By Raja
In our second installment, our aim is to build a mainstream gaming rig while keeping on a tight budget; great gaming experience and endless hours of enjoyment doesn't necessarily mean building systems costing a couple of bombs.
We will be using the AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition processor for this build. As introduced in our first article, which is the enthusiast buying guide featuring the X4 955 BE, the full Phenom II family consists of dual-core (X2), tri-core (X3) and quad-core (X4) parts to cater to different end-users with different needs. With aggressive core binning, AMD is able to reduce overall processor costs and churn up better price-performance ratio figures.
The X2 550 Black Edition processor, which also happens to be AMD's only dual core part in its Phenom II lineup, is clocked at 3.1GHz. For comparison sake, while Intel's Core 2 Duo E8400 (3GHz) and E8500 (3.16GHz) dual core parts are priced at
$250 and
$300 (in Singapore Dollars) respectively, you could get a X2 550 BE for almost half the price at just
$165. Talk about impressive price-performance ratio here...
Storage media is cheap these days, the amount of high-definition content available on the Web has also increased. Gone are the days whereby pricey home theatre equipment was the only way to enjoy good quality movies and music. People are shifting towards using their computers as a one-stop entertainment hub - computers are slowly entering the living room. However, not all computers are able to playback high definition content smoothly, hardware decoding, together with reasonably fast processors, are very handy when it comes to handling HD data.
Hence, we're taking a slightly different approach when it comes to our motherboard recommendation for our Mainstream guide. We've decided to go for a board that is up to the task for high definition living room entertainment, but at the same time still has options and support for the enthusiast crowd - and that board is the ASUS M4A78-HTPC.
As a targeted-for-HTPC product, the M4A78-HTPC has quite a few stuff that would keep your eyes open.
AMD's 780G chipset sits aboard the M4A78-HTPC motherboard. The 780G has an integrated ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics solution, which means you could have a fully functional system without the need of adding an extra graphics card. The Radeon HD 3200 is capable of handling the latest Blu Ray and HD DVD content and Full High Definition (HD 1080p) streams. In addition, the 780G chipset supports Hybrid Graphics. Available only to users who run
Windows Vista
, they can enable Hybrid CrossFireX, which allows simultaneous rendering from both the integrated HD 3200, and a discrete graphics card which supports the feature for better graphics performance.
Display outputs are not an issue here, with connectors for HDMI, DVI and VGA. If you're on the integrated graphics solution alone, or intend to utilise ATI's Hybrid Graphics technology, simply connect the cable of your choice. One wouldn't have problem with output to a standard desktop monitor, or even living room LCD television sets.
We have support for up to 8-channel audio, which can be used for gaming and home entertainment. As this board is also positioned as a Home Theatre PC (HTPC) board, you get additional bells and whistles like S/PDIF and optical outputs, and interestingly, gold-plated RCA outputs. RCA jacks are found commonly on amplifiers for hi-fi equipment rather than your typical multimedia speakers.
That's not all, the M4A78-HTPC also offers independent power input and circuitry for the onboard audio components. This reduces electrical noise, which in turn improves sound quality.
There are also other features available such as
Tranquil Mode, whereby the motherboard adjusts processor and chassis fan speeds according to temperature. Compared to running all fans at 100% speed, you would be able to note that the system is operating at a lower noise level under most circumstances.
The built-in
ExpressGate is like a mini operating system. You don't need to boot to Windows, load your applications, and stuff like that. All you need is 5 seconds from power on, and you're ready to do things like browse the Net, use Skype, and also Instant Messaging.
Gamers and enthusiasts are not forgotten either with a bunch of overclocking options available in the BIOS for your tweaking pleasure. Overclocking and high CPU power draw required when doing so are handled by the board's 4+1 phase PWM.
The M4A78-HTPC gives a lot of flexiblity to end-users; one could either run a low-powered integrated graphics driven HTPC machine connected to your LCD TV and home theatre sound system, or a gaming rig with ATI's Hybrid Graphics enabled for added performance and high quality sound for an immersive gaming session. At
$199, this board is a steal.
