Hot on the heels of its first quarterly profit in three years (
thanks to Intel, strangely enough),
AMD is launching a new pair of desktop processors today that hit for under a buck twenty (amongst a few others). The $99 Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition is the company's quickest dual-core desktop CPU to date at 3.2GHz, while the Athlon II X4 635 is expected to be one of the least expensive quad-core chips around. Both slabs of silicon hit the test bench over the weekend, and as you may expect, no one was particularly blown away. Of course, AMD never set out to shock and awe with this duo, but the performance-per-dollar ratio was downright beautiful. We'll spare you the nitty-gritty details (all the bar charts you can handle are just below), but suffice it to say, these two are certainly worth a look if you're fixing to build a low-end, low-cost tower for... um, your mother. Yeah, her.
Read - Hot Hardware
Read - AnandTech
Read - Computer Shopper
Read - Tom's Hardware
Read - Overclocker's Club
Read - ExtremeTech
posted January 25th 2010 11:54AM
AMD. I love you....
@PlatinumSkeet
But not as much as your mother, right? Right?
@PlatinumSkeet
Awww I see what you did there...
... but you're bringing me down...
Dual Core PHENOM!? Blasphemy!
@Patricio Arnechino
the benchmarks all show, you're losing the race
@Patricio Arnechino Well, hopefully AMD can cope up with those 6months of leniency of productivity with their processors compare to intel which is now on the verge of producing 32 NM procs. clarkdale-arrandale details: http://bit.ly/arrandale-clarkdale-indepth-details
I'm still saving money up for my Phenom II Quad Core 3.2ghz CPU
Its only $165 on Newegg, I'm so close :D
@Drybones5 955? I just put one in my most recent build, and I am very happy the with results, it's fast and the stock cooler is pretty quiet, even after 5+ hours of prime95 it's stable at 59C.
@RBecho
The one I looked at was a Phenom II 955 Black Edition
Omg I want it so bad D:
I want off this bad overheating laptop!
@Drybones5
Please get the C3 MBOX instead of the C2 IBOX. It will make a difference.
Older C2 IBOX: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103674
Newer C3 MBOX: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808
@michaspi
ACTUALLY
That C3 MBOX is the EXACT one I'm getting
what is the difference?
@Drybones5 A few things, the C3's use less power, overclock better, have an improved memory controller and something else i can't remember right now xS
@Aaronage
Good enough for me :D
@RBecho
I've got one too. It's a great CPU for the price, but don't expect to be competing against the Core i7s in benchmarks. As for practical use, I'm running Windows 7 x64 Ultimate and the highest CPU usage I've ever been able to hit was 80%, and that was in Dolphin (Wii emulator). If you've got the money and you plan to overclock, just skip straight to an aftermarket cooler. AMD says that you need to keep it under 62*C under load, so 59* is really pushing it. I've had the same experience with temps. BTW, throwing voltage at these things for overclocking has little to no effect. If you want to get past 3.8 Ghz, you will almost definately need much better than stock cooling.
This could be fairly decent and very inexpensive for a low end media center pc. Can this handle 1080p is the question? I read through AnandTech and it did pretty good in h.264 encoding (2 pass).
@keithp I'm handling 1080p flawlessly with an AMD nowhere near as fast as these, so...yeah. 1080p shouldn't be a problem.
@keithp
Is it me, or is asking if a 2*3.2ghz chip can handle 1080p like asking if a family sedan can still reach highway speed limits even though it's not a F1 car?
@Jorvay It's just you.
CPU is not the primary choice for 1080p playback, GPU or a special accelerator (think Broadcom HD chip) should handle it. You'd be surprised how even quite recent C2Ds can't do 1080p coupled with X3100 (reference to my GFs blackbook).
@keithp
C2Ds are not "quite recent", nor is the X3100.
These are recent, and they seem to do 1080p just fine.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/25/intel-gma-hd-graphics-review-deems-them-excellent-for-video-med/
AMD really needs a new name scheme.
@Jeff
I agree.
@Jeff
I think they should name them the i4, i6, i8
Great time for me to make an HTPC. Aww yea.
I bet the OEMs are happy with these chips and lets face it they buy a lot more of them then enthusiasts ever would.
"The $99 Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition is the company's quickest dual-core desktop CPU to date at 3.2GHz..."
Actually AMD released an Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Black Edition with stock clock at 3.2GHz (http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=33). It's still running one of my favorite gaming rigs.
While I have no doubt this new X2 555 performs better than that good ol' Athlon X2 workhorse, it's not because of the clock speed as you imply.
@wyrdtoo Clock speed is not the only determining factor for quickness and power. These may be faster than your Athlon 64 X2 even though the clock speed is the same.
@Andir LOL! Yeah, exactly what I said in my last sentence.
