Amd Slashes Prices Up To 31% And Cans Unicore Processors!

AMD announced Monday that they will slash prices up to 31% and eliminate all unicore processors! I think that by canning the unicore, that will force people to really start thinking multicore applications since right now, 99% of applications are all designed for unicore processor, thus not making use of the multicore design that marketers have been praising about. The multicore right now isn't being utilise at its full potential. I think this will boost multicore usage by at least a fold when true multicore applications hit the stage.

This is great news for those of us that are in need of an upgrade! (I know I do!)

Source: Kwokinator.com

Any thoughts?

xboxrulz

That's because most of the products people use have no need to be multi-threaded or take advantage of multi-core processors. I mean it doesn't take that much power to run Office...unless your on Vista. And the only people that do are in the video/animation arena like me or are avid gamers. Things have changed, but I remember 10 years ago with Solaris that most applications ran better on 32-bit Sparc systems and then you sent them off to the 64-bit UltraSparc's for number crunching. (engineering firm at the time that was doing airflow simulations.) If you tried to run the workstation end of the application on a 64-bit station, it ran like crap. I always thought that was crazy myself and learned then that more power != better performance.Still AMD has to do something because Intel somehow did to AMD what Boeing has done with Airbus. Instead of going for raw performance, suddenly Intel said "performance per watt". Which means a lot on laptops and even large datacenters. If you knew the electric bill for the last studio I worked for, with over 150 Xserves and another 120 Macs, you'd understand where the savings in energy and heat production could more than pay for any price differential upfront between AMD & Intel chips.

Ahh... I think that this is going to be the beginning of the end for this old computer that I have. I've been in search of a good deal on dual core processor pc, so maybe this will motivate me to go ahead and buy one. Hopefully the 'elimination' of single core units will mean that they go dirt cheap! I mean, it wouldn't hurt having a few of those in computer labs that only really need programs such as office applications and web browsing applications. Hopefully this doesn't backfire on AMD, and I can't wait to see what intel does.

More power per watt is a huge deal. The other thing that's a big deal is more efficiently performing operations at the current processing speeds. for example, I have access to a server with four 3.x GHz processors, but it compiles slower than a Core 2 Duo (The server is 64bit) because the Duo is better designed to handle integer functions which are highly used in compilation. So event hought the Duo runs at 1.8 GHz, it gets more accomplished than 4 faster processors.~Viz

I think it's a great move by AMD since now it's going to push a lot of game designers to really make multithreaded games since a lot of gaming PCs are AMD powered.xboxrulz

However, unimatrix, a lot of gamers and computer enthusiasts would think more of the raw power than electric savings. Then again, the Phenom promises large energy cuts (as low as 45W for the energy efficient version of a multicore, how many cores are not confirmed yet, most likely 2 cores at 45W). Intel Core 2 Duo's lowest wattage is 65W, which is AMD's standard wattage too.xboxrulz

There is a raw power market there, but it's a small sub sector of the overall market. There maybe money to be made, but I've seen a dramatic shift in software development away from the PC to consoles as the platform of choice for games. For starters, it easier to develop for a fixed spec machine as one X-box 360 is basically the same as the next. So you don't have to have 50 test units to test 3 different operating systems with 2 different brands of CPU's and large varity of video cards etc.. Also it's generally harder to pirate those games as well compared to PC. For the consumer end, desktops are going by the wayside as most people start to replace them with laptops. That is where the growth area has been and I believe will continue. That's where the power per watt really comes to play. Even in business, there are a lot of people going mobile as their only computer. And AMD is going to have problems unless they pull back and create a next generation of laptop chip that can compete with Intel.

That's a very good information, atleast for me as i'm planning to upgrade my PC. But I have some question --1. Which is better Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD's dual core? 2. And i heard that Intel is also dropping the prices of Core2Duo's.......Is it true?3. How much Corsair 2GB DDR2 Ram costs?

@Unimatrix: that seems to be the case with gaming as I've also seen. However, as I said, even Intel hasn't matched AMD's new offering of 45W for a dual core processor. These new processors are coming out later this year part of the Phenom processors. Intel has yet to match that power savings with their 65W dual cores.Vidit, it's all about preferences. I prefer AMD (even though I have an Intel processor at the moment, am upgrading about next week when I get my paycheque).It is true that Intel will drop prices too, but not as severe as the ones AMD had made (up to 31% drop since its January 2007 price drop).Corsair RAMs would be different in different region and plus it's different for different grade of RAM chips. They have Value RAM, Performance and others too. Also, the speed of the RAM also changes its price.xboxrulz