AMD's Quad FX: Technically Quad Core
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 30, 2006 1:16 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
AMD is going to have a very tough sell with Quad FX; although the CPUs are priced competitively, if the ASUS L1N64-SLI WS ends up just shy of the $400 mark it's a platform that is simply too expensive at no benefit to the end user. When only running one or two CPU intensive threads, Quad FX ends up being slower than an identically clocked dual core system, and when running more threads it's no faster than Intel's Core 2 Extreme QX6700. But it's more expensive than the alternatives and consumes as much power as both, combined.
There is the upgrade path argument, that eventually you will be able to put a total of eight cores in this Quad FX platform, but we can't help but wonder if the market for someone who wants a non-workstation 8-core setup for desktop use is a very small one. Although to AMD's credit we were able to create a scenario where even four cores won't cut it, making a case for the need for 8-core setups in the future. But the promise of eight cores in the future doesn't do a great job of justifying the Quad FX purchase today.
For those users who won't migrate to eight cores, once AMD's new micro-architecture debuts next year with native quad-core support, this expensive Quad FX platform will be notably slower than cheaper single socket systems. Quad FX is simply a very niche product, and in the era of power efficiency and performance per watt, AMD has released the proverbial SUV of high end desktops.
AMD hopes to sell more Quad FX processors than any FX processor in the past, which to us means that either AMD sees much more opportunity in this platform than we do, or that the previous FX processors simply didn't sell very well. Either way you slice it, there's only one AMD CPU we're really interested in and we won't get it until the middle of next year. Luckily for AMD, Intel doesn't appear to be doing anything huge between now and then either, so it looks like the CPU wars will cool down for a while after a heated few months.
Prepare to revisit this discussion in less than a year's time, and next time AMD will hopefully be much better prepared, armed with a new architecture and a cooler, smaller 65nm process. Until then, there's always Quad FX but you're better off with Kentsfield.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
88 Comments
View All Comments
JarredWalton - Friday, December 1, 2006 - link
Yay for speech recognition!indigenous = enthusiast
we are see = we are seeing
Scratch a couple "basically" from the last paragraph.
yyrkoon - Friday, December 1, 2006 - link
I though Gary was the "one" with the Texas "Twang" ;)laok - Thursday, November 30, 2006 - link
The current 4x4 does not look to be a mature system to me. Wait until 65nm 4x4 comes out and hopefully a better chipset will be available at that time. 65W x 2 is reasonable, 130W x2 is kinda too much.And I also want to know how 4x4 compares to dual dual-core opteron with the same frequence: performance, power consumption etc.
DigitalFreak - Thursday, November 30, 2006 - link
It's the same chip as the Opteron, with the memory controller changed to work with unbuffered memory.JarredWalton - Friday, December 1, 2006 - link
The first word of his subject is the best advice: WAIT! Even if the future might get better, does anyone want to spend $1000+ on what may or may not turn out to be the better platform? When the new CPUs are available, then we can evaluate and decide. Of course, once AMD launches their quad core processors, I'm almost certain that our advice will be that most people only need a single socket motherboard and CPU anyway -- if that. Many people still get by a single core CPU, and the number of people that actually need more than dual CPUs is very small, at least in the desktop workspace.DigitalFreak - Thursday, November 30, 2006 - link
This is the best AMD can do against Kentsfield? They get stomped on in every benchmark, cost more, and draw nearly twice as much power. No one in their right mind would buy this over a Core2Quad. Whomever came up with this product should be fired.The last time I laughed this hard at a CPU/platform launch was when Intel rolled out the P4 dual core CPUs, and at least they came out on time in some of the multimedia benchmarks.
For the record, my current system is running an Opteron 165, so I ain't no Intel fanboy.
photoguy99 - Friday, December 1, 2006 - link
You're right it's actually embarrasing isn't it?If AMD's next-gen architecture improves performance by 30% at same clock, which is huge, they still won't take the lead.
And it seems Intel is done sitting on their hands, they are working like hell to dominate again by the time K8L ramps up big.
People hate hearing this but think it's over for AMD.
And like you, for the record, my current system is an FX-60 so I'm also no Intel fanboy.
DigitalFreak - Thursday, November 30, 2006 - link
...came out on top...photoguy99 - Thursday, November 30, 2006 - link
Seriously, I'd like to know who is selling them...Furen - Thursday, November 30, 2006 - link
That such a badly engineered product was rushed out to reviewers just to have a paper launch. Did AMD believe that no one would make a big deal about the power draw? Or maybe it expected no one to even look at power draw. I was actually impressed by what AMD had accomplished with 4x4, after all, the 3.0GHz Quad FX parts were close to the QX6700, until I saw the insane power draw. Two loaded FX-62 systems (whole systems, mind you) draw about the same power as 4x4 does IDLE!