Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 and Massive Price Cuts
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 16, 2007 3:04 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Affordable Quad Core: AMD Athlon 64 FX-74 vs. Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700
AMD doesn't have any quad-core CPUs on the market today, but you can get four cores in a single motherboard by going with a Quad FX platform. AMD's attempt at building a enthusiast class dual socket, dual core platform is far from the most elegant solution in the world, but it does provide an interesting upgrade path. The Quad FX platform uses Socket-1207 CPUs and will be able to be upgraded to dual quad-core chips when they are available, giving you eight cores on a desktop motherboard. Intel has a similar offering called V8, but the AMD Quad FX platform uses standard desktop DDR2 memory which makes it infinitely more attractive.
The problem with Quad FX is that the motherboard is expensive, the whole platform consumes a great deal of power, and you can just as easily get a single socket, quad-core solution from Intel for less money. We haven't revisited Quad FX vs. Quad-Core since AMD introduced the platform, and since then there have been some price cuts on both sides of the fence. AMD now sells two Socket-1207 Athlon 64 FX-74 processors (3.0GHz) at $599 for the pair, making it quite cost competitive with Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6700 ($530).
If we forget about the added cost of a Quad FX motherboard for the moment, how do the two similarly priced processors stack up? The chart below shows the performance advantage/disadvantage the Q6700 holds compared to the FX-74:
That's not very pretty for AMD. The Athlon 64 FX-74 ends up being 1.1% faster in Cinebench but on average, the Q6700 is 14.1% faster than the more expensive Quad FX platform. The only benefit you get with Quad FX is the ability to eventually upgrade it to eight cores, but in our opinion for the majority of users the upgrade path is simply not enough to justify the means to get there.
Taking advantage of four cores on the desktop is tough enough today, and if you really need 8 cores today buying a platform that will support it in the future isn't going to help make your applications faster now. The market for Quad FX continues to be limited and our original recommendation from the first Quad FX review stands: you're better off with Intel's quad-core.
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DolphinAMD - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
nooo! I just bought an Core 2 Duo E6420 for $186The replacement seems like the E6750 at $183
Sunrise089 - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
sorry buddy, but these prices weren't exactly a secret.lennylim - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
If you go according to max. multiplier, an important number for overclocking, the pricing makes some kind of sense.Looking at dual cores only, here's the pricing by multiplier.
7x multiplier : $163
8x multiplier : $183
9x multiplier : $224 (E6600) / $266 (E6850)
10x multiplier : $316
Still a damn good price for C2D. And the E6600 is actually a good deal for overclockers.
hubajube - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
The price of the X2 6000 is $169.99 on Newegg not $180. Even though the new stuff is quicker than AMD's best it's only a little quicker and the $10 difference between them plus the cheaper motherboards for AMD will still pretty much seal the deal for my next upgrade. If the quad cores were $180 then I would be willing to stretch for the extra cost of the Intel motherboards (Intel or Nvidia chipset).MrKaz - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
Finally someone with brains.I already have said the same with different words.
Did you also notice they only mention the extra price cost on the AMD motherboard because of Quad FX, they don’t mention Intel extra price premium on the motherboard.
The Intel motherboards are very expensive, the ASUS P5N-E SLI for example in my country costs 120€, the AMD version the M2N-E SLI 80€. Its 40€ difference.
Also the only interesting Core 2 Duo is the E6550 which costs $163. Lower than this you get one castrated CPU from Intel.
AMD X2 3600 costs 60€ in my country so its 60+80=140€
Intel E6550 168€ so its 120€+168€=288€
Its “just” 148€ difference or one X1950PRO if you prefer.
Accord99 - Wednesday, July 18, 2007 - link
Why compare the E6550, which is faster than all but the AMD 6000+ with a 3600+ that is slower than Intel's "castrated" Pentium E2160?
hubajube - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
I was looking at the ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe which is $170 compared to the ASUS P5N32-SLI Premium for $210 here. A $40 difference that I can use towards my 8800GTS and then add the $10 from the CPU difference and I STILL get a computer that plays BF2 or whatever at WELL over 100fps.Pirks - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
exactly, this is why I'm going to use AMD for my gaming rig for the foreseeable future. cheap AMD cpu plus expensive nvidia 3D video equals best gaming experience, definitely better than that of intel FOR THE SAME PRICE. AMD is the best friend for the gamer, while Intel is the best friend for media encoder/3D renderer kind of guy, or anyone who loads all their four cores at 100%iceburger - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
I've had the same reasoning for the last 10 years- AMD platform always cost less- sometimes the difference will cover nice video card. IMHO this Intel price cut may backfire for them- the reason you spend money on marketing is to be able to get higher profit margins. Instead of dropping the price, the reasonable decision would have been to "milk" the market- maintain the current separation: high- and mid-end for Intel, low-end for AMD. This price cut is strictly a hostile move aimed to bury AMD's entire line and force them to lose even more with consecutive AMD price cut. However Intel has higher fixed development cost and even if they sell more CPUs, their profit will be lower- it's a lose-lose situation. Reminds me of GWB's tax cuts.Sunrise089 - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
Only problem with all of this otherwise sound reasoning is that the same folks who are enough of an enthusiast to know that the AMD MB's can save them a bit, and then apply that savings towards either the GPU or grabbing a higher-end AMD processor are very likely to overclock, and that sort of blows the AMD side of the equation out of the water.I'm and AMD fan myself, but you have to admit, anyone who even considers overclocking their CPU has no business picking the AMD side unless they just want to help the underdog.
Pointing out Anandtech's failure to mention the cheaper AMD platform is fair enough, but it was AT LEAST equally damaging to the Intel side to not show benchmarks from an overclocked 6000+ vs a 6850. Does anyone think it would be close?