What will AMDs response be to Conroe?

Drapper

I'm gonna wait! nice I'[ve moved from Intel to AMD I can not see myself going back! :p

Anyone got an idea what AMD is gonna do? I'm sure they will release a chip that rocks Initel again !! :D

Also, rumour has it AMD has bought ATI ! is this true? what will it mean for my beloved nVidia ?:cool::cool::cool:

djmarkus

Where did you hear that AMD was buying ATI?

I would take that with a pinch of salt

techie

Watch AMD prices come down for all their processors , a bargain can be had in the next month or two when this happens!

po0k

AMD are buying ATI.

<pinch.slt>

http://www.google.ie/search?q=AMD+ATI
http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/31/amd-ati-technologies-0531markets10.html
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/07/07/amd_ati_buyout_deal_claim/
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/amd-ati.ars

GPUs in HTX slots/sockets.
AMD will have consumer core logic chipsets again.

layke

AMD Opteron Processors have jumped 52% in sales this Q. Their highest demand ever.

However Intel is now making it big in the retail market and is now beating AMD.

http://www.techspot.com/news/22136-amd-sees-record-demand-for-opteron-processors.html

I still think the 64bit processor is the way to go for home users. I will be going AMD for my next beast.

GrumPy

techie wrote:

Watch AMD prices come down for all their processors , a bargain can be had in the next month or two when this happens!

They have already dropped a good bit, and they will drop even more soon. You can buy a 3800+ for €150 new on komplett.

djmarkus

I stand corrected.....Thats a pretty big take over

Dooom

Well K8L is a few months around the corner..

BadCharlie

Im not going to upgrade from 939. Would need new Ram, Motherboard & chip. Also i dont have a pci-e card so when the price of the 939 chips come down even more i will replace my 3000+.

Drapper

nice :-)

good info lads!

Col_Loki

They have already dropped a good bit, and they will drop even more soon. You can buy a 3800+ for €150 new on komplett.

Yea thats a good spot, its a pitty the X2 3800+ is twice that price!! Im waiting on those to reduce in price.....really itching for dual core but tight on money.

djmarkus

get an 805

po0k

AMD 64-bit 4x4 + ATI GPUs + PPU Coppers + HTX + full system virtualisation = massive rig and capital outlay. But you'll have a thoroughbred gaming system.

The future is going to be pants-wettingly expensive.

Explosive_Cornflake

I don't think it'll ever come to do that. It's not like you need SLI these days. The option is there for people with a small penis, but you don't need it really. My nortwood and 6600gt play all my games fine. I've no problem with it.

savemejebus

Col_Loki wrote:

Yea thats a good spot, its a pitty the X2 3800+ is twice that price!! Im waiting on those to reduce in price.....really itching for dual core but tight on money.

it seems pretty cheap here

po0k

Explosive_Cornflake wrote:

I don't think it'll ever come to do that. It's not like you need SLI these days. The option is there for people with a small penis, but you don't need it really. My nortwood and 6600gt play all my games fine. I've no problem with it.

You are roadkill on the techno-speedway

I urge you to read up on virtualisation, Intel Vanderpool (VT-x/VT-i) and AMD Pacifica (apparently already on all currently shipping AM2 Athlon64s (not semperons)), Ring0, hypervisors, Xen3.0, VMWare.
Realise what they can enable general software developers to do.

And then actually *think* about how that will affect games.
Alt-Tabbing between your running Linux, Windows and OSX environments is all fine and well - but how will things like accelerated 3D graphics, sound-output, networking etc. be handled?
All guest OSes are supposed to running concurrently in real-time.
What happens if you're running DxX Unreal3 on Vista and want to switch to Linux to get back to work on your OpenGL CAD design work?
Will there be a pause while the gpu memory (framebuffer and texture/geometry etc.) is flushed of the U3 stuff and the CAD entities are loaded? To say nothing of what would be going on in the GPU, soundcard, networking, physics processor etc.
That's hardly ideal.

SLI, in it's current form, will rape you in the womb. That 1gig of ram on your 2nd 8999GTX Ultra holding a clone of the data on the first card starts to seem like a large wad of notes being tossed in a furnace.

What if, instead of discrete cards with on-board procs and dedicated memory connected through (relatively) remote buses, you plugged your GPPU copper into a HTX socket/slot on the motherboard and fill up your slots with ram.
You'd have your major compute elements working in synch on a level playing field.

This, to me, seems like a fairly viable and balls-out path, and I'm not entirely sure it would actually be bought by people (Intel sure as hell wouldn't get a look-in), but it would fncking pwn.

It could also split the PC market right down the middle, possibly even spawning a new category of device, one which blurrs the lines between a fixed-spec dedicated games console-cum-media-apogee and the cutting-edge flexability and adaptability of the PC.

