Chip Udate- April 2007
With all of the attention I've been devoting to digital tuners and printers, it dawned on me that I haven't written about computer processors in a while. Well, no fear, there's plenty happening, and I'd like to point out some coming products for the summer.
First up is a really well done article on X-bit Labs. If we had an unlimited budget and a staff of more than a handful, this is really the type of article that I'd like to be writing. Be that as it may, it does a really good job of running most of the mid to lower level dual core processors through a comprehensive set of benchmarks. It's other strength is that it provides balanced coverage to both the Intel and AMD products- somewhat rare these days as most sites seem to have too much bias towards one or the other camp. Finally, towards the end of the article, it incorporates what the prices of these chips will be after the price cuts this month. If you're in the market for a new processor, this is essential reading, and I know I'll be bookmarking the article which is here.
It's hard to give a definitive recommendation because that all depends entirely on a combination of your budget, your needs and wants. A great chip for a budget game player is not the same one for a serious video editor, for example. Also, unlike the last few years, the chips are closed pretty closely in price so a few dollars more do bump you up a small notch in performance. When the next step up was $100, it's a lot less compelling than the $10 that will take you from an Athlon X2 5200+ to 5600+ according to the article. Of course, the challenge may be in finding the processors at these low prices.
However, budget buyers may want to hold off as some new chips are coming in Q3. One intriguing chip is the budget Core 2 Duo's which will be numbered as the 21xx series. While the 6xxx chips will all have 4 megs of cache, and the 4xxx chips have 2 megs, these budget 21xx models have it shaved down to a mere 1 meg of cache. However, don't discount them yet, because preliminary benchmarks are looking like the C2D series is hardly cache starved and the performance "hit" is quite minimal. They also may overclock well. You can read the details about a sub-$100 C2D here.
If this is still too rich for your blood, then Intel is cooking up a Celeron variant of the C2D. The formula is to only use one of the cores, an 800 MHz bus, and a 512 megs of cache. while not too impressive, the price of $40 to $60 will attract some corporate buyers, and budget system builders to be sure. They'll be dubbed the Celeron 4xx series, also known as the Conroe-L. Head on over here for further details, although if I was building a box, I doubt I'd be recommending these processors.
Finally, the real unknown here is what AMD has up its sleeve. There have been no real benchmarks of its Barcelona processors. All we really know for sure is that unlike Intel fusing two dual core chips to make a quad core, AMD built theirs so that all the cores connect which is theretically better at shuffling data around. How much performance gain in actuality, if any, that will get them is big unknown at this point. In the meantime, AMD has a history of delivering the goods when their back is up a wall so I wouldn't quite count them out yet. The Barcelona is expected also for Q3.
--Jonas
First up is a really well done article on X-bit Labs. If we had an unlimited budget and a staff of more than a handful, this is really the type of article that I'd like to be writing. Be that as it may, it does a really good job of running most of the mid to lower level dual core processors through a comprehensive set of benchmarks. It's other strength is that it provides balanced coverage to both the Intel and AMD products- somewhat rare these days as most sites seem to have too much bias towards one or the other camp. Finally, towards the end of the article, it incorporates what the prices of these chips will be after the price cuts this month. If you're in the market for a new processor, this is essential reading, and I know I'll be bookmarking the article which is here.
It's hard to give a definitive recommendation because that all depends entirely on a combination of your budget, your needs and wants. A great chip for a budget game player is not the same one for a serious video editor, for example. Also, unlike the last few years, the chips are closed pretty closely in price so a few dollars more do bump you up a small notch in performance. When the next step up was $100, it's a lot less compelling than the $10 that will take you from an Athlon X2 5200+ to 5600+ according to the article. Of course, the challenge may be in finding the processors at these low prices.
However, budget buyers may want to hold off as some new chips are coming in Q3. One intriguing chip is the budget Core 2 Duo's which will be numbered as the 21xx series. While the 6xxx chips will all have 4 megs of cache, and the 4xxx chips have 2 megs, these budget 21xx models have it shaved down to a mere 1 meg of cache. However, don't discount them yet, because preliminary benchmarks are looking like the C2D series is hardly cache starved and the performance "hit" is quite minimal. They also may overclock well. You can read the details about a sub-$100 C2D here.
If this is still too rich for your blood, then Intel is cooking up a Celeron variant of the C2D. The formula is to only use one of the cores, an 800 MHz bus, and a 512 megs of cache. while not too impressive, the price of $40 to $60 will attract some corporate buyers, and budget system builders to be sure. They'll be dubbed the Celeron 4xx series, also known as the Conroe-L. Head on over here for further details, although if I was building a box, I doubt I'd be recommending these processors.
Finally, the real unknown here is what AMD has up its sleeve. There have been no real benchmarks of its Barcelona processors. All we really know for sure is that unlike Intel fusing two dual core chips to make a quad core, AMD built theirs so that all the cores connect which is theretically better at shuffling data around. How much performance gain in actuality, if any, that will get them is big unknown at this point. In the meantime, AMD has a history of delivering the goods when their back is up a wall so I wouldn't quite count them out yet. The Barcelona is expected also for Q3.
--Jonas
posted by digitaldoc at 9:14 PM
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