The Radeon HD 4770 GPU is the latest product by ATI, and it is also the first GPU product to be built on a 40nm process. Up till the release of the HD 4770, the smallest process was 55nm. A smaller manufacturing process would bring about better power savings, cooler operating temperatures, the ability to scale faster, and higher yield from the same wafer size (which translates to cheaper costs).
For today's build we'll be using the HD 4770 built by ASUS. The ASUS EAH4770 Formula is not just a simply re-designed Radeon HD 4770 card with some random heatsink fan unit thrown on. With its specially designed cooling solution, one can expect noticeable improvement in operating temperatures.
This fan here is not a typical model which becomes slower and noisier over time as it gets clogged with dust. ASUS has used a dust-proof fan design which is sealed twice over internally to prevent dust from getting in and thus prolonging lifespan. There isn't a need to use a mini vacuum to suck dirt out from the fan hub.
You would be forgiven if you thought the heatsink is just a standard block. But in fact, upon closer inspection, the fins actually have a 'jagged' surface. ASUS calls it 'tooth-edged', to maxmising surface area for improved cooling.
Although the heatsink may look like a Formula 1 racing car and serves no purpose other than make the card look unique, you're mistaken. The extended plastic shroud enables air to pass through all the fins and out towards the power circuitry to ensure the whole card remains cool even under heavy loading.
Also, there's a metal bracket that runs along the length of the PCB to prevent the card from flexing or warping after a long time.
Even with the added extras of a bracket and a unique heatsink, the EAH4770 Formula is still priced reasonably at
$199.
Memory
Although DDR3 memories have fallen to affordable levels, it would most likely come across to many users as a premium product still.
AMD's AM3 processors are backward compatible with DDR2 memories, and the motherboard that we're using for this build supports DDR2 memories instead of the pricier DDR3 parts.
We're using one of the fastest DDR2 parts readily available on the market - the Team Group Xtreem Dark 1066MHz 4GB CL5 kit.
And no, you won't break the bank at
$115, nearly 50% off the price of the Corsair XMS3 DHX 4GB DDR3 kit we used for our AMD enthusiast rig.
Storage
Storage is always the main culprit of bottlenecks. It is the slowest part you can find in any system.
We're not going to recommend you Solid State Disks (SSD) in this guide because getting a decent SSD is going to blow our budget today through the roof. As such, we have to make do with your typical mechanical hard disk drives which spin at 7200rpm.
Similar to our AMD Enthusiast build, we'll be going with Western Digital's Caviar Black line of hard disks, which offer peppier performance through tweaked firmware for a couple of dollars more. The same 500GB will go into this system; after installing all your applications and big games, there isn't that much space left actually...
$99 for the drive
Cooling
For this mainstream rig utilising the AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition processor, we've gone with a less beefy cooling solution - the Xigmatek Dark Knight cooler, as compared to the Thermalright slab on the X4 955 rig.
The Dark Knight has three heatpipes which runs through the base and along the sides of the heatsink. Included in the package is a 2000rpm translucent black fan, which is lit by four white LEDs along the plastic frame. Vibration (and noise) is minimized with the use of rubber spacers, rather than conventional hook-on or screw-in methods.
Don't be fooled by its much smaller footprint and overall size compared to the Thermalright. The Xigmatek uses Heatpipe Direct Touch (or HDT in short) whereby the heatpipes come in direct contact with the processor surface, as compared to heatpipes soldered into a copper heatsink base. Heat is transferred directly instead of going through another base material first for faster and more efficient cooling.
This won't burn a hole in your pocket - it's priced nicely at
$76, fan and mounting mechanism included.
Power supply
We're still sticking with the Corsair HX series for this lower-end build, as we prefer neat system interiors and hence our preference for modular power supply units.
Modular PSUs have detachable cables (as shown below) and you need to connect only the cables that you require, minimising cable clutter.
Also manufactured by reputable company Seasonic, the HX520 gives you stable and quiet operation for
$159.