Or it could be that AMD step into the games console arena full-time.

Or VIA could be next year's gaming benchmark.

{edit} In short, I agree with you, particularly about the e-penis thing. SD3700 + x800XL here. But I feel it's imperative to hold your face to the bright light of educated speculation and mayonaise-bowel-punching {/edit}

mac_leinn

Irish GrumPy wrote:

They have already dropped a good bit, and they will drop even more soon. You can buy a 3800+ for €150 new on komplett.

Does anyone know if the 3800+ price will drop any further? I was gonna get a X2 3800+ when the prices drop but the 3800+ looks great now. Should be better for gaming than the X2 which is what i want it for until K8L comes along.

DirkVoodoo

I got the 3800+ from komplett for 150 euro, very happy as i bought it as a stop-gap measure until i see what happens between conroe and the eventual release of K8L (Did i hear around xmas time?)

Anyway, what a stop gap! I know its only single core, but i use this PC for gaming and web-browsing, there arent many apps running simultaneously so I dont think i would see any benefit from a dual core at this present moment. Excellent bang-for-your-buck factor, and its a good indicator as to where the rest of AMDs K8 chips are going price wise. Even though conroe will be amazing, AMD has the advantage of a proven system at rock bottom prices, could sway a lot of people ona budget (pretty much everyone then, except the 'ive got 5 grand to spare, spec me a PC peasants!)

awhir

Col_Loki wrote:

Yea thats a good spot, its a pitty the X2 3800+ is twice that price!! Im waiting on those to reduce in price.....really itching for dual core but tight on money.

well come back

jesus_thats_gre

layke wrote:

However Intel is now making it big in the retail market and is now beating AMD.

Is this a typo of some sort. Intel making it big or beating AMD in the retail market is hardly a revelation.

layke wrote:

I still think the 64bit processor is the way to go for home users. I will be going AMD for my next beast.

Well it is the only way to go to be honest.. Considering all new processors are 64bit compatible.

gline

i wish most new software/games will go multi threaded as we still arent seeing massive gains on dual core systems yet, when that happens amd's 4 core cpus will be amazing

Drapper

I wish I had a cheap copy of winxp64 first! and your right most games have not gone over to dual core............

Khannie

Col_Loki wrote:

Yea thats a good spot, its a pitty the X2 3800+ is twice that price!! Im waiting on those to reduce in price.....really itching for dual core but tight on money.

Yeah, I'm pretty surprised at this too. The dual cores are now overpriced given their performance (the 3800+ x2 is really only 2 x 3200+'s). Having said that....The 3800+ x2 is a lovely overclocker.

gizmo

Well whatever their response is it'd better be good. As we knew already, the Conroe whups AMD's latest offerings. Even the midrange E6600 at $316 hammers the $1,059 FX-62.

Anandtech Article

DemonOfTheFall

Drapper wrote:

I wish I had a cheap copy of winxp64 first! and your right most games have not gone over to dual core............

You sure you really want a copy of XP64 ? I've tried it and it's cack. Much slower than standard XP and crashes (literally) 5 times more often. Serious issues with installing loads of programs, even flash and stuff like that can be a pain in the hole. You'd have to really really want more than 3 gigs of ram to have any reason other than E-p3n0rs to want xp64...

One game that is super dual-core optimised is Quake4. Man, that game pwns on a dual core, sucks on a single core. Theres just no comparison in online play, it's just way less laggy with a second core to keep things ticking over.

gizmo

Looks like the Conroes are selling for higher than the RRP as predicted. The Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Conroe can be had on Newegg for the princely sum of $1,359.99. :rolleyes:

po0k

gline wrote:

i wish most new software/games will go multi threaded as we still arent seeing massive gains on dual core systems yet, when that happens amd's 4 core cpus will be amazing

There's quite a learning curve for developers for multi core, not to mention cross-platform. A64x2/Core, X360 and PS3 are all multi-thread (the Power4core in Cell is dual-issue I think, along with the SPEs kinda falls into the category), but they're all a bit different.
It's not as simple as just turning on a few features. It's a paradigm-shift in design, and there are ramifications all over the place. This is development lag. A project started 3 years ago may not have allowed for a push on the multi-core front, and therefor didn't want to go to the hassle of multi-threading their engine if it wouldn't yield profit for the amount of work it would entail. Conversely Quake3 had SMP support. It was ropey, but it was in place.

The upshot is that by the time it's matured to a standard feature in the market place (a gen or two from now) and filtered through the development cycle, the hardware in people's pc should nearly all be multi-threaded, at least dual-core if not quad.
We're in the middle of the transitional storm, but it'll be worth it.