Here comes Propus

[reallyscrued]

Originally posted by: Zap
You guys do realize that Anandtech is not just a forum but has review too, right?

AMD Athlon II X4 620 & 630: The First $99 Quad Core CPU

"without a single extra millivolt I was able to hit 3.25GHz on my Athlon II X4 620 sample - making it even more valuable. Extra voltage proved mostly useless, I could only approach 3.4GHz with an extra 300mV."

Blasphemy.

And damn...Hm, I wonder if it's worth selling my Phenom II X2 550 over this.

Decisions, decisions.

 

[alyarb]

did you get a successful unlock? what freq are you at?

 

[Soulkeeper]

very exciting release, the low power usage really caught my eye

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: jae
This chip would be good for a HTPC. Quad for encoding and decoding while watchin/recording tv.

It's way overkill for that. I'm using a Phenom 9600 for HTPC/server and it rarely ever sees full use of even 1 core. I had the thing underclocked to 1.0ghz for about a week and there was no real difference in performance. Even a cheap single core Celeron or Sempron should be enough for HTPC.

 

[alyarb]

all that means is that you don't do enough encoding for a quad to be worth your while, while jae and many others do. people who are serious about DVR appreciate it as well.

 

[drizek]

Ya, get something like a 4850e on ebay for an HTPC. They sell for around 40 or so dollars, use 45w of power and they work in modern AM2+ motherboards.

For HD though, ya, probably better off with an X4.

 

[waffleironhead]

or wait till the 605e comes out supposed to be 45 watt...

 

[frostedflakes]

Any word on pricing for the 45w Athlon II X4s, though? I bet they'll be expensive, if I had to guess $150-175, in that area. You could probably underclock/undervolt a 620 and get comparable power consumption.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: alyarb
all that means is that you don't do enough encoding for a quad to be worth your while, while jae and many others do. people who are serious about DVR appreciate it as well.

Every encoding program I've used is single threaded, so quads don't seem to help with that. GK will have 1 core maxed out while Media Player Classic is using 3% to play a movie; grand total CPU usage is 28%. It's nice that my server is nowhere near max capacity and should last for several years, but I won't say it's really necessary to have a quad or even a dual.

 

[alyarb]

that's too bad. automkv fully loads both physical and logical cores, as well as handbrake and nero recode. whether you are transcoding bluray or DVD, there are better, faster applications than gordian knot.

you will really want to look into automkv if you enjoyed autogk.

even DVD shrink is dual threaded, and ConvertX uses ~3 cores or so. if you think every encoder is single threaded, you really need to shop more.

 

[Yukmouth]

People still use Auto GK!?

 

[Schmide]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
Any word on pricing for the 45w Athlon II X4s, though? I bet they'll be expensive, if I had to guess $150-175, in that area. You could probably underclock/undervolt a 620 and get comparable power consumption.

Edit: my bad I missed the 45w thingy

Dude they're in stock at superbiiz

$91 = $106 - $10 coupon code (goodstuff10) - $5.30 (5% bing) New! AMD Athlon II X4 Quad-Core Processor 620 AM3, Retail

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: alyarb
that's too bad. automkv fully loads both physical and logical cores, as well as handbrake and nero recode. whether you are transcoding bluray or DVD, there are better, faster applications than gordian knot.

you will really want to look into automkv if you enjoyed autogk.

even DVD shrink is dual threaded, and ConvertX uses ~3 cores or so. if you think every encoder is single threaded, you really need to shop more.

Some people did suggest automkv but it seems to freeze a lot. I thought maybe I just had some bad codec on that one computer but I tried it on three computers and it froze on each one.
DVD shrink is not encoding software so there's no point in trying that (readme).

I'm starting to think we may have reached the point where it's not worth transcoding them anymore. The point of converting mpeg2 to mpeg4 was to save hard drive space at the expensive of requiring more CPU power to play it back. At a time when a 1TB hard drive only costs $80, it doesn't even seem like it's worth the effort anymore.