Casing
Casing-wise, we're going for something cheap, but at the same time something that has reasonable build quality and a well thought out interior. Some cheap cases might look nice on the outside, but the steel flexes like cardboard, and worse, poor ventilation.
The CoolerMaster Elite 310 at just
$69 fits our bill for this rig here. It's a pretty new model in the market with a piano black front finish and three outline colors to choose from.
Its interior is pretty standard for casings with
proper interiors. A row of hard disk bays lines up at the front and a provision (semi-hidden) allows you to install a front fan for fresh air intake and at the same time cool your hard drives. And, you have a 120mm exhaust fan at the rear.
Overclocking with the ASUS M4A78-HTPC motherboard is a simple and no-frills affair.
You could have the motherboard take over the overclocking job completely by setting overclock percentages of 2%, 5%, 8% or 10%. Or you could do it the manual way, which we have done so further down below.
As the chipset is the AMD 780G, it has an integrated graphics core. Here, you can overclock this core, but we're not going to do so today as we are only running off the Radeon HD 4770.
There are other options such as PCI Express bus overclocking, but there is no need to adjust that value.
Our AMD Phenom II X2 550 BE was only stable at only up to about 3.3GHz to 3.4GHz on the default Vcore.
Once we bumped the voltage up by 100mv (or 0.1V), we were able to push the X2 550 chip all the way to 3.7GHz, and stable.
The M4A78-HTPC isn't a board targeted for overclockers, so as you can see here, we do not have as many options and range as compared to the Repulic of Gamers series of boards. Nevertheless, the few options given are more than sufficient for some decent overclocking use.
Memory speed and timings can be set individually. We're using a 1066MHz 4GB kit, so we have the memory clock value set to that speed, as well as the primary memory timings.
You could go ahead and use other third-party tools such as Rivatuner, which will give you a longer slider bar and allow you to overclock higher. However, for simplicity we decided to stick with the default overclocking tool provided by the driver. But of course, we must remind you that overclocking is not under warranty and please be mindful of the hardware limits, and
heat.
For the less adventurous, there are a couple of free powerful utility by AMD can be used to fine tune your system performances in Windows:
AMD OverDrive™ and
Catalyst Control Centre
So there you have it, we have our dual-core system running at 3.7GHz at 1.375V Vcore, and our graphics at 830MHz and 1700MHz (DDR) for core clock and memory clock respectively, all without breaking a sweat.
The same set of benchmarks have been used so that comparisions can be made between the AMD mainstream system and the AMD enthusiast gaming system.
Firstly, we'll start with some synthetic benchmarking by using Futuremark's highly popular 3DMark Vantage and PCMark Vantage applications.
In 3DMark Vantage, we note a 10% improvement across the board irregardless or resolution and quality settings.
In PCMark Vantage, we managed a modest gain of 5% when the system was overclocked.
At both 1680 x 1050 and 1920 x 1200, Far Cry 2 is very smooth and gamers should have no problems getting the best experience out of this game. Even at Ultra High quality setting, the minimum frame rate doesn't go below 30 (which is the 'general guide' as to when one is able to notice choppiness).
Left 4 Dead is smooth irregardless of whether our rig is overclocked or not.
For Crysis Warhead, we had to drop the game's quality level from Gamer (which was used for the AMD enthusiast build featuring the Phenom II X4 955 and Radeon HD 4890), to a less demanding Mainstream preset.
We first tried running using the more exhaustive Gamer preset, but we got average frame rates of less than 30, which means it's pretty much unplayable.
Under the Mainstream preset, we were able to get an approximate 60 frames per second at a resolution of 1680 x 1050. We lost about ten frames when increasing the resolution to 1920 x 1200, but it's nothing to be concerned about as we're still hovering around 50 average frames per second.
At 1680 x 1050, World in Conflict is playable all the way up to Very High quality settings, although we can see here that overclocking the system does aid frame rates quite a bit.
Although at 1920 x 1200, World in Conflict can still played right up to Very High settings. But gamers and enthusiasts who demand smooth gameplay throughout should stick to a maximum of High quality setting instead.
