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Affordable Dual Core from AMD: Athlon 64 X2 3800+

 by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 1, 2005 9:36 AM EST
109 Comments | Add A Comment
109 Comments

New Pricing, but Higher Cost per Core?

One thing that we noticed in our first review of the Athlon 64 X2 processor was that AMD was surely getting their money's worth out of each X2 sale, especially compared to Intel. Dating back to the launch of the Pentium D, Intel's entry-level Pentium D 820 only came with an $80 premium over its identical single core counterpart. Back then, AMD's cheapest core, the X2 4200+ commanded a $265 premium for its second core.

With the introduction of the Manchester core in the Athlon 64 X2 3800+, AMD introduces a much more reasonably priced dual-core CPU, where the cost of the second core has finally dropped to $160. It's still not as low as Intel's lowest, but it is fairly competitive with Intel's closest priced dual core competitor - the 3.0GHz Pentium D 830.

It is interesting to note that although AMD has cut both their single core and dual core prices since the X2's launch, the cost per core of the older dual core CPUs has actually gone up a little in some cases. While both of the 512KB L2 parts have decreased their cost per second core relative to today's single core prices, the 1MB parts have gone up. Overall, prices have still gone down; it's just that the gap between buying a single core CPU and a dual core has changed.

So, what AMD has done is effectively released a price competitor to the Pentium D 830. While it isn't the Pentium D 820 competitor that we were hoping for at a sub-$300 price point, the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ will have to do.

Unfortunately, while AMD announced availability starting today, we have only seen limited availability in the retail channel with only Monarch and Directron listing the chip shipping on 8/12/2005.

Power Comparison: Manchester vs. Toledo AMD’s Efficiency Advantage?
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  • masher - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link

    OMG OMG! CONSPIRACY! INTEL IS PAYING OFF TOMS!

  • Staples - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link

    Seems video games are only benifiting from raw clock speed. The 2.4 single core A64 outperforms the X2 3800 every step of the way. I will be getting one when there is an X2 2.4GHz that isn't $1000.

  • DigitalDivine - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link

    man, i wish amd would make a 2Ghz 256K (512k total) dual core proc.

    i mean, think about it.... l2 cache sizes for the athlon doesn't really dent performance (as seen in sempron's performance); it's cheaper for amd to produce and more economical to run/ power.

  • NullSubroutine - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link

    I dont know if it was includedin the AMD single vs Dual core comparsion, but I would have liked to have seen comparison of 3000+ (newcastle 2.0ghz, 512k cache...hmm i guess thats 754, what they got thats similar on 939, is that the 3200 they talked about?) vs the new 3800 x2, I could go look at old benchmarks, however sometimes they arent similar enough systesm (sometimes diffrent video, hd, benchmark settings).

  • Hacp - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link

    Intel's next move should be to discount the 820 to 200 and the 830 to 275. That way, it can still stay competative with AMD in terms of Price/performance.

  • Zebo - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link

    "The victory is clear and without debate, at the $300 - $400 price point, the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is the dual core processor to get. "
    ----------------
    No offense Anand, but the 3800+ would have bent an $1100 840XE too but I guess you did'nt want to embaress Intel like that.;) Making 3800+ at any price point the 3800+ is the dual core processor to get. Just look in your forums -- people arn't buying the PentiumD's even at thier rock bottom discount prices. I've counted 44 X2's and one 820D and this is at the >$500 price points of 4200 and above!!! I expect 3800+ to literally explode in sales.

  • masher - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link

    > "Just look in your forums -- people arn't buying the PentiumD's even at thier rock bottom discount prices"
    Lol, what world are you living in? Intel is forecasting 2 million Pentium Ds shipped by the end of the year...the lowest independent forecasts are 500,000+ by year-end. Thats a lot more than the A64 X2 is going to sell this year.

    > "but the 3800+ would have bent an $1100 840XE too but I guess you did'nt want to embaress Intel like that.;) "

    Put down the crack pipe and step away from the keyboard.

  • Zebo - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link

    uh huh..
    http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q2/athlon64-x2/i...">http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q2/athlon64-x2/i...

    Ouch! The $350 3800+ beats the $1100 840XE in 12/20 apps..How embarressing is that?

    Don't even doubt me you just look stupid.

  • masher - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link

    > "Don't even doubt me you just look stupid. "

    God, the idiots really come out at night. The report you linked to is from May...the "3800" those benchmarks were run on isn't even the dual core X2...its the 2.4 GHZ single-core chip.

    Thanks for a good laugh....feel free to keep posting.

  • DXM - Wednesday, August 3, 2005 - link

    I believe he meant to post this review showing the X2 3800 matching or besting the XE840 in all but a handful of tests:

    http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q3/athlon64-x2-3...">http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q3/athlon64-x2-3...

    Aside from the snide comments, the gist of his assertion still stands.
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