Price Guides, May 2005: Processors
by Kristopher Kubicki on May 22, 2005 10:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
As always, we like to start off our price guides with a little plug for our Real Time Price Engine, quite possibly the fastest growing price engine on the internet. We thought we would mention that we just added our 5,000 th product a few days ago, and we are happy to boast that site traffic for the RTPE had quadrupled since December. Thanks for choosing the RTPE and the QuickSearch RSS!
Merchant news this week has been relatively bland since last week. Newegg’s spinoff, ChiefValue, continues to dominate the price landscape. Last week, CV held the lowest prices on 20% of our listed products, but Monarch and ZipZoomFly aren’t just sitting around. Pricing across the board are much lower than usual.
There have been several new products since our last CPU guide. AMD unleashed its dual core madness several weeks ago, and we brought coverage on the Opterons and Athlon 64 X2s, and merchants are just starting to ship some of those processors now (which we, of course, have added to our price engine). Intel has quietly released some new low end SKUs, and of course, their dual core solution is also geared up for sometime before June (check out Part I and Part II of our Intel dual core analysis here). With all these new SKUs from AMD and Intel, it can get fairly difficult to pick out a processor. Last week, we wrote a small little update on some of the core names and details to help combat that!
In other price engine related news, we started listing DDR memory kits instead of single stick products. The new kits are denoted as “2x512MB”, “2x256”, etc. Of course, if you see a product that we don’t have yet, feel free to email us and let us know!
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g33k - Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - link
johnsonx,Thanks for your reply. I can see how this proc would confuse things a bit. Axiom Technologies even lists the proc as a skt754.
johnsonx - Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - link
BTW, for anyone who doubts the rare P4 I mentioned:http://www.powerleap.com/Processors.html
Intel P4 2.8GHz 400MHz 478pin 512K CPU OEM $161.99
Core: Northwood Operating Frequency: 2.8GHz FSB: 400MHz Cache: L1/12K+8K; L2/512K Voltage: 1.525V Process: 0.13Micron Socket: Socket 478 Multimedia Instruction: MMX, SSE, SSE2 Warranty: 30 Day DOA Packaging: OEM(Processor Only)
Apparently Intel made these for one or more OEM's who wanted to offer 2.8Ghz CPUs on an existing platform validated for 400Mhz FSB only. Powerleap got ahold of some and sell them for upgraders, particularly for use with their socket-423 to 478 adapter (socket-423 boards of course support 400Mhz FSB only).
johnsonx - Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - link
g33k,There actually is such a thing as a socket 939 A64 3400+. It is a 2.2Ghz cpu with 512k cache (same as the 3500+), but it is limited to an 800Mhz hypertransport link instead of 1000Mhz HT like all other socket 939 CPU's. The 800Mhz HT limit is the reason the performance rating is 100 points lower, though I doubt it really makes much difference at all.
These CPU's were in fact sold by NewEgg about 9 months or so ago, but I've not seen them since. Many other vendors had them as well, and there was quite a bit of speculation and confusion about them both then and now. AMD doesn't even list the CPU in their online database now; I'm not at all sure AMD ever 'officially' acknowledged the existence of these CPUs. Sort of like the 2.8Ghz Pentium 4 with a 400Mhz FSB: Intel doesn't admit such a thing exists, but they do, and can be purchased if you know where to get them (though that P4 probably even more rare and obscure than the S939 A64 3400+).
g33k - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link
KristopherKubicki, I have never seen a skt939 3400+. I have only seen them in skt754. Even the link in the price guide to "Axion Technologies" says it is a 3400+ skt754. Although, it rates the proc at 2.2ghz and 512k cache. These are 3200+ specs. So something not right there.Tujan - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link
The spec.for the EM64 for Intel processors..you stated that 'all Prescott have these enabled,in addition to some new Celerons.In the ""Processor Obfuscation And You.."" article,stated that the numeration for the 3.2 Prescott begins with 540J for example,but the E64 would start with the following designation of 541J..542J etc.
Within the stats for Newegg.com (Hi Newegg.com), the processors they show dont include the feature set of the EM64 along with SSE,SSE2,HT etc. Although the 540J might be seen EM64T is not specified.
As well,the specific numeration (541j,542J etc) isn't detailed for the information fields there. Is this something for the retailer to further detail,and is there some way to be sure that a Prescott processor can utilize the EM64T.? Since if ordering you cannot usually detail that spec even though it may be available.
Or Not ? [ ]
Sidenote: 915s support EM64T with XP64bit..?
KristopherKubicki - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link
g33k: That is no error. One of these really exists!Kristopher
johnsonx - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link
It'd be useful to add the clock speed to the Intel processor designations. Yes, yes, I know, clock speed isn't everything any more, but I sure can't remember what a 535 or 640 is either.vitamalt - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link
mmm venice 3000+ great bargain that's my next buy atm which may change since I'm not upgrading until games become unplayable on my current rig.arswihart - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link
it should come as no surprise that there are issues with the msi boards, thats always the case with that garbage companyg33k - Monday, May 23, 2005 - link
Minor error on pg4 AMD (939) proc list. It lists S939 3400+ proc?