Street Fighter IV doesn't seem to be a challenge at all to our mainstream rig...
As our mainstream setup can be used for either home entertainment purposes, or gaming, or even both, we would be splitting our display recommendations into two - one for those who take the home entertainment PC route, and the other for those who are building a system purely for gaming.
For pure gaming use, we do note that a Radeon HD 4770 powered setup would not be the best choice for running games at High quality settings together with 1920 x 1200 resolution. This is something we have to consider before giving our recommendations, as this system is targeted for mainstream users and cost to build must not fall out of this category (our enthusiast rig only touches $2000). LCD screens of 22-inches with a native resolution of 1680 x 1050 would be optimal in this case.
On the other hand, if you do need to go with 24-inch screens with 1920 x 1200 resolution because you need that about of desktop real estate for work, etc. but do be aware that you may have to lower your quality settings in certain games if you want gameplay to be liquid-smooth.
For those who are building the system primarily for home entertainment, it would be great to pair it with a full HD LCD TV. These displays have a native resolution of 1920 x 1080, which therefore are able to display 1080p full high-definition content without the need for scaling (and losing picture quality). There are LCD TVs in the market marked as 'full HD ready' but these sets only have a resolution of 1366 x 768. These TVs accept 1080p sources, but they are downsampled to a lower resolution before being displayed. A full HD LCD TV with a screen size of 40-inch can be gotten for just one and a half grand, while prices for more feature-laden units as well as larger 46-inches/55-inchers can go all the way to five grand or so.
On large LCD TV screens, a resolution of 1920 x 1080 is just nice for displaying text, web pages if you intend to let your home entertainment rig double up as a 'part-time' web surfing and even a gaming machine. Similar to gamers who go for 24-inch screens, when gaming on full HD LCD TVs, certain games would require you dropping the in-game quality settings too. One alternative is to run Hybrid CrossFire (which is a good power-saving feature for HTPC setups) as it can combine processing power from both the onboard Radeon HD 3200 and a supporting discrete card. The other alternative is to invest in a faster card, such as the Radeon HD 4890.
After all the part choosing... recommendations... here's the cost workout for all the individual components:
Component
|
Price (in SGD)
|
AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition processor
| $165
|
ASUS M4A78-HTPC motherboard
| $199
|
ASUS EAH4770 Formula graphics card
| $189
|
Teamgroup Team Xtreem DDR2-1066 4GB memory kit
| $115
|
Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB SATA HDD
| $99
|
LG GH22 DVD+/-RW optical SATA drive
| $39
|
Xigmatek Dark Knight CPU cooler
| $76
|
Corsair HX520 modular power supply unit
| $159
|
CoolerMaster Elite 310 ATX casing
| $69
|
Total:
|
$1110
|
Alright, so there you have it, at just slightly over a thousand, you get a system that can handle the latest games in the market, and of course your day-to-day work. At this price-performance level, it would be pretty much impossible to build a system with an equally fast Intel processor, and a board with similar features to the M4A78-HTPC for the same price, or even very near it.
Both the X2 550 Black Edition processor and the EAH4770 Formula graphics card do have quite a bit of overclocking headroom, so if you're feeling adventurous, you could load up the BIOS and start boosting those processor clocks, and then CCC for graphics clocks to get your 'free lunch', we mean speed boost...
Adding in the extras such as display, input devices...
22-inch display - $299
Gaming-orientated keyboard and mouse combo - $49
Budget 5.1 speaker system - $79
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP2 - $148
This works out to
$1685. It'll definitely be hard to find a vendor producing ready-made PCs which can match this price, and yet offer components of similar quality and speed.
Also, not forgetting the HTPC user group, the X2 550 and the M4A78-HTPC is a very power-efficient combo when it comes to home entertainment usage. If this setup is to intended for movies, web surfing and HD web content, you could consider doing away with the discrete graphics card (EAH4770) to conserve even more power.
So, again with all the extras thrown in...
