bit-tech reviews Athlon 64 5000+ 65nm

[Supergrover]

"With the cost of energy increasing almost by the day, the focus on energy efficiency in the technology industry is starting to become more and more prominent. With Intel seemingly back up to firing on all cylinders with its Core 2-based processors, AMD has been playing a game of catch up, because its K8 architecture is starting to show its age after over three years of service.

During the later stages of the Netburst era (since the day that AMD’s K8 launched), Intel’s advantages in process technology didn’t matter a great deal to AMD, because the underdog had a better performing and more power efficient architecture. The processor game was a pretty one-sided affair back then – at least, in the enthusiast space – but things changed quite dramatically in that incredibly busy month of July last year.

Not only did Intel launch its first Core 2 Duo processors with incredibly aggressive pricing, AMD cut the price of many of its CPUs in half overnight in order to react to Intel’s massive improvements in both performance and energy efficiency. Today we are looking at one of AMD’s first 65-nanometre ‘Brisbane’ processors, which were quietly announced back on the 5th December. Given the fact that Intel launched its first 65nm Cedar Mill and Presler-based (a pair of Cedar Mill’s on one CPU package) Pentium 4 and Pentium D processors on 27th December 2005, it shows the lead that Intel has when it comes to manufacturing technology.

Manufacturing technology isn’t everything though, as AMD has proven in the past, but with both David and Goliath having relatively good CPU architectures it can play an important part. Reducing the process node usually results in lower power consumption, lower operating voltages and thus, more modest cooling requirements.

While AMD hasn’t promised any notable changes in performance with the process shrink, we’ve put AMD’s new Athlon 64 X2 5000+ EE processor through its paces in our typical selection of benchmarks. Before we get to that though, let’s have a look at what’s new."





More @ Bit-Tech

[Babrbarossa]

Oh dear, sort of grim. The curtain might be falling.....but I hope not.

[sswilson]

Nah... it won't take long for big corp mentality to take hold at intel again.

I'm betting that if AMD doesn't manage to take back the performance crown soon that Intel will forget the little bit about slashing their prices to attract customers back to the fold and AMD will be back into the "decent procs for budget minded folks" position they were in 5 years ago while intel proc prices creep up.

That's worst case scenario though.... I expect that AMD will have some form of decent response to the core2duos within the next year.

[Babrbarossa]

I don't know if I'd call that optimism, but I'm glad to hear it!

[sswilson]

What bothers me most about the current situation is that I'm starting to see a lot more weight given to the older non-C2D intel procs for sales.

Too many folks on the street who aren't completely in the know have heard the buzz about how much better the C2D chips are than current AMD offerings and are being sold older intel tech based on that buzz without realising that the older AMD offerings still kick intel A$$ on just about everything but the core2duos.