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AMD's Athlon 64 X2 5600+ April 13, 2007 Brandon Sandman Bell |
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Summary: With their latest round of price cuts, AMD's Athlon 64 X2 line is now more tempting than ever! Today the Athlon 64 X2 5600+ can be found online for less than $190 -- about the same price as the Core 2 Duo E6300. See how this chip performs and overclocks in our latest article!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 11 ) |
As usual with price cuts, the biggest reductions went to the fastest processors. This means you can buy a lot more CPU for your money than you could a month ago. Let’s take a look at the cuts and see how they compare to Intel’s latest processors:
| AMD vs. Intel Pricing | ||
| AMD CPU | Price | Intel CPU |
| $1199 | Core 2 Extreme QX6800 | |
| $999 | Core 2 Extreme QX6700 | |
| $999 | Core 2 Extreme X6800 | |
| $851 | Core 2 Quad Q6600 | |
| Athlon 64 FX-74 | $799 per pair | |
| Athlon 64 FX-72 | $599 per pair | |
| $530 | Core 2 Duo E6700 | |
| $316 | Core 2 Duo E6600 | |
| Athlon 64 X2 6000+ | $241 | |
| $224 | Core 2 Duo E6400 | |
| Athlon 64 X2 5600+ | $188 | |
| $183 | Core 2 Duo E6300 | |
| Athlon 64 X2 5200+ | $178 | |
| Athlon 64 X2 5000+ | $167 | |
| $163 | Core 2 Duo E4300 | |
| Athlon 64 X2 4800+ | $136 | |
| Athlon 64 X2 4400+ | $121 | |
| Athlon 64 X2 4000+ | $104 | |
| Athlon 64 X2 3800+ | $83 | |
| Athlon 64 X2 3600+ | $73 | |
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As you can see, AMD’s X2 CPU lineup has never been more affordable. Even AMD’s most expensive processor, the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ is now priced at just $241, while the CPU we’re evaluating today, the X2 5600+ sells for $188. Of course keep in mind that this is the price AMD officially charges distributors and OEMs in bulk (1,000 units), street prices will vary. Nevertheless though this is a pretty dramatic reduction in pricing, and it completely changes the head-to-head CPU battle between AMD and Intel.
In the case of the Athlon 64 X2 5600+ for instance, the 5600+ was previously priced at $326. At this price, its closest competitor from Intel was the Core 2 Duo E6600, which carries a list price of $316. Compared to the E6600, the X2 5600+ definitely takes a backseat to the Core 2 CPU when it comes to performance, generally running anywhere from 5-20% slower with the exact amount depending on the game being tested. The chief advantage the X2 5600+ holds over the E6600 is idle power consumption, everywhere else the E6600 generally outpaces the X2 5600+.
But based on today’s $188 price, the X2 5600+ is now paired against Intel’s Core 2 Duo E6300. The E6300 ships with half the cache as its X2 counterpart, and runs over 500MHz slower than the E6600. As you’ll see in today’s benchmarks, once the X2 5600+ is compared to the E6300, the pendulum swings wildly in favor of AMD when it comes to performance, but more on that later.
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Specs on the X2 5600+
In case you aren’t familiar with the specs of the X2 5600+, we’ll provide a quick refresher. Up for review today is the 5600 a.k.a. the FX-62 lite. The X2 5600+ runs at 2.8GHz, just like the FX-62, and sports a 2MB L2 cache, also like the Athlon 64 FX-62. Unlike the FX processor, the X2 5600+ doesn’t have an unlocked multiplier, instead its clock multiplier is fixed at 14.0x and its TDP is just 89W, making it less power hungry than the FX. It’s built on the same 90-nm manufacturing process, utilizing AMD’s Windsor core.
Depending on your perspective, while this may not seem like much today, a year ago this would have been the world’s fastest desktop processor. Funny how quickly things can change in the tech world isn’t it?
