Phenom is unsellable.

CougTek

CougTek

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
8,729
Location
Québec, Québec
I hate to be stuck with hardware. I've been stuck with an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro cooler since September 2006, two years ago. The only other computer part I haven't been able to sell is an In Win BT611T slim desktop case with a 300W power supply, but this one is only one year old, so it bothers me less. The heatsink, however, has been causing me to lose sleep for a while. For months (well, years), I've waited for an opportunity to take back the 22$ I paid it...but haven't seen one so far. My problem is that I'm an honest man (hence, a poor man) and I won't sell something to someone unless I feel this person needs it. And for the last two years, the only thing AMD has been acceptable at is the low end segment, a place where a third-party heatsink has no place.

There are great motherboards right now for AMD hardware (the new Asus M3A78-EM and M3N78-VM are both astonishing values), but the processors perform so poorly that it's impossible to look a customer in the eyes and tell him that the best thing for him is a mainstream/high-end AMD-based system. Just no f**king way to get rid of my heatsink. Phenom are only not being ridiculous at 3D rendering and media encoding(except DivX) and even then, they are not that good. Gaming is aweful, so are office tasks (although anything is fast enough for office tasks nowaday). Most of the time, Intel's dual-cores match or beat AMD's quad-cores. They are not even good for Folding! And their power consumption...a graph is worth a thousand words (another source for the incredules). Much related to their power consumption problem, they have close to none overclocking potential. The newer AMD SB750 improves that a little, but it is only found on motherboards costing north of 150$, a though pill to swallow when you consider that a 90$ motherboard on Intel side allows you to overclocking the blue-box processors a lot higher.

If only their CPUs were as good as their GPU...

I hope AMD's 45nm transition will change things in late October or early November. Meanwhile, anyone wants a Freezer 64 Pro?
 
I've built and sold a few Phenom systems. Some of the lower end CPU + motherboard combos can be had for only a tiny bit more than what a Q6600 costs. The general argument isn't for the CPU, it's for the high quality onboard video and other motherboard features.

AMD's current offerings are not so much centered around its CPUs as the overall package of motherboard/GPU/CPU which, as a value proposition is still very high overall.
 
A heatsink and case is all you haven't been able to sell? I have motherboards, CPUs, RAM, cases, routers, DSL modems, T-1 routers, fiber-optic to GbE converters, KVMs, and loads of other crap in storage and on my couch behind me. Probably a couple grand a year worth of crap, either the customer's needs changed, or the solution changed.
 
ddrueding said:
A heatsink and case is all you haven't been able to sell? I have motherboards, CPUs, RAM, cases, routers, DSL modems, T-1 routers, fiber-optic to GbE converters, KVMs, and loads of other crap in storage and on my couch behind me. Probably a couple grand a year worth of crap, either the customer's needs changed, or the solution changed.
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ditto, ebay. If you only get 1/10th what you paid for those; in a couple of years, thats enough to get another Canon lens (or 50D upgrade :D, you know you want a higher ISO sensor, you know you do :p). Either toss the rest, or sell them for 1/100th what you paid for, on ebay.
 
I don't understand what you're asking? Is it just the odd monkey smiley? I don't remember where that one came from.
 
AMD screwed it up with the first release. After that, no one wanted them, even fixed. They had their chance, they blew it.
 
Mercutio said:
I've built and sold a few Phenom systems. Some of the lower end CPU + motherboard combos can be had for only a tiny bit more than what a Q6600 costs. The general argument isn't for the CPU, it's for the high quality onboard video and other motherboard features.

AMD's current offerings are not so much centered around its CPUs as the overall package of motherboard/GPU/CPU which, as a value proposition is still very high overall.
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It's still a tough sell. I built a HTPC and could have gone the 4850e/690G route, but went the E8400/G33M-DS2R/HD 3850 route instead. The kids can game on it, it can encode FTA HD TV and play back anything I can throw at it. AMD video cards are looking good. Sure, I paid a little more than an AMD system, but not a lot (at least in Aus). And the only reason I went the E8400 was that the E7200 wasn't released & the E8200 was out of stock.

My current system is a Q6600. And this from a person whose systems over the years go like this:

AMD 386DX/40, i486DX/33, am486DX-2/66, Pentium 100, Pentium 166, K6-200, K6-2/300, K6-2/350, Celeron 300A, Athlon 550, Tbird 1200, Athlon XP 1600+, Barton 2500+, Athlon 64 3000+, Athlon X2 3800+, E6600, Q6600. That's a long string of AMD, broken only by the Celeron 300A.

Phenom was a disaster. And the worst part was the touting of the unified quad-core architecture. That hasn't delivered the goods compared to the Intel "lash-up", excepting, perhaps, in the server space.
 
Are they going to take back the price/performance crown?

I don't want to have to get my first real Intel-based desktop computer.
 
Unlikely, the next generation of 45nm Phenoms are going to be released very near Intel's i7 (Nehalem). Even if AMD improves their performance, power, and price somewhat from the die-shrink, Intel will have something to match and exceed them with. The i7 will be as good and in some ways much better than C2D so expect Intel to significatly drop C2D prices as the supply of i7's increase to clear out inventory. AMD is too far behind: It will take a Phenom replacement (and it needs to be a killer) before AMD has a chance to improve their market position significantly.
 
I'm with Mercutio on this. You can get quite decent graphics capability on an AMD platform, yet pay appreciably less than the inadequate Intel equivalent.

Mind you, I probably wouldn't bother with Phenom over a simple dual core X2. IMO, CPU performance is now compeletely academic for 95% of users.

Bluntly, I think quad-core desktop CPUs are akin to driving a 300+bhp car on a public road, i.e. a balm for feelings of inadequacy.
 
Once you drive a 300HP car even on public roads, you'll throw rocks at your puddle jumper with it's anemic sewing machine motor.

Same goes for multi-core CPUs.

Bozo :joker:
 
I'm with Bozo on this. Even for the most mundane office uses you are asking your CPU to perform a series of tasks with long waiting periods in between. Everyone can use the extra power to complete those tasks faster, it's just a matter of knowing the experience can be better.
 
Bozo said:
Once you drive a 300HP car even on public roads, you'll throw rocks at your puddle jumper with it's anemic sewing machine motor.
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Bullshit. I've had one or two 300HP cars (or thereabouts). And the same goes for multi-core CPUs.

So, ddrueding, I take it you'll be upgrading from your puny VW to a decent Chevy V8? How about a rat motor?
 
time said:
Bullshit. I've had one or two 300HP cars (or thereabouts). And the same goes for multi-core CPUs.

So, ddrueding, I take it you'll be upgrading from your puny VW to a decent Chevy V8? How about a rat motor?
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Actually, my next car will have...300HP. Specifically because I make left turns (across traffic) on to and off of a 70MPH freeway at an uncontrolled intersection. That 300HP will be really nice for 0.1% of the time. Same as the quad-core when I first sit down and launch Photoshop, DPP, Photomatix, Winamp, and Firefox one after the other while AutoGK is chewing on some video. Right now the CPU is idle, but a few minutes ago it saved me 30 seconds...sweet.

And there is no way I'll be buying a Chevy or a V8.
 
AMD announced some price cuts today that undercut Intel dual core CPUs with three core Phenom chips. The Phenom 8750 (3x2.4GHz) is supposedly going to retail for $135 now, which is in line or a bit less than the current low-end Core 2s.

I realize most people don't have tons of need for that third core, but that third core + an AMD780 or AMD790 chipset is a really sweet ~$450 rig.
 
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