The Core 2 Quad Q8400: Intel's $183 Phenom II 940 Competitor
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 7, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Phenom II Earns a Financially Troubled AMD Less per Chip than Core 2 Quad
The global economy isn’t exactly strong right now. People are still buying, just not nearly as much as before when it felt like money grew on trees. Financially, all companies have been hurt, but AMD has much bigger issues. The table below shows net income in millions of US dollars before taxes for AMD and Intel over the past four quarters:
| Net Income Before Taxes | Q1 2009 | Q4 2008 | Q3 2008 | Q2 2008 |
| AMD | -$298 Million | -$1,358 Million | $22 Million | -$682 Million |
| Intel | $629 Million | $369 Million | $2,833 Million | $2,313 Million |
Yeah. Ouch. Granted Intel going from ~$2.8B of income in a quarter down to under $400M must’ve hurt, but AMD has lost over $2.3B in the past four quarters. The company isn’t profitable and unfortunately is stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to fixing that.
The financial issues extend beyond simple CPU sales but I must point out the obvious issue with AMD’s current strategy. We know that the Phenom II is competitive, but look at what it’s competing against:
| Processor | L1 Cache | L2 Cache | L3 Cache | Total Cache (4-core) | Transistor Count | Die Size |
| AMD Phenom II | 128K per core | 512KB per core | 6MB | 8.5MB | 758M | 258mm2 |
| Intel Core 2 Quad Q9x50 | 64KB per core | 12MB | N/A | 12.25MB | 820M | 214mm2 |
| Intel Core 2 Quad Q9x00 | 64KB per core | 6MB | N/A | 6.25MB | 456M | 164mm2 |
| Intel Core 2 Quad Q8xxx | 64KB per core | 4MB | N/A | 4.25MB | 456M | 164mm2 |
Every single Phenom II uses a single 258 mm2 45nm die, that’s nearly Nehalem-sized. The problem is that the Phenom II parts generally compete against Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q9x00 and Q8xxx series, both of which have a total die size of 164mm2. AMD’s Phenom II die is 57% larger.
AMD and Intel both manufacture on 300mm wafers, but Intel can get nearly 60% more CPUs for each wafer than AMD can thanks to its die size advantage. That translates into more revenue per wafer and a significant profit advantage for Intel.
AMD’s Phenom II is very competitive, but the strategy does not have much long term staying power. AMD needs to introduce smaller die versions of its CPUs soon.
The deeper ramifications of AMD’s current situation are troubling. I’m not sure what impact all of this is having on the development of AMD’s next-generation architectures, but I suspect that it can’t be good.
The Test
| Motherboard: | Intel DX48BT2 (Intel X48) MSI DKA790GX Platinum (AMD 790GX) |
| Chipset: | Intel X48 AMD 790GX |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 9.1.1.1010 (Intel) AMD Catalyst 8.12 |
| Hard Disk: | Intel X25-M SSD (80GB) |
| Memory: | G.Skill DDR2-800 2 x 2GB (4-4-4-12) G.Skill DDR2-1066 2 x 2GB (5-5-5-15) Qimonda DDR3-1066 4 x 1GB (7-7-7-20) |
| Video Card: | eVGA GeForce GTX 280 |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA ForceWare 180.43 (Vista64) NVIDIA ForceWare 178.24 (Vista32) |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1920 x 1200 |
| OS: | Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit (for SYSMark) Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit |
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TA152H - Friday, May 8, 2009 - link
Because of Windows XP virtualization? Are you crazy?OK, here's a reality check for those who think Windows XP virtualization is the greatest thing since the Atom Bomb.
It's not, it's a kludge, and if you want Windows XP, get Windows XP. It's going to be slower, because virtualization does have overhead, and running it in some virtual mode isn't the same as running something in XP.
How many applications really only run in XP anyway???? Show me a software vendor in this day that only supports apps in XP, and I'll show you one that's going out of business, really soon. They're incompetent.
