Technology Events
Normally TWL will not comment on recent events, as things change quickly in technology, however, some recent events place competition in front of the AMD 64 Socket 939 that are worth noting.
Intel recently released its 775LGA CPUs and 925/915 chipsets, which were aimed at newer technologies and advanced performance gains. It seems, after closer inspection, that the 775 was initially very much a paper release with processors only finding market nearly a month later. This wouldn't be the first paper-release Intel product, nor is it likely to be the last. Among the improvements was support for PCI-Express, a feature that unfortunately is lacking in current AMD 64 motherboards, as well as DDR2 support. Unfortunately for Intel, PCI-Express cards are currently extremely expensive, as is DDR2 memory. There is also review and testing support showing that the use of these two items currently provides little performance gains for the money. That said, the situation is admittedly likely to change, in time, as support, drivers, and technology catch up.
With the 775 release came a new socket and two new CPUs. It's a little-known fact, though, that the 775 has no internal difference from a Pentium 4 Prescott, including the Prescott's heat issues, but the 775 also adds a new socket form-factor that seems famous for being easily broken. Motherboard manufacturers everywhere were certainly not thrilled with the concept of supporting such a brittle design courtesy of Intel.
Additionally, 3 weeks after the 925/915 release, a design flaw was observed with the chipset (not the CPU) that could cause problems, and forced a partial recall for motherboards manufactured at a specific plant during a specific timeframe. Even assorted publicity events could not help Intel's positioning of the 775, which is a sign to be taken into consideration of the larger picture.
While Intel is to be commended for being the first to jump aboard the PCI-Express and DDR2 bandwagon, it is unfortunate that their release seems a little premature. Widespread support is not yet available in a cost-effective manner, nor has the potential performance of the technology been realized by any current implementations. Intel should have waited, as AMD did, when releasing the AMD 64 until their product was stable, supported, and publicly available.
These facts are mentioned because most consumers seeking an upgrade will, and rightly should, compare the AMD 939 socket to the latest Intel has to offer. In an "apples to apples" approach, AMD wins hands down. Packaging, performance, and upgrade path are all better--currently far better.
Conclusion
AMD has really created a winner with the socket 939 processors. Consumers seeking a cpu should definitely consider the 939 as a serious contender with all the performance benefits they could want. Pricing for the 939's is still a bit high for most users considering an upgrade, however, the cost of having to upgrade twice, if a user elects for a non-64bit processor, when Microsoft releases windows 64-bit edition, could well exceed an initial layout for the proper hardware. Price still remains the only true drawback to the socket 939 processors. Even still, most consumers comparing the 939 to a high end Intel product should note that the P4EE 3.4 currently retails over $1000, while the top socket 939 FX-53 comes in a little lighter at $800 per processor. The AMD Socket 939 is the "To-Have Product" if you are a gamer or looking for the best processing power for consumer-based processors. As such, it's easy to award the AMD Socket 939 processor family our:
A huge thanks must go out to Damon at AMD for making this review possible.
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