Remove EAH4770 - -$189
BD-Combo (Blu Ray reader) drive - $229
40-inch full HD LCD TV - $1599
High-end 5.1 speaker system - $399
Wireless keyboard and mouse combo - $159
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP2 - $148
We get
$3455 - not too bad for a complete home theatre setup for budget-hunters and computer-geeks. Buying individual components like a home-theatre system, TV, bluray player, and a simple computer... One would probably fork out a larger sum as compared to taking the 'all-in-one' solution which is interestingly made possible by AMD and ASUS this time.
By Raja
While speaking at their annual financial analyst day today, AMD provided members of the press a glimpse of their latest CPU and GPU roadmaps. AMD’s GPU update was rather slim, with the company
reiterating previously disclosed guidance from CEATEC for next year: DirectX 11 and 40-nm are all on tap for release with their next-generation RV870 GPU in 2009.
Because these details were already disclosed last month in Japan, the real news wasn’t made in graphics, rather AMD has made sweeping changes to their CPU roadmap. The following chart quickly summarizes the changes:
As you can see, AMD has totally reworked their mobile CPU roadmap, with four new cores slated for release between now and the end of 2010, “Caspian”, “Conesus”, “Champlain”, and “Geneva”. The desktop roadmap is dominated by Deneb, which we now know has been officially branded as Phenom II. Then in 2011, AMD plans to introduce Orochi for high-end desktops as well as their first CPU-GPU hybrid processors (AMD refers to them as APUs or accelerated processing units) that combine traditional CPU processing with graphics duties. These processors are codenamed “Llano” and “Ontario”.
Previously AMD’s roadmap indicated we’d see the first CPU-GPU APUs in 2009 with the introduction of their Swift processors. At the time of AMD’s ATI acquisition in 2006, the company made the case that their 45-nm manufacturing process was the right time for the CPU to gain graphics functionality, now the company feels that the tech isn’t feasible until they shrink to 32-nm with Llano and Ontario, with the Swift core disappearing entirely from AMD’s new roadmap.
Until we see the introduction of the first APUs however, AMD plans to service the mobile segment with more conventional 45-nm processors.
Up first will be Caspian, Conesus, and Huron, all slated to be introduced in the second half of 2009.
Caspian is AMD’s solution for mainstream notebooks. Like today’s Griffin-based Turion X2 CPUs, the Caspian core will feature two processing cores with 2MB of cache and DDR2 memory. Unfortunately AMD wouldn’t provide further details on Caspian’s architecture (i.e. is the core simply a die-shrink of Griffin or are its origins based on Phenom II), when asked the company declined to answer the question. However, the “S1G3” (socket 1 generation 3) designation in the second chart implies that it’s definitely more advanced than just a simple die-shrink of Griffin, although it may not be quite as complex as Phenom II to keep power consumption and die size down.
![AMD CPU Roadmap Update 2009-2011 [ @ 692 x 534 ] > View Full-Size in another window.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sfjgFVABocSdPH76JJi9f_0JloYOyYkbJQZ05ibQj3L1m7cqUz6_pR7pNETHqpvgpYurI4uSsevEhVb5hOztQJL2UM861O0UWzTuQ-hZGb8xQUDiWmw8_AO70U-G5xXHg4tX6Qz0WhOVRJX7ZL0yqB-08=s0-d)
![AMD CPU Roadmap Update 2009-2011 [ @ 694 x 534 ] > View Full-Size in another window.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sgBejZmiJspn4F0wAsMQF0C8UcpCvtssKnhmkDu6i-7a146Y71WQQOEWVe7u12lexgJVHKq75umgIzG-84p28jOC7fXpqA8vF_3s9194nihvwTFB6fzmos0mk9LS0RV4lHdb6Qo2EAhDtF9HReIweMVLc=s0-d)
![AMD CPU Roadmap Update 2009-2011 [ @ 688 x 534 ] > View Full-Size in another window.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uN6XjScZAfsdJs9nv5EPcfrQqBh2USvz49Jj5VmYTJtYqIjQr-Pbva68FHahA7jYuEroupZbJefP2a8b5XtJUGtRza3KArl4ZnZpMLlJ43ajK4hZzmlcnkhaBR2CrGNQPW6CgA_BClRgXf4vFNlzvp2mM=s0-d)
Caspian will ship with AMD’s next-generation Tigris platform, which replaces today’s Puma. Tigris will feature a new RS880M North Bridge + SB710 South Bridge. Once again AMD wasn’t specific on details when it comes to RS880M, so we don’t know if it’s derived from RV770 or RV870 technology. AMD also expects manufacturers to offer Tigris-based notebooks with discrete graphics, presumably using upcoming Mobility Radeon 4000 parts.
