We saw the review. The much awaited AMD response; the Quad FX platform didn’t quite live up to the hype. I think it would be fair to summarize all the reviews from all hardware sites to be the following:
1. AMD’s Quad FX failed to beat Intel’s quad core.
2. AMD’s Quad FX draws a significant amount of power at similar performance to Intel’s quad core.
A lot of AMD cheerleaders still do come out and dispute the benchmark results, which at this point appears to be consistent from one review site to another. And if anything, their complaints would have only amounted to, at best, some insignificant performance gains. No matter how you look at the results, statement 1 and 2 will always remain true.
One other tragedy that seemed to be oblivious to most is how much of an impact Intel’s aggressive product releases are to AMD. At this moment, the FX74 is priced at $499 ($999/2) while FX62 is approximately at $700. This kind of pricing simply destroys the attractiveness of FX62 and I only expect it to significantly drop in price sometime soon. People argue about performance and power efficiency but one thing that’s obvious and indisputable is the fact that AMD sells 2 top bin processors for the price of one just to compete with Intel single CPU solution. Never in the life of the Athlon brand name did this every happen.
12.04.2006
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4 comments:
I need your opinion on my planned upgrade. Recently i'm finding my latest rig no longer performing very well. I was wondering if a QuadFX system would be better than halogen based space heater.
The winter here in Canada has been severe and i'm really looking forward to buying a new space heater.
It is hard to appreciate an FX62 when you know the FX74 is actually cheaper. It just makes you stop and think about buying AMD systems for gaming. I have always owned an AMD system but with this kind of pricing, it makes the C2D very appealing.
It actually gets better - the newly announce 5600+ is the same spec as an FX-62 and is $200 cheaper! (speed, cache, process technology node, both AM2..) I assume this means they will be obsoleting the FX brand on single socket desktops, but on the other hand I can see the AMD sales and marketing conversations:
SALES: "do you really think people will spend an extra $200 on an FX62 when they can get the same spec chipped labeled as a 5600+"
MARKETING: "why not, we're selling 4x4's aren't we?"
SALES: "Well actually, we've LAUNCHED the product, selling them is another thing"
QuadFX needs a NUMA aware OS and a motherboard with much lower power consumption. AMD should have bit the bullet a while longer and wait until the beginning of february, instead of releasing a half-backed product now. THe underlying idea for quad FX is good: It is irrelevant how quad core is achieved, the only things that matter are the outcome: Performance, power consumption and price. Unfortunately for AMD 1 out of 3 isn't going to cut it
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