 

[Ben90]

With the different overclocking results questions that appeared at the beginning of page one:

Its very possible the non AT site got a deneb core Athlon II, which will probably overclock much much higher

In that article some members/anand decided that the AII 620 was a fact propus core, while the 630 was most likely a castrated deneb (answer coming soon/ or maybe already but i stopped reading the comments on that article since yesterday)


The power usage of the (deneb?) 630 in idle was far superior to the (propus) 620; so my hypothesis is that the denebs overclock like denebs, and the propus's overclock like a really good k8... so it might be another one of these lottery things where if u get a good chip or not depends on luck

 

[alyarb]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: alyarb
that's too bad. automkv fully loads both physical and logical cores, as well as handbrake and nero recode. whether you are transcoding bluray or DVD, there are better, faster applications than gordian knot.

you will really want to look into automkv if you enjoyed autogk.

even DVD shrink is dual threaded, and ConvertX uses ~3 cores or so. if you think every encoder is single threaded, you really need to shop more.

Some people did suggest automkv but it seems to freeze a lot. I thought maybe I just had some bad codec on that one computer but I tried it on three computers and it froze on each one.
DVD shrink is not encoding software so there's no point in trying that (readme).

I'm starting to think we may have reached the point where it's not worth transcoding them anymore. The point of converting mpeg2 to mpeg4 was to save hard drive space at the expensive of requiring more CPU power to play it back. At a time when a 1TB hard drive only costs $80, it doesn't even seem like it's worth the effort anymore.

If you alter the bitrate in any way, such as going from a dual-layer NTSC DVD to a single-layer DVDR, you will be encoding, and DVD shrink's encoder is multithreaded.
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/594924/dvdshrink.jpg
it's a great free app. been my only dvd transcoder for 5 years.

I suggest you install the latest cccp codec pack as well as the latest version of automkv (i like version 0.95) for your x264 work. been my only x264 encoder for maybe 3 years. also try handbrake.

Generally I find that MPEG4-AVC can achieve far lower bitrates than older versions of MPEG4 as we compared them to MPEG2, with great quality, and usually I opt for the slowest, best-looking encoder since i'm letting it run on a fast quad overnight anyway. If your HTPC is a medialess library, you have the choice of hosting DVD images between 4 and 9 gigs, or by compressing all of that down to say, 1500 megs including an intact audio stream that is every bit as pristine as its DVD counterpart, yet better preserved and accessible via only a hotkey stroke. I don't care how cheap terabyte disks are getting, the savings is too great to be ignored. I've had a tbyte disk full for too long and i'm considering getting a 2tb. I have a lot of blurays that were more than 40 gigs, but now they're 15 and they look and sound perfect. if my library were uncompressed, it would be over 800 gigs larger than it is now (no porn either, films). we live in a wonderful time where we can convert our entire SD and HD library to x264 and do our playback on the GPU. keep the CPU idle and save hundreds upon hundreds of gigs of space. not worth it?

since i compress my library, i'm confident that buying a 2tb disk will last me, otherwise i'd be screwed. the only blurays i'm waiting on are jurassic park, goldeneye, and forrest gump, maybe catch-22 and what about bob if i'm lucky.

 

[nyker96]

to be honest at $99 a pop, there's absolutely no reason why any new OEM systems shouldn't all be quad core based. I think AMD had forced the market move into quad cores with this cpu.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Still, I think that the Q8200 at Microcenter for $99.99 was a far better deal. Overclock that sucker to 3.125Ghz @ 450FSB, and it was a screamer, with far better performance than an Athlon II X4, at nearly any clock speed.

Tweaktown.com was able to oc theirs to 3.9 ghz and i'm sure that at that speed a Q8200 @ 3.1 would struggle against the X4.

It's no i5 for sure but at $99 it's a awsome deal for the consumer. Can you see the positives here?

 

[21stHermit]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: 21stHermit
What most intrigues me about the $99 620 is how it might affect the competitive landscape. If this chip is popular then we could see significant price reductions from Intel in both low end Quads but also some dual cores. TWT

Just wait until Intel answers AMD, with a 2C/4T 32nm chip with better performance, that I'm sure that Intel could price cheaper than AMD if they wanted to.

Agree!!! Clarkdale is on my radar screen, low power is much more important to me than performance, rarely at 100%, but 90% of the time I'm at 10% CPU.