Moving further down the rung, for the ultraportable/mini-notebook (netbook) segment, AMD plans to offer Conesus in 2H’09. Yesterday, rumors were swirling that AMD would offer a CPU to rival Intel’s Atom CPU. Today AMD reiterated their position on the topic: NO! The company still feels consumers want a more fully-fledged notebook experience with no compromises; as anyone who has tried to seriously game or encode a video on a netbook can tell you, Intel’s Atom CPU really isn’t up to the task for these duties. Rather than offer a dedicated CPU for the netbook segment, AMD plans to counter with lower priced ultraportable systems based around Conesus and Huron.
Conesus is a dual-core part with 1MB of cache and DDR2, while Huron is a single-core CPU. Conesus will rely on AMD’s upcoming Congo platform, which consists of RS780M + SB710 South Bridge, while Huron will ship with Yukon, which will utilize RS690E + SB600. To minimize power consumption we’d guess that these chipsets will be built using TSMC’s 40-nm manufacturing process, although AMD wouldn’t provide specifics on that topic either.
AMD plans to introduce their first quad-core mobile processor in 2010. Codenamed “Champlain”, the chip will feature 2MB of cache and DDR3 memory support. AMD designates Champlain as S1G3, implying that the core is basically a quad-core derivative of Caspian, only with four cores instead of two and a DDR3 memory controller. Accompanying Champlain is AMD’s Danube platform, although nothing specific is mentioned about this chipset.
Also due in 2010 is Geneva. Geneva is a dual-core, lower power part with 2MB of cache and DDR3.
As we mentioned on the previous page, we’ll see the first APUs from AMD in 2011, a delay of roughly two years from AMD’s original plans due to their decision to wait for 32-nm before producing a CPU-GPU part. AMD actually expects to begin producing 32-nm parts in 2010, although the process won’t be ready for mass production until 2011. If the first 32-nm samples look good in 2010, it’s conceivable that Llano and Ontario could be introduced in the first half of 2011, although AMD wouldn’t provide anything specific here.
AMD’s desktop plans
Earlier this morning AMD revealed the brand name for their first 45-nm desktop CPUs based on their Deneb core, Phenom II. This afternoon AMD revealed one new nugget of info about Phenom II – it’s launching in early January at CES in Las Vegas alongside AMD’s Dragon platform.
Phenom II will ship with 8MB of cache and will initially support DDR2 memory and AMD’s AM2+ socket. The CPU is also rumored to launch at clock speeds as high as 3.0GHz. (Newer reports have also suggested that Phenom II will scale much better than Phenom when it comes to overclocking.) Later in 2009 the processor will transition to AMD’s AM3 socket with support for DDR3 memory.
This brings us to Dragon, AMD’s new platform for Phenom II. Apparently Dragon doesn’t refer to AMD’s next-generation RD890 chipset, but 700-series chipsets with AMD’s new SB750 South Bridge. RD890 may not appear until well into 2009, perhaps as late as the second half of next year.
For the mainstream desktop CPU segment AMD plans to offer Propos. Propos is a quad-core part with just 2MB of total cache.
