Alright, so I recently realized my disillusion with [h] was because of their idiotic benching ways (they don't like apples to apples...god knows why). After that I went and looked back over the 38** series review and came out with a very similar disposition than I did from the anand review.

I also saw the new AMD platform had dropped and they had tested it here.

Giving it a quick look through, it looks like we're about to see the return of the Athlon XP line--good pricing comparably, good performance too, but morbidly overclockable.

I just thought I'd share this bit of news, especially since it seems like the AMD camp's been pretty dead lately...to all of those looking to upgrade I'd do a bit of research on the phenom and see if it's worth your time.

Yeah, it's not bad. Unfortunately Wolfdale will trounce it and Nehelam will probably bury AMD in the high end market.

The high end market is also at about 700 bucks more. Until Intel releases their lower end chips that they have out in the high end market they'll have a decent competitor. Probably not that great considering the flak that conroe's built up nowadays though.

I wasn't talking that high end. I mean starting at what the "mid" level is for enthusiasts. The 200-300 dollar range.

Massive overclocking ability won't be enough to save it. The Core 2 Duos are well known for their insane overclocks, even on the most basic of cooling. Hell, I've got a 2.66ghz E6700 running at 3.12ghz on the stock cooler.

Yeah, a friend of mine was running a 1.8Ghz C2D (unknowingly) without the CPU-fan working.

Ok, it got hot, mid-60's (according to mobo, I had the suspicion it was hotter) , but she was able to play WoW non stop for 4hrs+ without any issue and non system operation didn't trouble it.

We've since replaced the stock heatsink for a much larger thermaltake one that should get enough airflow from the system fan.

As for the Phenom, it didn't impress in the reviews, unless AMD can pull something major with some revision tweaks in the upcoming months, the future doesn't look so great at the moment.

Really it should be able to at least keep up with the Q6600, which is about it's equal in price. AMD needs to ditch the K8 architecture. It had a great run but it's just too old.

I was just thinking about bringing my 939 socket mobo back to life with a X2 3800+

It competes...easily. Look at the review.


The 2.2ghz version ran at 3.6 on stock air cooling. I wouldn't say that "massive overclocking ability won't be enough to save it", especially when, clock for clock, it keeps up with the C2d. The problem is there's no retail clocks at decent speed out there.


It does, from what I can tell.

You're looking at the one overclocked to 3GHz. You should be able to get a Q6600 to 3.2-6GHz easy.

I was talking about Wolfdale and Nehelam.

Also, you'll forgive me if I take anything from [H] with a grain of salt. And by grain I mean bucket.

Why's that? They've given solid reviews for the past 6 or 7 years now. The only event that stained their reputation happened a long time ago.

Don't confuse their fanbase with the people who run it--they know what the **** they're talking about. The fanbase definitely leaves intelligence to be desired, though.


Read the end of the review--Kyle mentions he's seen one oc'd to 3.6 on air.

Why? Also, H agrees with you.