Halfprice Phenoms !!

Wow, I was going with Q6600 in my new rig, but this changes everything. Considering I will be using it mostly for gaming at 1900x1200, speed of the processor is not hugely important. Now if I could just get my hands on two 3870's...

Doubtful however that resellers will lower prices on Phenom to that of X2. I can see maybe 10% discount, but places like NewEgg will still keep the price jacked up far above wholesale simply because it's newer and in-demand.

Quite a smart move by AMD. Flush out those stockpiles of errata-ridden (read: defective) cpus and get people to buy AM2(+) boards. Once the customers are caught in the spiders web (read: hooked on the platform) they can upgrade it with working or improved CPUs later.
Way better than driving those chips to the desert and crushing them under steel tracks.

Fun aside, i would be seriously interested in knowing how serious that TLB bug really is. How often does it occur? What applications increase the likelyhood of it showing up? And i don't want those "rarely" statements. Numbers, numbers, numbers.
And what exactly are the consequences of the bug? A lock-up? Data Corruption? A slowdown?

Could be true, but the Inquirer is known for teiling porkies

Now this has some possibilities. I had really looked forward to the Phenom. Even realizing before its release that it wasn't going to perform in the top end like Intel chips, it would be a good step up from what I have. But then it became apparent that the Phenom is a pig that may well be slower than my current overclocked 4400+ cpu. No matter how much its dressed up, or how cheap the price gets, its still a pig. Maybe, just maybe, a 9700 Black Edition model would be worth it if the cost was low enough, but that's a big Maybe, and a big IF.

The only answer I've come up with to date is getting the DFI board and an AM2 5000+ BE, just as Chunky writes, especially if the AM2 chips come down in price a bit. Then if (a big IF) a later Phenom comes out that is fixed and performs decently, I can upgrade to that.

Or I could spend a bunch more money and get an Intel powered rig that I know will scream.

Why would you buy a phenom unless your building a budget system?
Intel has a 6 core cpu due out soon, that means qx6600 cpu will drop again in price.

Plan on selling at that price. Because Intel will be releasing Yorkfield based Quads at around that price range and around the same clocks.

Yorkfield > Phenom.

Intel's 45nm Quad's will further increase profits for Intel. AMD is in a world of hurt right now. I might buy a Phenom just to say I own the most over-hyped blunder ever.

Under certain circumstances, they crash repeatedly. Often needing a fix applied which disables the TLB (Translation Lookaside Buffer: a small cache used to temporarily store calculation answers for quicker re-access mainly used to improve the speed of virtual address translation).

Think of it as the memory option on a calculator

So ~20% performance drop when the TLB patch/fix is applied.

Just so you everyone knows i dont really care about who is faster right now...I already know. I think this move will help them out more than anything. Noone knows how much it actually costs to make a single chip so selling them at 170 dollars is i believe a good move! There is WAYY too much intel fanboism on this site! I want just casual intellectual discussion!
So in short can everyone just shut up about how much intel is better! Im trying to learn here and i want to hear from people who really know what they are talking about. But its damn near impossible with all the 15 year old babble!
Hope this doesnt piss off the good imformative guru's im eager to read what these guys and girls have to say!

The informed are currently pushing Intel products. Therefore those guru's you're talking about... well they include myself.

I'd like to think that there's nothing wrong with calling a spade a spade. Or should I be a tad more politically correct and sugar coat the cold hard facts?

Read my post above.. quite informative.

I thought the bug in the Phenoms would only cause a crash under extreme load testing that could virtually ONLY happen in lab settings? ie., it's not a problem that 99.9% of end users would ever see, isn't that right?

Yeah, they are buggy, but they're not going to be locking up as some people have suggested...
There is no way they could be released like that!
If I hadn't just bought a 6000+ and the same reductions are available in the UK I'd consider one
I think I'll wait until there is 2.6 or higher

Actually, that is what AMD's PR department said.

However, AMD has lied about everything in regards to these chips.
From the nature of the L3 Defect to the speed of the NB.