According to AMD’s latest roadmap, both Deneb and Propos will serve as AMD’s primary desktop CPUs for 2009 and 2010. In our opinion this is an awfully conservative move on AMD’s part, particularly for 2010. Over that same time frame Intel is slated to offer Westmere (their 32-nm Nehalem refresh part) and Sandy Bridge, which is Intel’s next-generation CPU architecture beyond Nehalem. To put things in perspective, Deneb is expected to bring AMD on par with Intel’s Penryn processors when it comes to performance, so by the time AMD’s next-generation desktop core is ready in 2011, Intel could be two generations beyond them.
Bulldozer, now codenamed “Orochi”, could be a powerful processor when it arrives in 2011 though. AMD plans to outfit the processor with more than four cores and more than 8MB of cache. Little is known beyond that, although we do know it will utilize AMD’s 32-nm manufacturing process.
Combining a new manufacturing process with a new microarchitecture could be tricky for AMD. Both AMD and Intel have learned the hard way how difficult it can be pulling off a new architecture alone, and they’ve both also had their fair share of difficulties with rolling out a new manufacturing process, so if AMD can pull both off simultaneously with Orochi it would be quite a coup for the company. Our guess is Orochi must have some type of game-changing feature that needs 32-nm for it to be worth the risk for AMD to combine both in one processor.
Conclusion
If you’re a hardcore AMD enthusiast holding out for the return of the FX line and AMD’s CPU supremacy, chances are you’re going to be waiting quite a while. 2011 at the very earliest. AMD has repeatedly stated that Deneb is not a performance competitor with Intel’s latest Nehalem processors, instead it’s geared against Intel’s latest quad-core Core 2 CPUs.
That’s fine for the next 9-10 months for AMD, after all Nehalem (Core i7) isn’t going to overtake Core 2 until Intel offers more mainstream platforms for it next year, but what is AMD going to do when Deneb is going up against Westmere roughly a year from now? What’s going to happen in 2010? Does AMD really expect Deneb to hold its own against Intel for two full years if they’re already acknowledging they’re behind Intel’s best 2008 processor?
What if AMD encounters delays with 32-nm and/or Orochi? Either one of these scenarios could equal major problems for the company.
From our perspective, AMD’s immediate roadmap looks fine. In terms of roadmap execution, AMD shouldn’t have any problems getting by through 2009. It’s 2010 and beyond that worries us. AMD’s best hope is for Intel to delay the introduction of their 32-nm manufacturing process or encounter some type of snag with Westmere or Sandy Bridge. If none of these occur, and Intel continues to execute on their roadmap like clockwork, 2010 could be a very rough year for AMD on the desktop space in our opinion.
On the mobile side, AMD’s refusal to offer a direct competitor to Atom is definitely intriguing. For now, AMD has no plans to offer a CPU with TDPs rivaling Atom. Instead they plan to offer notebook solutions that are slightly more expensive, and certainly more powerful. AMD wouldn’t give any specifics when it comes to price, although when pressed they implied price points starting somewhere in the $500 range with Windows Vista included. Considering that ASUS has multiple Eee PC’s priced above $500, AMD could have a winner if their partners can offer a compelling full-fledged alternative priced in that range. For their part, Intel certainly is walking a tightrope when it comes to Atom. The company enjoys Atom’s sales volume, but on the other hand its low price is hurting their ASPs (average selling price) of their CPU line overall.
With the lack of a single high-end CPU, AMD’s ASPs are already lower than Intel’s. Also remember that the company doesn’t have the engineering resources of Intel, so rather than devote their limited resources on a low-end Atom competitor, they’d much rather devote their engineers to CPUs with higher profit margins.
Considering these last two points, we don’t fault them for approaching the nascent netbook market with a healthy dose of skepticism.
In closing, hopefully AMD has learned from their mistakes of the last year and is able to turn a profit soon. With the divestment of their foundries, the company can now focus 100% on CPU/GPU design. We also hope that AMD has more products planned for 2010 than they’re currently willing to divulge. Over the course of the next year, Nehalem and follow-up parts from Intel will slowly trickle down from the high-end desktop segment to the mainstream desktop and mobile markets. When that occurs, AMD’s going to need more than Deneb and Propus on the desktop, while Intel’s lead in the mobile space could grow despite AMD’s superior graphics solutions.
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