Intel will have a high margin on Clarkdale and hence a lot pricing flexibility. The Xbitlabs Athlon II X4 benches showed the E7200 frequently beat the 620 and most of the Clarkdale's will run circles around an E7200. Besides, I run no programs that would use 4 cores, hyperthreading is virtually as good as more cores for multitasking.

The only real advantage of a Quad is bragging rites.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: 21stHermit

The only real advantage of a Quad is bragging rites.

To a point I can agree, but when you can get this chip "Retail" today for $91.xx after coupon and cashback with FREE shipping and can plop it in a legacy AM2+ or AM3 board "today", its tough to beat!

(Oh, and I have two Intel chips and two AMD chips in my home so I'm not biased at all! )

But, to be honest, I would rather wait and take a look at the 605e at 45W or something similar in computational power and lower wattage.

 

[LoneNinja]

Originally posted by: nyker96
to be honest at $99 a pop, there's absolutely no reason why any new OEM systems shouldn't all be quad core based. I think AMD had forced the market move into quad cores with this cpu.

Unfortuneatly the majority of the OEM market goes to Intel and they're over priced C2D.

Originally posted by: 21stHermit

The only real advantage of a Quad is bragging rites.

Maybe for someone who primarily uses a computer for media, internet, and office use. Personally I hit 100% usage on a quad core regularly because I've got software that utilizes all 4 cores. It's nice to have 4 cores even when gaming, not many games use all 4 cores, but I hate when my game causes 100% usage on my processor so it's almost impossible to run anything in the background without negative performance impacts.

 

[21stHermit]

Originally posted by: nyker96
to be honest at $99 a pop, there's absolutely no reason why any new OEM systems shouldn't all be quad core based. I think AMD had forced the market move into quad cores with this cpu.

Not so fast! I have an Atom 330 based system which was $125 as a barebone. It's a surprisingly capable PC. At half the end cost of your $99 Quad based system, their are valid alternatives.

But to your point, the AMD $99 Quad will force some rethinking and further lower the entry bar. We win!

I would then ask how can Microsoft justify a $200 OS with hardware prices declining so fast?

 

[drizek]

You can get a barebones Athlon X4 system for $.02 less than what you payed for your Atom. http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813135231

Edit: Actually, if you can get the X4 for $91 then the total price will be $116, $9 less than what the Atom boards cost.

 

[alyarb]

the low power of the atom is hardly worth the increased cost and compromised performance except in only the most niche cases. you cannot play HD video on an atom, let alone high-def flash video, nor can you have background apps running during the playback of SD video. that should be a deal breaker for a lot of otherwise simple multimedia systems.

i think you might be trying to stretch the barebones comparison too far, as the systems are totally different and really can't be compared based on cost. also, that 740G motherboard probably won't support AM3 chips without a BIOS update, and I doubt ECS has gone through that trouble. There is a $55 foxconn that will do it, though. one things is for sure, and i think this is what you were getting at, is that saving ~$60 on an Atom+945 system is not worth it except for only the most basic computing tasks like word processing, file/print serving small workgroups, and web browsing/comms/, and you had better be certain that the PC's "mission" has no chance of changing over the course of it's life, because if there's one thing an Atom cannot do, it would be upgrade.

 

[21stHermit]

Originally posted by: drizek
You can get a barebones Athlon X4 system for $.02 less than what you payed for your Atom. http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813135231

Edit: Actually, if you can get the X4 for $91 then the total price will be $116, $9 less than what the Atom boards cost.

If I understand your link, that's only a MB and 620, AR. Hardly a barebone that had a case and PSU. Bit too bare me thinks.

 

[21stHermit]

Originally posted by: alyarb
the low power of the atom is hardly worth the increased cost and compromised performance except in only the most niche cases. you cannot play HD video on an atom, let alone high-def flash video, nor can you have background apps running during the playback of SD video. that should be a deal breaker for a lot of otherwise simple multimedia systems.

Agreed that an Atom is no multimedia powerhouse, so if that's your definition of a capable PC then no Atom.

For me I'm a map maker and I've had 1+GB map files loaded with no problems. The text to binary compiler also ran smooth and fast. Have not tried any video other than simple Utube kinds of things and I'm ISP limited for those.