The chips they gave reviewers just a couple days before launch where significantly different than the chips they
had already shipped to suppliers and did not alert the reviewers to the changes which significantly hurt performance,

If they slash the price in 1/2, then these chips are decent for some folks, but not quite sure the exact segment.
They are slower Clock for Clock than X2s due to the change in the NB speed since the original ES Sample reviews and slow down even more when the TLB patch is applied. Since the X2 chips not only are faster clock for clock but have a higher clock, they will be much faster.

In regards to most gaming and home uses, only two cores are used which will put the X2 far ahead in most areas.
For some limited functions that use quad cores, it will slip ahead but likely not much due to the large cap in Clock speed and work per clock.

However, AMD needs to get rid of these defective chips somehow, and as others have stated, better to sell them at 1/2 price than melt them down. Just so long as the buyer knows what they are getting.

Hopefully, the B3 will be decent chips.

AMD needs to recall/replace the original chips it shipped - or, at least, offer a 50% rebate. If not, I can see a class-action suit coming.

If this article is true, they are screwing the early adopters -i.e. the one's who believe in AMD.

^Agred.

And that's the best mobo out there. It's so good Sapphire just took it and rebranded it. DFI is known as the OCers mobo. But it will be awhile before the 9500 drops in price. The 9600 is not dropping. But a $200 quad is irresistible.

Is this a going out of business sale?

You are right, I am usually much funnier than that.

My problem is if I purchased another computer part I think my wife would shoot me.

Dang TC you are in the forums being a fact boy but you are not helping out the rest of the poor unfortunate souls who are asking for advice. I have had my work cut out for me. I suggested that someone do a build around a E6750 and I picked out all the parts for him but he instead went with the suggestion of the E2180 and a bare bones system. I thought my build was much better.

My next cpu purchase will be an octo-core.

I hope AMD does not go out of business. I would be very upset. The worst I think will happen is maybe AMD will be bought out by another company.

Just imagine if the only choice you had was Intell...........kinda scary.......

Then what the hell would we all argue about

The forums would go silent and TC would loose his job as fact boy.

Barron would probably end up at a psyc ward in a straight jacket...

Now i'm depressed.

I just figured out where all the Phenoms went!

Iranians claim to use AMD chips in supercomputer.

http://www.computerworld.com.au/in [...] 1640851029

Well, at a guess, these are the defective stepping. For AMD to even be considering reducing the price by half for their new flagship processor is disturbing....the margins at price.....just plain scary.....

Easier to unload the defective products to try and reclaim some of the investment, then when they get the B3 or B4 or B5068.....(which ever stepping it takes) to finally function reliably, just rebadge it as a new series, Phenom 9550, 9650, 9750 or Phenom II 9600, 9700, etc, and re-release it at the original prices.

If this report is true, then regardless of whether these prices are for defective chips or the new line, it is indicative of desperation. To cut prices by half, on a brand new product, without another newer product superceding it....well.....someone else can buy one and let me know how it works out. I dont want to be the "test pilot" on that ride. The old story of "if it sounds to good to be true, then it is"

Give them away! Yes, I'll take one at that price! In fact, I'd take four, one for each computer in the office and one for my gamer. At that price, I don't care if I fry it while experimenting.

Who said anything about 1/2 price? I think The INQ have their dancing shoes on again.

If you check online prices such as Newegg, the Phenom 9500 is down to $200, and the 9600 down to $245. These cuts are in line with the 10% cut according to Fudzilla: http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php? [...] 8&Itemid=1

So it seems Fudzilla has overtaken The INQ in terms of credibility...

Maybe Newegg is a day behind in the pricing. Or maybe they have a bunch of Phenoms they paid a lot for already and they aren't going to drop the price until that stock is sold. Doesn't matter much, as I won't be buying one. Even if they came out for $100, a $130 5000+ BE would still beat them at stock speed, and the 5000+ BE is very overclockable.

You wanna bench a quad core chip against a dual core?

Give it a decent chance though.

Decent 790 FX chipset.