On the surface, it may seem like an odd move for AMD to celebrate 40 years in business (and 10 years of Athlon processors) by releasing a CPU based on previous-generation technology that can’t compete with cutting-edge offerings from Intel. Still, that’s exactly what the company has done, asking customers to "Celebrate the AMD and Athlon anniversaries with an Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition," a dual-core processor clocked at 2.8GHz and priced at $69 at its debut.
Look closer, though, and the move makes a bit more sense. AMD/ATI has distinguished itself recently by focusing on the price/performance "sweet spot," where overall value matters more than absolute high-end performance. The recently announced video card is a prime example, offering up forward-looking innovations at a budget price. Likewise, the Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition is a capable processor, with some overclocking room and enough muscle for everyday computing and even gaming (with the help of a capable graphics card). Even though its old-school architecture is limiting, and it offers only the smallest of speed bumps over last December's 2.7GHz it's a good value for the price.
Like all Black Edition processors, the Athlon X2 7850 comes with an unlocked multiplier, easing overclocking, and AMD's Beta software makes the process so simple, even relative novices should be able to squeeze out a bit more performance. Just like the slightly slower 7750, the Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition is built using older 65nm technology, supports the Socket AM2+ CPU interface, and features 1MB of combined L2 cache. There’s really nothing new about the 7850 other than the 100MHz speed increase over the 7750, which is hardly enough for a noticeable performance boost. So if you’re really looking to save on a PC build, you could step down to the 7750 and spend the extra money bumping up your video card.
And considering the disparity in cost, the difference in test scores is actually surprisingly minimal.
The only test in which the Intel chip trounced the Athlon was our Sony Vegas 8 MPEG-2 rendering test. Our test system with the Intel CPU took just 6 minutes and 24 seconds to render our MPEG-2 test file, compared with the 9 minutes and 10 seconds it took the 7850. In Futuremark's PCMark05, the Athlon X2 7850 scored 6,740, versus the Intel E8400’s 7,023, and in Cinebench 10, the Athlon scored a 4,777, versus the Core 2 Duo’s 6,023. While those scores are notably different, the difference isn't huge considering the $100 price gap, which showcases the AMD CPU’s overall value. And these scores, while by no means speedy, are perfectly acceptable for most common computing tasks, and even gaming, considering that today’s games lean very heavily on the graphics processor. In fact, when we swapped out a Phenom II X3 in our test system (which also includes an ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card), we didn’t see any subjective difference in game performance.
Look closer, though, and the move makes a bit more sense. AMD/ATI has distinguished itself recently by focusing on the price/performance "sweet spot," where overall value matters more than absolute high-end performance. The recently announced video card is a prime example, offering up forward-looking innovations at a budget price. Likewise, the Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition is a capable processor, with some overclocking room and enough muscle for everyday computing and even gaming (with the help of a capable graphics card). Even though its old-school architecture is limiting, and it offers only the smallest of speed bumps over last December's 2.7GHz it's a good value for the price.
Like all Black Edition processors, the Athlon X2 7850 comes with an unlocked multiplier, easing overclocking, and AMD's Beta software makes the process so simple, even relative novices should be able to squeeze out a bit more performance. Just like the slightly slower 7750, the Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition is built using older 65nm technology, supports the Socket AM2+ CPU interface, and features 1MB of combined L2 cache. There’s really nothing new about the 7850 other than the 100MHz speed increase over the 7750, which is hardly enough for a noticeable performance boost. So if you’re really looking to save on a PC build, you could step down to the 7750 and spend the extra money bumping up your video card.
And considering the disparity in cost, the difference in test scores is actually surprisingly minimal.
The only test in which the Intel chip trounced the Athlon was our Sony Vegas 8 MPEG-2 rendering test. Our test system with the Intel CPU took just 6 minutes and 24 seconds to render our MPEG-2 test file, compared with the 9 minutes and 10 seconds it took the 7850. In Futuremark's PCMark05, the Athlon X2 7850 scored 6,740, versus the Intel E8400’s 7,023, and in Cinebench 10, the Athlon scored a 4,777, versus the Core 2 Duo’s 6,023. While those scores are notably different, the difference isn't huge considering the $100 price gap, which showcases the AMD CPU’s overall value. And these scores, while by no means speedy, are perfectly acceptable for most common computing tasks, and even gaming, considering that today’s games lean very heavily on the graphics processor. In fact, when we swapped out a Phenom II X3 in our test system (which also includes an ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card), we didn’t see any subjective difference in game performance.
source:http://computershopper.com/
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