Overclocking
Honestly we were a little disappointed with our overclocking results with the Athlon 64 X2 5600+. After a considerable amount of tweaking, we ultimately settled on a speed of 3.03GHz (13.0x231):
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We were actually able to boot the system up at speeds over 250MHz higher, at 3.2GHz for instance we could load up Windows and run an app or two before we’d get a BSOD in WinXP and the system would reboot itself. At lower speeds in the 3.1GHz range we could actually complete many benchmark runs in multiple apps before the system became unstable.
Ultimately 3.03GHz was the highest speed we could complete our full suite of benchmarks without running into any crashes, BSODs, or other issues. Considering that many Windsor cores seem to be topping out around 3.1-3.2GHz, this is a little lower than we’d like, but as always with overclocking, you should never expect to hit a certain speed.
| System Setup | Page:: ( 2 / 11 ) |
System Setup
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ (3.0GHz)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ (2.8GHz)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (2.6GHz)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (2.6GHz)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (2.5GHz)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ (2.4GHz)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (2.2GHz)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4GHz)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 (1.8GHz)
ASUS M2N32-SLI Premium
ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP
2GB Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C3
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX w/ForceWare 97.92
Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
DirectX 9.0c
Benchmarks
LAME MT MP3 Encoding (MS Compiler)
DivX Converter
Windows Media Encoder 9
3DMark06
F.E.A.R. 1.08
Pacific Fighters 4.04
Quake 4 1.2
Oblivion
Company of Heroes 1.3
Cinebench 9.5
| Media encoding and rendering | Page:: ( 3 / 11 ) |
Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9
DivX Converter
LAME MT MP3 Encoding
Cinebench 9.5
| 3DMark 06 | Page:: ( 4 / 11 ) |
Futuremark 3DMark05
| Quake 4 | Page:: ( 5 / 11 ) |
Quake 4
| Company of Heroes | Page:: ( 6 / 11 ) |
Company of Heroes
| Pacific Fighters | Page:: ( 7 / 11 ) |
Pacific Fighters
| Half-Life 2 Lost Coast | Page:: ( 8 / 11 ) |
| Oblivion | Page:: ( 9 / 11 ) |
Oblivion
| Overclocking | Page:: ( 10 / 11 ) |
| Conclusion | Page:: ( 11 / 11 ) |
As a result of AMD’s latest price cuts though, the price/performance picture changes dramatically in AMD’s favor at the higher price points as well. The Athlon 64 X2 5600+ we’re taking a look at today for instance goes from competing against the Core 2 Duo E6600 to the Core 2 E6300. This is a battle that easily favors the AMD processor, with the Athlon 64 X2 5600+ generally running anywhere from 10% faster in games like Company of Heroes and Pacific Fighters to 20% faster in Oblivion (we also saw margins of 17% in HL2 Lost Coast and 14% in Quake 4 in favor of the 5600+).
As we said earlier, the pendulum truly has swung back in AMD’s direction. Previously these were the kinds of margins AMD was behind by, but now AMD’s Athlon 64 X2 5600+ is the price/performance champ. It’s pretty amazing what a difference a week can make eh?
But Intel won’t be sitting still much longer. Intel is widely expected to slash CPU prices of their own later this month, as well as introduce a slew of new Core 2 CPUs, including variants of today’s Core 2 Duo E6300 and E6400, only with 4MB L2 cache. These processors will be known as the E6320 and E6420 and rumor has it they will be priced very aggressively. Intel will also be introducing a faster E4000-series CPU this quarter as well dubbed the Core 2 Duo E4400.
The question now is will the upcoming Intel processors and price cuts be enough to counter AMD’s latest moves, or will Intel merely sit this round out and focus on Q3 when demand for PCs will be higher for the back-to-school season. Unfortunately, we won’t know the answer for a few more weeks.
In any case, AMD’s price cuts can be enjoyed right now and based on today’s pricing, CPUs like the Athlon 64 X2 5600+ are pretty tough to beat when compared against the nearest Core 2 Duo. Intel still makes the fastest processors overall, and on the high-end Intel’s Core 2 Quad platform is still more attractive (AMD’s basically conceding the $300+ dual-core CPU market to Intel as well), but pretty much everywhere else you can make a pretty strong case in favor of AMD.