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
Final Words
We'll start with the good news first. The Athlon II X3 435, priced at $87, is a better buy than any of the similarly priced Intel dual-core processors. In heavily threaded applications it's even faster than the more expensive Core 2 Duo E7500. Compared to Intel, the X3 435 is a clear value leader.
The problem is compared to AMD, the Athlon II X3 435 isn't that impressive. The Athlon II X4 620 is faster in nearly every multithreaded benchmark, and it's only costs $12 more. It's only in games and other lightly threaded applications where the 435's higher default clock speed makes up for its lack of a fourth core.
The Athlon II X3 435 is about $15 more expensive than it should be to make sense in AMD's lineup. It's a great step between the dual and quad-core options, but if you need the performance you're probably better off with the 620.
You do get better overclocking potential (thanks to lower thermal output of only three cores), but bring overclocking into the mix and you can narrow the clock speed gap with an overclocked 620.
Compared to Intel, I like the Athlon II X3 435. Compared to AMD, I'd take a quad-core 620.
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tamalero - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
by any chance you're a Intel worker? you sound like you do.maddoctor - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
Intel did not do that. All the given evidences are false and could not prove anything.taltamir - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
"no competition to keep prices low"[sarcasm] Thats right, if only there was no COMPETITION prices could be LOW... it is a well known FACT that competition serves only to raise prices! [/sarcasm]
That is the dumbest thing I have heard in a very long time.
mm2587 - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
wow. Way to fail at reading comprehension.The man is say if there was no competition there would be no reason to keep prices low. He was saying "if there was no competition to keep prices low, intel would raise prices"
So lets read next time before we call anyone else stupid.
silverblue - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
Not quite... at least, not in my opinion.On page 6, maddoctor posted:
"Whatever AMD product throws to market, rubbish is a rubbish. Intel products prices will make AMD's prices room tighter, and AMD is going to sink into oblivion. I love it because Intel prices will be cheaper to consumer."
I may have misinterpreted this, but his post seems to be indicating that if AMD were no longer in the game, Intel would have no competition and would LOWER prices in accordance. Something which, as we all know, not only wouldn't happen but is totally contrary to common business practices. If there's only one supplier, you're not going to go find cheaper options from somebody else; you'll be tied to that one supplier and they will feel less need to improve their designs.
As odd as it may seem, that's what I believe he was referring to.
SunSamurai - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - link
You do fail at reading comprehension.silverblue - Friday, October 30, 2009 - link
Interesting statement to make when you fail to back it up.