Processor Obfuscation and You: An Update on AMD and Intel CPUs

Closing Thoughts

If you were confused by the recent offerings from AMD and Intel, we hope that this has helped to clear the air a bit. The model numbers on Intel processors are relatively straight forward, though they're definitely not perfect. Intel also hasn't bothered with any new code names for core steppings, though we do have stuff like the "J" extension when the XD bit was added as well as the aforementioned "+1" chips for EM64T. In the end, we have to give Intel credit for a more sensible naming scheme. Yeah, you still need to find out what each model number actually means, but at least there is only one definition for a 540 and a 540J. AMD, on the other hand, seems to be intent to create as much confusion as possible. In most situations, they have the higher performing chips, but the "standardized" performance rating model numbers is really a disservice to the end user. Performance isn't the only factor in purchasing a computer anymore - something AMD has preached in the past - and so, basing the model numbers solely around a performance metric isn't very helpful. We'd actually prefer the Opteron naming scheme to the mess that currently exists in the Athlon and Sempron lines.

Let's wrap this all up with some practical advice on what to buy. If you're looking to purchase a new system, all that's left is to determine what features and price that you're comfortable with, and then you might need to wait for the appropriate part to become available. We would strongly recommend a socket 939 or one of the new (Intel 845/855 or NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI chipsets) socket 775 systems as the basis for any system, though the prices of the latest 775 motherboards are rather expensive. The difference in cost between the new platforms and the older platforms is usually under $100, and the longevity of the older platforms is definitely limited.

For those interested in upgrading advice, we have several recommendations. If you're running one of the older platforms (socket A, 754, or 478), you can either upgrade to the maximum CPU speed available for the platform or else, ditch the whole platform and buy a new motherboard, CPU, and perhaps RAM as well. The latter basically puts you back into the "new system" group, so make your selection and go from there. Socket 939 users should probably just stick with what they have for now while we wait for the X2 parts to come out. Have we mentioned how attractive Socket 939 is, with the ability to support both the older CPUs as well as the future dual core chips with only a BIOS update? The catch is that, given the planned pricing of the X2 chips, we would expect only the most performance hungry users to upgrade initially - after all, you've lived without SMP on the desktop for years, so why switch now? People with enough spare change and a desire to multitask will disagree, of course.

775 upgraders are in something of a bind right now. If you're already running such a system, you probably already have a decent processor. Unfortunately, once the dual core parts become available, your current motherboard becomes outdated. At that point, it's a question of whether or not the benefits of dual core are enough to get you to upgrade both the CPU and motherboard. For many people, the answer will probably be "no". We're still not sure why the 915 and 925 chipsets are unable to support dual core processors; they fit in the same socket, so what's the problem?   Anyway, AMD definitely planned the dual core transition better than Intel. Let's not be too critical, however - you could purchase a 540J now and an 820 in a month for roughly the same cost as the Athlon X2 4200+. In other words, the pricing of Intel's dual core chips is far more attractive than the AMD counterparts - although AMD is faster in many instances, making a final verdict difficult to render. Socket 939 motherboards are also substantially cheaper than the dual core Intel motherboards, though we expect the price gulf to narrow over the next several months.

So, we've basically said that it doesn't make a lot of sense for most people to upgrade unless they're either wealthy or woefully behind the times. There are still quite a few people who may only be slightly behind the times, so let's look at that area. First, let's talk about whom we feel should upgrade. The most important factor is that you're unsatisfied with performance, and for us, that means that you would have to be running less than a 2.6 GHz/2600+ processor (or any of the Sempron or Celeron parts). If you have a chip that's already faster than that, you probably don't need the additional performance to upgrade. Assuming that you decide to upgrade, we'd recommend going for the fastest or second fastest processor on each of the "old" platforms. That means the Athlon 3400+ or 3700+ on socket 754, the Pentium 3.2 or 3.4 GHz on socket 478, and as we already mentioned, the Athlon XP-M is your best bet for maximum performance on socket A. Any of those upgrades will set you back $125 to $225, and that should hopefully get you to the next platform update.

Speaking of platform updates, it's important to remember that even with all the talk of backwards compatibility, AMD will also be transitioning away from socket 939 in the future. The new socket is currently called M2 and will feature 940 pins reportedly, while a newer socket F for servers will have 1207 pins supposedly. (Wow!) How long Intel will remain with socket 775 is also something of an unknown, but with their talk of multiple front side buses and the limitations of their current shared bus design, we wouldn't be surprised to see socket 775 replaced around the same time that socket M2 launches. The 65nm parts - the single core Cedar Mill and the dual core Presler - are also coming, along with the dual core Pentium M derivative Yonah. The only thing that we can say for certain is that socket 775 and socket 939 won't be around forever.

Thanks to Newegg.com for providing us with the CPU core images.