AMD Introduces New Socket FM1 Athlon, Price Changes
by Andrew Cunningham on November 15, 2011 2:15 PM ESTIn addition to its new Opteron chips, AMD yesterday announced a few small changes to its processor line-up, including adjusted prices for several of its Llano-based APUs (and one of its FX-series socket AM3+ processors) and a new, faster GPU-less Athlon II for Socket FM1 boards.
The Athlon II X4 651 is a 3 GHz quad-core chip with a 100 watt TDP and 4 MB of L2 cache, and a suggested retail price of $92. For people building an FM1-based system with no need for an integrated GPU, it will deliver slighly faster performance than the 2.9 GHz, ~$140 A8-3850 at a lower cost. It differs from the already available Athlon II X4 631 only in cost and clock speed.
As for the price changes, they are as follows: the AMD A6-3500 has dropped to $85 from $89, while the A4-3300 and A4-3400 have both received price increases of $2 (to $66 and $71, respectively). The Bulldozer-based FX-6100 sees the biggest price change, with a drop from $165 to $155.
Source: CPU World
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Beenthere - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
You're free to disagree all you like but denial does not change reality. Intel's convictions are public knowledge as are their pending charges for more anti-trust violations.It does not surprise me that you lack moral strength. Many people are that way today. Companies like Intel are the reason why have so many protests going on around the world right now be it Wall Street or any town USA.
Some people are fed up with criminal corporations and want them held accountable for their crimes. Some people are apathetic because they don't know the price they are paying and will continue to pay for this crime. See Intel's CPU and mobo pricing as a real life example.
MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
Well, most of these fine electronics we love are likely built in sweatshops that also likely do a decent amount of polluting. It's not just hardware, as we can hate on Apple and MS with all their patent lawsuits and no-you-can't policies. The whole "moral compass" thing just doesn't apply unless you research where all this stuff comes from and where the money goes.Beenthere - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
Of course it does. Everyone has the option of voting with their wallet. You can vote for a convicted criminal corporation that continues to illegally try and eliminate consumer choice or you can vote for an ethical company providing good products at fair prices so that consumers have a choice.You're the one who has to live with your decision. Saying morality doesn't apply means you're unwilling to make the proper choice.
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2120866/i...
MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
You just miss my point. Here it is:http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/07/13/china-labor-a...
I'm not defending Intel, I'm saying many of these other companies you are "voting" for aren't free of greedy behavior either. But hey, believe what you want.
JonnyDough - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
It comes down to the lesser of two evils and an actual "need" vs "desire". We don't really NEED computers or cars. But we want them because they make life seemingly easier. Until we're dying of cancer or lack motivation to get off our duffs.Prosthetic Head - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
Your argument appears to be "because we can't achieve perfection or fully quantify things the issues are irrelevant" ?Well if that's the case I'd strongly disagree; Making least bad choices based on partial information is something we do all the time.
Note: I'm not passing comment on the relative ethics of either AMD, Intel anyone's personal decisions since I have almost no knowledge of the issues each person have to balance, just pointing out that even if there isn't a 'right answer' there can still be better or worse options.
bigboxes - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
But can you file share with your moral compass? That is the question bubba!TiGr1982 - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
You are an infantile idealist and living in the world of illusions. In my personal opinion, big businesses do not care about such a thing as "moral obligations" internally. Everything is just about money. There are no "moral" big businesses on the planet; just successful and unsuccessful ones.Intel is indeed guilty in anti-trust behaviour. But this DOES NOT make AMD any better. I was an AMD customer for last several years, since Athlon 64 single core days, but now I think I'll quit buing AMD. Why? Because recently this year these AMD clowns commited somewhat like an informational fraud with their Bulldozer, being in fact EPIC BRUTAL FAIL for the desktop CPU market. The problem is not with Bulldozer itself, the problem is that they promised it to be a "High-Performance CPU", faster than Thuban 1100T by 50%, and thus persuaded a bunch of people to waste their money on AM3+ motherboards, but failed to deliver the promised performance. To me, morally, this can be considered as a kind of a fraud.
Summarizing, there are no "good" and "bad" companies, unfortunately. Only good and bad products. Good products bring a lot of money to the business, bad ones do not.
Few examples:
- IBM sold punch cards and the relevant equipment to Hitler in 1930's - 1940's to assist in counting european jewish people, thus indirectly helping Nazi to exterminate them. A historical fact, revealed around ten years ago. Google this. Nothing personal, just business and money, IBM thought at that times, I think.
- Intel is anti-trust, as we know. And Intel is a successful, wealthy and growing business, currently because their CPU's are one of the best in industry.
- AMD is a bunch of clowns which do not deliver what they promise (see above). And, UNFORTUNATELY, AMD is an unsuccessful, loser-kind business, in comparison with the first two mentioned above.
JonnyDough - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Just because you were let down by AMD's marketing company does not mean the company is as quote "loser-kind business" as you are free to believe. They are a large corporation, full of genius engineers, etc. How are you going to insult an entire corporation full of diverse individuals when you blab on aimlessly and don't even make sense?You go on some sort of high moral ground about how Intel has a history of unacceptable and illegal/immoral behavior, and then compare AMD by stating that their marketing company lied to you. You then go on with IBM (not sure of the relevance really) but you want to say "it's just business". Is AMD not also "just doing business" and trying to make a profit? That is what companies do you know. But AMD has not been found guilty like Intel has have they?
You're an idiot. Please stop posting filth like some sort of twelve year old fanatical fanboy.
TiGr1982 - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
I was saying is that everybody is just making business, including AMD, of course, just the way they can - current company at the current moment. The examples provided above just list the non-moral or even offensive behavior during this money-making process. And indeed Intel's behaviour is really ABSOLUTELY non-excusable. This is a crime, of course.When I said "loser-kind business", I meant that AMD lost their server market share from around 25% in 2006 to around 5% now (this is a well-known statistics), they sold their crucial Dresden fab, removing the direct in-company link between design and manufacturing, and all the last years AMD is barely profitable.
Indeed, there is plenty of smart tech people in AMD, absolutely no doubt in that. Technically, AMD are true innovators, first integrating the memory controller into the X86 CPU in 2003 with their Athlon 64 in 2003, first making the true dual core X86 CPU in 2005 (Athlon 64 X2), and first making true quad core X86 CPU with L3 cache in 2007 (Phenom), and first introducing the CMT (Cluster Multi-Threading), instead of Intel's SMT (Simultaneous Multi-Threading, marketed Hyper-Threading). Also, AMD were the first to integrate the USB 3.0 inside the chipset itself recently (A75, Llano APU).
But their management and marketing decisions are a real cause for concern, and sometimes spoil all the big technical effort made. Bulldozer is really reasonable in server space, but, unfortunately, not in desktops, as it was hyped to be. See the Web, there are a lot of folks who were disappointed by FX performance in desktop workloads, this is absolutely not only my opinion.
That 's about AMD CPU business. In contrast, AMD GPU's are MUCH more successful on the market, and are state-of-the art in industry.
None of the companies discussed is really good from the moral point of view, but due to a different reasons. There is nothing about fanatism here. Just the raw facts. If you are not following these facts, and unable to analyse them, then it is your own problem, not mine.