If you're a software vendor, whether you like it or not, Vista is taking over, simply because Microsoft has it pre-installed on the vast majority of machines.
Backwards compatibility of this type can be helpful in some situations, but the importance is getting way overblown. It's not a show-stopper for the vast majority of people buying a PC, price is, and the Pentium branded CPUs offered a lot of value for the performance they give, and are excellent products.
Judging them from something of limited use, on an operating system that has not even been released, about a feature Microsoft announced a few weeks ago, is completely unfair to Intel. Going back before the Microsoft announcement, did anyone think people would be using that feature much on a budget processor? It was a good way for Intel to avoid Pentiums being used in an unintended market. Now, they might change it, since the use is more universal, but it is hardly damning for them to not have included it.
I do not know when Microsoft decided to tell Intel about this, but, it could very well have been after Intel finalized their specifications on the chips. If Intel's next Pentiums do not have this feature, I might be a little less understanding of it, but really, it is does not remove them as a choice, because it is really not as useful as people are saying. I would probably never use the feature, virtually (no pun intended) all apps run on Vista now, or have a version that runs on it, and Windows XP apps running on Windows 7 will not be as fast as those running on Windows XP. I don't think I'll have too much need for this type of kludge. But if you do, get a processor that does support it.
GeorgeH - Friday, May 8, 2009 - link
Crazy? One can never be sure, but the voices say no.XP Mode is something most people will never need, use, or be aware of and is most definitely not the best thing since the "Atom Bomb." (Aside: If the "Atom Bomb" is your go-to comparison for all things great, you might want to do some crazy checks of your own.)
Both AMD and Intel offer about the same performance at the same price points in budget and midrange quad cores. However, AMD's offerings can perform tasks that Intel's simply cannot. Even if the chance of you wanting to perform those tasks is miniscule, you'd have to be a fool to select the hamstrung Intel offerings.
You can play the Intel apologist all you want, but the fact is that Intel deliberately disabled VT support in an attempt to force their customers into purchasing more expensive processors if they wanted a fully functional PC. Microsoft is blameless here; Intel simply got too greedy and as a result is now being caught with their pants down.
taisingera - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link
They could do something like Q8310 or E7410 to show that there is a bit more value in the cpu.leomax999 - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link
Intel has announced vt support for Q8300, E7400, E7500, E5300, E5400.So i dont see any reason why q8400 shouldnt get it.
http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?shownews=25...">http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?shownews=25...
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, May 8, 2009 - link
You are very correct - Intel just informed me that the Q8400 has VT-x from the start. The other CPUs you mentioned will get VT in the latest versions but I don't believe it's retroactive. I believe it's a new silicon revision for those chips that enables it, but all Q8400s have it.Take care,
Anand
piroroadkill - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link
iirc amd-v is better than intel vtduploxxx - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link
oh great 2 versions of cpu just because of painfull wrong marketing decissions in the past.way to go intel ....and what about all the other q8xxx series? or a full list of mobile cpu's
Samus - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link
its just disabled in hardware, which means it can be re-enabled, just like cores can be re-enabled on phenom x3. just let someone figure it out. they will. they always do :)Roland00 - Friday, May 8, 2009 - link
you can re-enable the Phenom II tri cores for they were disabled via software.If the chip is disable via hardware (using a laser to disable parts of the chip) then there is nothing you can do to re-enable the chip. Then first generation Phenoms can't be re-enabled for it was disabled via hardware.
JumpingJack - Saturday, June 6, 2009 - link
Depends on how it is disabled. Fusing in a chip can be actual diabling of circuits or actual 1's and 0's that make the logic read by the BIOS at startup (such as CPUID), the CPUID then dictates from BIOS code feature sets etc. etc. that are enabled.This is how quads arise from tri-cores and dual cores from AMD -- the core is not physically fused off/disconnected, rather the BIOS reads a certain CPUID and identifies it as 'a tri-core'. In such a case, features can be turned 'on' or 'off' simply by updating the BIOS.