AMD's Phenom X3 8000 Series: Fighting Two Cores with Three?
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 23, 2008 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
A Newcomer from Intel: The Core 2 Duo E7200
A couple of weeks before the Phenom X3 launch Intel sent this little gem:
That's the Core 2 Duo E7200, it's due out sometime this quarter and it's supposed to sell for $133. The 45nm dual-core E7200 runs at 2.53GHz, with a 1066MHz FSB and has a 3MB L2 cache. Given what we reported in our last CPU story, we don't expect to see Intel hit the $133 mark with this chip until 45nm dual core shipments ramp up in late Q2/early Q3. A quick search online reveals the E7200 selling for around $160 today.
Intel also trimmed the pricing on some of its CPUs, the Core 2 Quad Q6600 now sells for $224 and the Core 2 Duo E6850 is now priced at $183.
Mainstream Platforms: Intel has an Issue
In the sub-$200 CPU space, most of these chips will be paired up with a motherboard that supports integrated graphics. For AMD that means the new 780G chipset and for Intel that means G35. Now from a general performance standpoint, these two chipsets perform very much like their more expensive, enthusiast-class siblings (790FX and P35/X48). You may give up 2 - 3% in the way of performance but motherboards are much cheaper and you get the benefit of integrated graphics, which is more than sufficient if your usage doesn't including heavy 3D gaming.
Unfortunately, Intel is in a not-so-great position right now when it comes to its platforms. It can't turn to ATI anymore for integrated graphics solutions, and with a full out war on NVIDIA brewing, it's left alone to provide chipsets for its processors as NVIDIA's latest IGP solutions are not yet available for Intel CPUs.
While G45 will hopefully bring full H.264/VC1/MPEG-2 decode acceleration to Intel's integrated graphics, it's just not ready yet. And while ATI/NVIDIA have historically held the integrated graphics performance advantage, now it's arguably even bigger. Without full HD-decode support on its chipsets, it's not just gamers that Intel is alienating, the platforms are preventing further adoption of Blu-ray on the PC.
So what are the options for OEMs? Either go with an AMD platform, or stick an AMD or NVIDIA graphics card in their Blu-ray enabled Intel machines. Neither option is something that Intel should be happy with right now. Intel's forthcoming G45 chipset does, at least in theory, solve this problem - however it's at least a couple of months away from being released.
As far as mainstream platforms go, AMD is definitely the winner here. The CPU performance leaves much to be desired, but for once (for once), we actually have a tangible platform advantage on the desktop. Now if you pirate your HD movies then none of this matters, as GPU accelerated H.264 decode doesn't work on much pirated content.
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Locutus465 - Thursday, April 24, 2008 - link
how do you justify this position when comparing the platforms as a whole, particularly taking into consideration budget platforms with integrated graphics.Roy2001 - Thursday, April 24, 2008 - link
For HTPC, 780G paired with a 5600+ is enough. Actually, a E2200 can decode any HD/BD movies, who cares chipset?For multicore usage, get a Q6600/Q9450, gamers wang a E8400/E7200. Period.
Roy2001 - Thursday, April 24, 2008 - link
For HTPC, 780G paired with a 5600+ is enough. Actually, a E2200 can decode any HD/BD movies, who cares chipset?For multicore usage, get a Q6600/Q9450, gamers wang a E8400/E7200. Period.
Nihility - Wednesday, April 23, 2008 - link
Great review!The power consumption test seems to indicate the X3 requires less power per core than the X4. A 25% decrease in system power consumption after removing 1 core seems to prove that.
I was hoping for an overclocking test. Naturally I assume it would be just as bad as the X4 version but due to the lower power requirements I'm curious if AMD managed to improve it.
Schugy - Wednesday, April 23, 2008 - link
The Phenom X3 is a great CPU just as the X4 but there's a lot of outdated software. It's obvious that the Phenom likes software that is frequently updated with its capabilities in mind. The Phenom has a lot of horsepower for Nero Recode (Imagine 45nm and 3GHz or more), Main Concept-Encoder, LDAP, UT3, AutoMKV but some software makers are extremely good in wasting it.bpl442 - Wednesday, April 23, 2008 - link
Nvidia Geforce 7100 / nforce 630i based motherboards like the Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2."Unfortunately, Intel is in a not-so-great position right now when it comes to its platforms. It can't turn to ATI anymore for integrated graphics solutions, and with a full out war on NVIDIA brewing, it's left alone to provide chipsets for its processors as NVIDIA's latest IGP solutions are not yet available for Intel CPUs."
nubie - Wednesday, April 23, 2008 - link
I think they are referring to the 8200/8300 series, and the like with full HD decode, also possibly 65nm/55nm so that the power usage is less.nVidia isn't ready yet for Intel. (personally I don't care for onboard graphics, mainly because of their lack of TV outputs, and it seems that they are being skipped over entirely and switched to HDMI/DisplayPort if anything, I did once own a 6150 with S-Video/Composite/Component output, but that is the exception to the rule. And still no HD decode.)
FodderMAN - Wednesday, April 23, 2008 - link
Why does no one test these at faster HT speeds?I still stand by the statement I have made time and again that these processors are being castrated by the 200FSB HT speeds. If you run a classic athlon64 at 233, 250, or even 266 ( when attainable ) these processors start to really outshine Intel’s procs. And I can only see phenom being that much stronger. Now I know this is considered an overclock as AMD has zero procs at the higher bus speeds. This would help AMD's revenues as they would be able to add another product code for procs running various FSB / HT speeds even though they would shrink the multiplier range as these cores seem to run into stability problems at about 2.6 - 2.8ghz.
PLEASE someone do a test at higher bus speeds so we can refer AMD to published numbers. I guess for the time being I will have to wait for a good 6 phase powered board before I buy my phenom and do the testing myself. But I always had great luck with the classic ath64's when upping the FSB / HT speeds and lowering the multipliers. The athlon64 always showed great promise at 250-266 FSB/HT and I can only imaging how well they would run at a 333 FSB / HT speed.
Time will tell,
The Goat
retrospooty - Thursday, April 24, 2008 - link
"a classic athlon64 at 233, 250, or even 266 ( when attainable ) these processors start to really outshine Intel’s procs."There isnt any situation at all, where AMD is outshining Intel CPU these days. If you OC the AMD to 266, you can OC the Intel to 500+ FSB, and AMD isnt outshing anything, not in speed, performance, power, overclockability, or bang for your buck. Intel is winning by all measurements.
Assimilator87 - Wednesday, April 23, 2008 - link
According to the guys at XS, raising the HT reference clock doesn't affect Phenom's performance in any way. It's the effective HT clock that matters, which is currently 1800Mhz using a multi of 9.