AMD Athlon II X4 620 & 630: The First $99 Quad Core CPU
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 16, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
Regardless of what it may seem like, this is not a repeat of AMD during the late K8 or during the Phenom days. AMD is relegated to competing in the sub-$200 space, it is actually very competitive in that space. These days, I'm sure that's not a bad position to be in. While I'm sure AMD would love to be able to demand more money for its processors, being able to demand any at all isn't a bad position to be in.
The Athlon II X4 620: Doing the Athlon Brand Justice
AMD effectively knocked 40% off the value of Intel's low end quad-core CPUs. The Athlon II X4 620 manages to, at $99, perform close enough to the Core 2 Quad Q8200 that the latter simply doesn't make any sense. Add another hundred dollars and you'll get a Core i5 750 (or less will get you into a Phenom II X4 945/955), but if you're on a strict budget you can't beat the 620.
The 630 I'm less excited about simply because it commands a 22% price premium. What the 620 has going for it is its sub-$100 entry price; start going much above that then you might as well be looking at a Phenom II X3.
In the Phenom generation AMD fought off Intel's dual cores with its own triple cores. This time AMD is fighting off Intel's dual cores with quad cores. It's clever positioning and aggressive pricing that AMD will have to employ in order to make it until Bulldozer and Fusion hit.
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the zorro - Thursday, September 17, 2009 - link
the turbo overclocking is plain overclocking of all lynnfield cores at least 600 mhz and you are comparing lynfield overcloded results versus phenom 2 955 stock speeds.phenom 2 is much better than lynnfied 750 and when overclocked to 4ghz remains at 55 C while lynnfield temps are almost 100C. which sucks.
all the 'advantage' of lynnfied in these results comes from benchmarking an overclocked processor and present it as if it were stock speed, which is illegal
silverblue - Thursday, September 17, 2009 - link
Wrong. I'll help you here...i5 750
Default: 2.66GHz
4 cores: 2.93GHz 3 cores: 2.93GHz 2 cores: 3.06GHz 1 core: 3.20GHz (gains: 266MHz/266MHz/400MHz/533MHz)
i7 860
Default: 2.80GHz
4 cores: 3.06GHz 3 cores: 3.06GHz 2 cores: 3.33GHz 1 core: 3.46GHz (gains: 266MHz/266MHz/533MHz/667MHz)
(all data reassembled from the second table at http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...
The turbo mode gives a minimum boost of 266MHz and a maximum of either 533MHz for the i5 or 667MHz for the i7. NOT 600MHz for all cores. Quite where you got that from is beyond me. Additionally, Turbo is a 100% legitimate technology. Would you be happier if the default clock was throttled?
As for illegal... we have a word in the UK for this sort of comments, and it's "bollocks".
Eeqmcsq - Thursday, September 17, 2009 - link
Good chart, though you linked to the wrong page. It was on the Turbo Mode page. I have no idea how I missed that chart the first time I read the article.But for the i5 750, if the lowest GHz Turbo mode will operate at is 2.93 GHz, why doesn't Intel just call it an i5 750 at 2.93 GHz, instead of 2.66 GHz?
silverblue - Thursday, September 17, 2009 - link
My bad - the link has a ) after it which sends you to the intro page. I should've put a space after the link.At least you checked through to find it... I doubt "the zorro" has bothered as of yet.
You make a very good point about Turbo but it's not as if Intel is pretending it doesn't exist or it's disabled; it should be relatively easy for people to make comparisons using the benchmarks in this article as well as others. I suppose it may have helped if there was data suggesting the clock speed at the time of a specific test, but I can't imagine that'd be a very easy thing to do especially if threads are being bounced across cores and as a result, the clock speed is constantly fluctuating. The alternative would've been to disable Turbo and that would've prevented people like "the zorro" from his pointless tirade on here, but they would've been disabling a feature of the processor to test it against rivals that lack that feature.
Eeqmcsq - Thursday, September 17, 2009 - link
> I suppose it may have helped if there was data suggesting the clock speed at the time of a specific test, but I can't imagine that'd be a very easy thing to do especially if threads are being bounced across cores and as a result, the clock speed is constantly fluctuating.- No, but the troll does make one point that I agree with. When an i5 is run with Turbo mode, Anand's charts should NOT list that it is at 2.66 GHz. He should list it as 2.93-3.20 GHz, especially if it is 100% certain that Turbo mode NEVER reaches the baseline Turbo off clock of 2.66 GHz.
> The alternative would've been to disable Turbo and that would've prevented people like "the zorro" from his pointless tirade on here, but they would've been disabling a feature of the processor to test it against rivals that lack that feature.
- Well, I've asked for the same thing, but for different reasons that I don't want to repeat in this comment or I'll sound like a troll. :)
the zorro - Thursday, September 17, 2009 - link
if you are an accountant and do the same thing and try to present false results as real then you would go to jail.you can call a bank robbery an 'auto loan' but still is robbery and you still go to jail.
people is not stupid.
silverblue - Thursday, September 17, 2009 - link
AMD, please just incorporate a turbo mode into your next CPUs so we can get rid of trolls like this one. Do it for me.Please.
the zorro - Thursday, September 17, 2009 - link
no amd wont do that.why?
because a platform at stock speed is more stable than other that is auto overclocking, also intel created the turbo crap story to charge for the overclocking.
yes intel is charging their users for the overclocking,now overclocking is a feature and intel charges for it.
amd phenom 2 overclocking is free.
try to auto overclock a server, that is not good and creates instability in the platform.
silverblue - Thursday, September 17, 2009 - link
And if they do, oh what will you do then?Additionally, try to explain to me what the 965 BE is other than an overclocked variant of the 955, which in turn was an overclocked variant of the 945. Isn't it interesting how none of these overclocks better than the others, and why the 965 BE has a higher TDP than the 955?
You act as if AMD and Intel have never produced an overclocked variant of any of their CPUs until Nehalem turned up.
the zorro - Thursday, September 17, 2009 - link
i can see that you have no clue, when a new processor is introduced that is 200 mhz faster than another model, is not an overclocked processor, is a more refined silicon, with better electrical properties and more stable at highers speeds. and also with higher overclocking headroom.