AMD's Athlon II X3 435 & New Energy Efficient CPUs: Killing Intel Below $90
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 20, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Fallout 3 Game Performance
Bethesda’s latest game uses an updated version of the Gamebryo engine (Oblivion). This benchmark takes place immediately outside Vault 101. The character walks away from the vault through the Springvale ruins. The benchmark is measured manually using FRAPS.
Finally! We have a test where the Athlon II X3 435's clock speed gives it the advantage over the 620. If you're a gamer but want more cores, the 435 is a good balance of performance in existing games but better than dual-core performance in well threaded apps.
Left 4 Dead
I've got no complaints about the X3's performance in Left 4 Dead either, it's nearly as fast as the more expensive Core 2 Duo E7500 (and with a much tastier upgrade path).
FarCry 2 Multithreaded Game Performance
FarCry 2 ships with the most impressive benchmark tool we’ve ever seen in a PC game. Part of this is due to the fact that Ubisoft actually tapped a number of hardware sites (AnandTech included) from around the world to aid in the planning for the benchmark.
For our purposes we ran the CPU benchmark included in the latest patch:
Even in our most heavily threaded game test, the X3 435 is a bit faster than the 620.
Crysis Warhead
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maddoctor - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
It's funny, AMD will never get any profit and still loss after 3 years consecutively. I belive you can not buy any AMD product when Intel roll out the Larrabee. I believe Intel will win in this market too and will crush NVIDIA like AMD before. Intel will own all and everyone will be happy both customers and the consumer.SmilingBuddha - Friday, October 30, 2009 - link
You missed Econ101.Griswold - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
I *know* that you are clueless.zipzoomflyhigh - Friday, October 23, 2009 - link
Yeah well they had to absorb 5 million to buy ATI.So everyone would be happy if Intel owned everything huh? Would anyone here be happy paying $1000+ for a cpu? I think not. You are clueless. AMD will return to profitability next year and will completely own the GPU market by then. Without AMD, no Intel fanboy would be happy period.
theonejrs - Thursday, October 22, 2009 - link
No offense, but you don't know what you are talking about! AMD currently owns 31.5% of the CPU market to Intel's 68.5%. That's better than a 5% increase in the last year alone! Rumors have it that nVidia is canceling some of it's higher end video cards because they can't compete with Ati in the high end market, so Ati's market will grow even more, which means even more profits for AMD!http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/10/06/nvidia-kill...">http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/10/06/...x260-aba...
The article also claims that nVidia may even abandon the high end cards altogether!
Intel is in the awkward position of having the best computer, but almost no one can afford it, so the original i7 is relegated to the server market. They also have to maintain production of faster CPUs than AMD makes! AMD has two low priced Quad cores, the Athlon IIx4 620 and 630. $99 and $122 respectively. The 620 will overclock about 800MHz, while the 630, over 1GHz, both on air! From a price/performance point of view, AMD wins hands down! AMD has invested heavily in the low to mid price market, and have a wide variety of CPUs to cover any need. I would say they have planned well, and should be in a very good sales position during the continuing recession!
I would also like to point out that AMD hasn't made a major mistake in well over a year. Products have come out when they were supposed to, and there haven't been any real glitches in any of the new CPUs. They've also continued to refine these new CPUs to the point that the Phenom IIx4 Deneb 940 overclocks better and is a better all around CPU today, than it was when it was first introduced!
And for the best business deal of the new century, hands down! AMD sold their entire multi-billion dollar debt by selling their Chip Fabs, while still maintaining operation and control of them! I don't think these guys are about to fold their tent quite yet! I believe they are a lot smarter than you think!
Respectfully,
theonejrs
coldpower27 - Friday, October 30, 2009 - link
This is FUD, currently Intel owns 80 something percent marketshare as opposed to AMD's 11.5%. Were discussing CPU's not GPUs.http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/In...">http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-N...e-Lead-O...
Discrete and Integrated GPU marketshare is seperate, there are 3 competitors there, Intel, AMD/ATi, nVidia.
Overclocking is only relevant to the budget enthusiast and that represents a small section of the market. What matters is stock performance not overclocking.
AMD wins price/performance, but they lose on brand image, and that is more important as that allows Intel to sell processors at the same performance for a higher premium and garner more profits.
It's about time that AMD hasn't tripped on it's 2 feet, as if they had continued to do so, Intel wouldn't see them as worthy of making any price adjustments over.
No AMD will not be going anywhere soon, we still need them, we all need AMD to continue to exist for different reasons.
medi01 - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
I hope you were joking about satisfied customers. Intel will again simply "own" its customers, as it did years before, when it felt no competition.andrewaggb - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Larrabee is a big unknown. I suspect it won't be as good as anybody hopes and initially drivers will suck. My guess is larrabee version 2 will be much better but probably still suck compared to equivalent amd/nvidia, and maybe version 3 (in like 5 years) will be competitive. And that's if intel doesn't just give up again like they have every other time they say they will make good graphics. The barrier to entry into the graphics market is huge now, it's not simple to design a dx11 gpu core that works (just ask nvidia) let alone one that is fast. And then drivers are a constant work in progress. I don't believe a new player can come along and get it all right their first try.Zingam - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
That's why Intel actually does not imply they are making a GPU but rather a processor with GPU capabilities. Interestingly enough NVIDIA also backs off the notion GPU. I guess the only pure next generation GPUs will be ATI. What is going to come after that - nobody like us knows yet.rhorwitz - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Oh you are so terribly mistaken! Without any competition Intel would raise its prices so high that only the rich could afford a PC. If it were not for AMD (or any other competitor) we would still be using first generation pentiums costing $500 ea. To make an assinine statement that "...everyone will be happy both customers and the consumer." is pure unmitigated BS.Rick