Conclusions
AMD's two old-school tricks, the price cut and the clock speed bump, have combined to give the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ a pretty good value proposition. Performance-wise, the X2 6000+ is slower overall than the Core 2 Duo E6700, but not by much. That may be a surprising outcome to those accustomed to seeing Core 2 Duo processors convincingly trounce the competition, but these two architectures were never that different in terms of clock-for-clock performance. It stands to reason that a 3GHz Athlon 64 X2 could nearly pull even with a Core 2 Duo at 2.66GHz. The X2 6000+ is also about 70 bucks cheaper than the E6700, making it a pretty sweet deal in the grand scheme of things. Of course, as always, there are better deals to be had at lower price points than this one, but the X2 6000+ offers a compelling alternative to the E6700.
That said, there's a reason the old-school clock speed bump has become much less fashionable of late, and the power consumption numbers for the X2 6000+ are a testament to it. Power draw rises proportionately with clock frequency and with the square of core voltage. Those power curves tend to get hairy at the higher clock frequencies possible with CPUs made on a given fab process. That's why the X2 6000+ has a 125W thermal/power rating, while the X2 5600+ needs only 89W to run at 2.8GHz. Both are 90nm chips. (AMD has made some progress on this front, incidentally; the Athlon 64 FX-62 was also a 2.8GHz part, but had a 125W rating. And all of AMD's 65nm CPUs to date have a rating of 65W or less. The progress at 90nm probably helped open up the possibility of 3GHz parts like the X2 6000+.)
If you decide to save the 70 bucks to get yourself an X2 6000+ rather than an E6700, you will pay for it with much higher peak power consumption. That may translate into higher system temperatures, more fan noise, or (though we haven't had time to test it) less overclocking headroom. Some folks, I expect, will be willing to take that bargain.
The X2 6000+ also signals a broader realignment in the Athlon 64 X2 lineup, with price cuts across the board that make AMD's offerings more attractive as alternatives to the Core 2 Duo. Some of those Athlon 64 X2s, at lower clock speeds, have power consumption ratings of 65W or less. We'll soon expand our Windows Vista x64 performance and power results to encompass more price points, so stay tuned.
Re: Buying a PC
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Originally Posted by Caledonian Rhyfelwyr
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