11:12 PM on 12.05.2006
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Niero
AMD recently released their new line of quad core processors, which are CPUs that allow 4 simultaneous actions to be performed at once. Does anyone give a damn? Problably not. Well, I'm sure that some engineer's mom is extremely proud of her little booger's FX-74. But for the rest of us, quad processing may as well mean "MMX" -- because the only time you'll see the difference is on your credit card bill. That's just my opinion, heavily influenced by this excellent 15-page report on Firing Squad. So why does the FX-74 get none of my lovin' or money? I'll give you my top 5 conclusions:
- Not enough games are taking advantage of dual core, much less quad core. You'd be investing in underused bleeding edge technology you'd only see when a) cheating in MMOs and b) switching between 30 tabs of porn c) pretending you're working by having 5 programs open that you're not using to cover up your 30 tabs of porn. Unless you really care about your SETI contribution, there's just no apps or games that will widely justify giving in to The Quadfather.
Continued...
- AMD is only expecting 20 multithreaded games in 2007 to take advantage of the chip. Considering than an average of 20 games are released every week, this is a very tiny selection for a gamer -- and the majority of these will most likely be ports that you'll see on your 360 and PS3 hardware. Why? Because those are the games that are multithreaded now.
- The fastest are sold in pairs and will set you back $1000. Never mind that you can buy an entire computer that can crank out 60FPS in most popular games for that price nowaways. Even higher end PC's in the $3000 range that run games in 1920 x 1600 can do so with the older dual core chips, which are also now much more affordable as a result
- You'll also need another $200 special motherboard for these things. Asus made a killer board for it, but as you can see it's starting to add up and without much of a performance boost. You can save some money with the lower end FX-70 instead of the FX-74, as the difference is barely 15% in F.E.A.R, Half-Life 2, and a few other games surveyed in AA 4X over 60FPS.
- AMD is expected to release 8-core processors later in 2007 when development companies are starting to release multi threaded games, and quad cores will be cheaper when that happens -- perhaps making it the time to buy at that time. Otherwise this is purely for the Z-Cavaricci wearing fancy pants.
In summary, last gen FX-60 class AMD processors in the $400-500 range are still king of the hill in terms of performance and value. You'll get way more bang for your gaming buck, unless you're an Intel fanboy and your head will explode and the mere suggestion of AMD.
The captain obvious question: If I had money to burn should I get it? The answer is also no, unless you hate Intel that is. You'll get way more juice out of an Xtreme high end processor than these. You'll pay more, but you'll get a nice chunk of performance -- and you'll have many more motherboard options to choose from if you're a do-it-yourselfer.
Now having daydreamed of high powered gaming machines, we resume our daily console programming on our 2 year old gaming rigs which still run Warcraft great and don't need to be replaced until Blizzard sends us the memo.
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Contest:
The thing is, with CPUs if you aren't pushing the limits of your technology, you are going to get passed up. This chip is nothing more than a flagship to get press and to prove AMD has the "fastest" chip.
Nvidia and ATI do the same thing. They don't actually intend for a large portion of the population to buy these, but rather they act as bragging rights which in and of itself increases brand recognition and bragging rights.
For evidence, see this very topic.
Anyway, development like this keeps Intel on their toes and vice versa. Plus it drives down the cost of the previous flagship products to the point that we can afford them.
The new Nvidia card, however, is seriously faster than the last generation. That might be a better waste of money :)
I agree with the article though, until games like Alan Wake and the new multi-threaded source engine come out, it just isn't worth it for quad cpus.
Gotta disagree with you on the old FX class AMD chips being being king of the hill right now. Intel is kicking their ass right now with Core 2 and a $200 E6300 can be overclocked to 3.5ghz and beat anything being sold right now.
And as far a PPU's, "worthless" is all I have to say. The only reason someone would buy one is if a game they really wanted required it and game developers aren't going to require them until enough people have them, so no one is going to bother (other than consumer whores who feel the urge to buy anything no matter how pointless). Basically, PPU's are locked in a neverending circle of failure.
In defense though, most high profile games will take advantage of multi-core processors. Half-Life 2 Episode 2 for exaple is being optimized for all 3 cores and supreme commander is optimizing for multiple cores as well.
Personally, I do a lot of work in Maya and it greatly increases rendering time (most developers agree). But I know this is a game blog... so that doesnt count wirth shit...
1) Because for the price of a mid-range gaming PC, you can purchase a PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PSP, DS, PS2, kayak, round trip airfare to Tokyo, mountain bike, segway, 40 hours with a prostitute, braces, eighteen pounds of pure gold, 48 months of broadband Internet, season tickets to the Lakers, 650 bottles of premium microbrew, and still have cash leftover to wallpaper your dorm room with 20's.
Do people still PC game?
WHY?!
WHY?!"
Last year I built a pretty powerful gaming PC for about $900. I don't see that being that expensive. I have it hooked up to my HDTV set.
Somehow I simply don't see the point of buying a console when you can have a technologically superior gaming platform. The only other gaming platform I own right now is the Wii-just because Wii's games are completely different from anything encountered on the PC.
Well of course these guys aren't up to speed on PC hardware, they do play and write about console games for a living. Most of them probably own a Mac! *gasp*
LOL
By the way, AMD 64 bit processors are still powerful, and with dual core ZMD 64 bit processors they do blow Intel away with power.