I was just disputing the article's statement about this new dual core cpu's 3.2GHz being the quickest AMD has ever released.
"...is the company's quickest dual-core desktop CPU to date at 3.2GHz..."
Obviously it's not because the 6400+ has a 3.2GHz clock.
I wouldn't call a 2.6 ghz quad-core low end at all, for A LOT of people that's more than enough, and I'm not talking about your mother, I'm taking about developers, people who need to run several virtual machines, I don't know much about video/image/audio editing but I bet this can hold it's own in this areas too. I'm using a Q6600 and I get a lot of juice out of it, I don't care if i7's are 6 times faster, I still don't consider any build like this to be low end.
Low-end? The Intel processor I'm using right now for my gaming PC is by default clocked lower than the 3.2Ghz Phenom II (though I have it overclocked significantly higher), and it's still suiting me just fine. Your low-end is still either the Atom or Celeron/Sempron.
I'd also be more interested in these AMD processors if they had a lower TDP. The best HTPC processors (depending on what you're doing with your HTPC, example: transcoding movies would be best served for your desktop PC's beefier duo/quad/more core), are still the truly low-end 45W ones that now seem to be unavailable (at least from Newegg). But while they're pretty much base-line, old tech, they're just fine for a media device, even with playing HD media, and they use up very little power. Though admittedly, if I were buying today, I'd probably say screw the power savings and go for the higher, yet super cheap, Phenom there to give myself a little leg room for other stuff.
Are you implying Phenom II X2 is low-end?
That CPU is the king of value in the $700-900 build range.
Athlon II X4 635 + ATI 5770 would make a pretty decent cheap gaming computer.
Phenom X2 550 is the best bang for the buck, has a really high possibility of unlocking into a quad core with the right mobo. Will beat most Core 2 Quad's at stock speeds when unlocked!! Best $100 spent on a comp.
" these two are certainly worth a look if you're fixing to build a low-end, low-cost tower for... um, your mother. Yeah, her."
Funny, I'm using a $100 AMD processor for video editing and it works like a dream.
"(..)these two are certainly worth a look if you're fixing to build a low-end, low-cost tower for... um, your mother."
Bah, Darren, let mothers have their cheap nettops.
And next time do check the actual benchmarks, to notice that the chips being released, although being not high-end, still have decent performance for a low-to-mid range gaming rig and virtually any other application except video editing.
@weedy Nevermind video editing, @darkNiGHTS actually says, it fits him for that purpose as well.
would you rather get these or the i series??
http://www.tvlesson.com/video/37736_intel-core-i7-overclocking-tutorial.html
@xxaznmonk
Rather get an X4 635 or a 550/555 with high chances of unlocking to a 950/955. Can get a mobo, ram, and cpu for less than the i5 core's and perform neck to neck on most cases with an unlocked 550/555 of course.
wake me up for thuban
The cheaper, the better.
But I wonder why AMD doesn't employ this marketing strategy in their graphic cards. :DD
@dreamerkm They kind of do. The 4XX0 did in comparison to Nvidia products.
The 5670, 5750 and 5770 fill that niche but prices are usually higher the MSRP.
I'm just happy that AMD doesn't require me to convert to a completely new motherboard/socket/memory scheme every time I turn around. I got tired of the socket shuffle with Intel years ago and switched to the more affordable AMD units, haven't looked back since. It's nice to be able to mix and match within my multiple computers - as I upgrade 1 computer, I tend to trickle the better hardware down into the others to boost them a little :)
@Vrmithrax
Luckily you never were a 939 owner, you wouldve think different......
@GTRkilla . I am a 939 owner. Athlon 64 X2 4200+ runs like a charm for 5+ years now. Surprisingly most games run fine at 16x10. Some even at 19x12. Can't complain.
Wish to replace though. DDR1 got out of fashion and my nForce MB is limiting too. And I likely would get AMD again: price/performance is great and ... heck my 4200+ runs most of the stuff just fine. Why waste money on Intel, when I'm going to use only a fraction of all the performance? Home PC should be cheap and replaceable.
@Dummy00001
I never said the 939's were bad but they were abandoned too quick (aka Intel). I loved my 3500 and was going to upgrade to an X2 4400 but prices were high for those old chipsets (and ram). In the long run it was better to upgrade to an X2 550 (now an X4 B50!) especially when the costs were close with the exception of the mobo (which was only $45 O.B Newegg FTW!)
If you plan on leaving your PC on 24/7 then the savings in energy of a Intel chipset would offset the low entry price of an AMD.
Just a thought. Energy is expensive and not just in dollars and cents.
For platform energy consumption, there Intel and AMD trade it blow by blow. Some of the faster AMD CPUs run a bit hot compared to the equivalent Intel, but in the low end and midrange segment AMD often has the edge.
(Currently rocking AMD X4 Athlon 605e, 45W quad core... )