans.
@Major4Play: If you said you'd rather have a Core 2 or Core i7, I'd be agreeing with you. But Celeron and Pentium are absolute garbage, no matter what the clock rate.
Heh, my spell check wants to replace "Celeron" with "celery"... it'd probably perform about as well. :¬)
makes me wanna build a new computer!! What GPU did they come out with?
ATI 4770, first 40nm GPU to market :)
If you look around you can buy the 4850 for $90, which is cheaper and faster than the 4770. Despite, the 4700 is a powerful GPU for the price and if you can't get a good deal on the 4850 then it's your best bet, unless you're playing some of the few games that just perform horribly on ATI but well on Nvidia (Second Life, World At War, to name a few).
This is a nice stop gap, the benchies i saw yesterday put it just under Core 2 clock for clock, not bad :)
45nm, Phenom II based Ahtlon X2's aren't far off so i wouldn't call this a good upgrade option to systems with older Ahtlon X2's. Good option for a budget gaming box or media center PC when paired with a 780g motherboard :)
69 Dude!
i want one
I have never seen a QR code on a CPU before. I like that! Too bad the image is too small for my phone to decode it.
AMD (and farther back Cyrix) used to dominate their class by being cheap, straightforward, and "good enough." Basic home and business systems could run just fine and save a decent amount of money, while the bleeding edge folks would opt for Intel. Their on their way back to their old position which is best, they got sidetracked and bogged down trying to "beat" Intel and Nvidia fighting a two-front war... where have we seen that failed strategy before :)
Nice, except 95w... nonono
Yeah meh, that bugs me too. I put an Athlon X2 4850-BE in my parents' new computer, it's probably nowhere near as fast as this but it only uses 45W, and they don't need the extra performance anyway. The problem is that Kuma is really just Phenom II with two cores disabled, which doesn't help power consumption much. I think if I were considering a Kuma at all, it would probably be worth it just to get the equivalent Phenom II X4 for maybe twice the price but only slightly higher power consumption. Of course, if you've got a decent PSU 95W doesn't mean much, but for me I would feel like it's kind of a waste of energy to not get the quad core and use all the power available.
Hummmm Maybe this will tide me over till I upgrade my whole PC to a quadcore.. I am running a 5600+ Right now.. I want to see benchmarks for this processor in comparison to other AMD chips.. If its only 69 bucks... I can sling that..
I am looking for something really cheap to build a decent multipurpose machine out of. Is this going to be compatible with a motherboard that has high ram support for future OS flexibility? I haven't been keeping up. Sorry.
"Black Edition"?? wtf?
Customer: "I'm thinking of buying an Intel processor"
AMD Rep: "Knock yourself a pro slick. Gray matter back got perform' us' down I take TCBin, man'. "
Customer: "I'm sorry I don't understand."
AMD Rep: "Sheeeet, man, cutty say he cant hang."
-jp
You've got to wonder if you even know what Black Edition means, as well as the target audience for a single processor (eg. not in a pre-built HP, Dell, Compaq etc.)
Black Edition means that the CPU's multipliers are unlocked, allowing for very nice overclocking. Do you honestly think that the average Joe that you described in your example will be buying a overclocking-optimized CPU? No.
Hmm. Let's see. The audience is those who actually shop for computer parts and like to overclock. Seems a bit different from what you try to say in your example.
Ergo, YOU FAIL.
I read an article where some Koreans found that by changing a setting in the BIOS, this will show up as a quad-core processor, with all 4 cores running.
They said it ran stable for them, but YMMV.
I think that was only with some Gigabyte motherboards too.
It must have failed some tests for them to sell it as a dual core.
Or maybe it's just the higher demand.
pick me!
Is there a 939-pin version? That'd be sweet.
Not that I would mind moving on to Core 2 or Core i7, but $69 is a nice deal for a low-hassle speed bump.