We've got a CPU Price Guide for you this week, and with the recent launch of AMD's AM2 platform there have been quite a few changes. For the first time since the days of socket A, AMD has a unified platform for their budget, mainstream, and high-end processors. Assuming everything goes as planned, you should be able to purchase any AM2 motherboard right now and you will have the option of running everything from the lowly Sempron 64 up through dual core Athlon X2 processors. What's more, AMD should be launching additional CPU designs for the platform later this year, and in 2007 we should see the first quad core processors for the platform. That makes socket AM2 a platform with potentially the most longevity we have seen to date, hopefully following on the success of the socket 754 platform. Socket 939 is of course still doing well, but AMD's roadmaps indicate that socket 754 will actually outlive socket 939 now.

The Intel side of things is not quite so clear, in part because we're still waiting for the launch of the Core 2 Duo processors and platform. From what we saw at Computex 2006, many motherboard makers should be able to run Core 2 Duo processors on current Intel chipsets -- we saw everything from 865/875 through 915, 945, and of course the official 965/975 running the upcoming processors. It appears that the only requirements are proper voltage regulation modules (VRMs) and a BIOS that works with Core 2 Duo. Unfortunately, as we have seen in the past, Intel sanctioned support (at least on Intel chipsets) of Core 2 Duo may be limited to the 965 and 975 chipset families. We will have to wait another month or so for the official launch to find out how things pan out in terms of motherboard/chipset support.

All this talk of chipsets and motherboards is starting to muddy the waters, as this is supposed to be a CPU Price Guide. However, it is virtually impossible to talk about processors without at least giving a quick overview of the various chipsets and platforms that run them. We will be providing a Motherboard Price Guide in the near future to cover the other half of this equation, but for now let's talk about processors.

As with all of our Price Guides, we will be providing prices from our Real-Time Pricing Engine. Our price engine team does their best to keep on top of the currently available products, and you can find prices on everything from CPUs, RAM, and graphics cards to hard drives, motherboards, and LCDs from vendors that we consider to be reputable. Of course, we're always looking for ways to improve, so if you have any suggestions feel free to send them our way. Due to the sheer number of processors available, we won't be covering every single option in this article. The price tables are already long enough as it is, so we will try to focus on the most frequently purchased parts. However, if you're looking for an older processor or something a bit more esoteric, chances are you can find it in the RTPE.



AMD Dual Core/High-End CPUs

We'll start with the high-end AMD parts, which for purposes of this Price Guide means all of their Athlon X2 chips for sockets 939 and AM2, as well as the socket 939 Opteron chips.


We've grouped both sockets into a single table so that you can better compare prices. A couple weeks ago when they first launched, the socket AM2 Athlon X2 chips were extremely difficult to find, and they were also priced higher than their socket 939 counterparts. Supply has increased on most of the parts now, and the prices of the AM2 parts have dropped to the point where they're almost at parity with their elder siblings. The exception to that overview is availability of the 1MB cache chips. As reported on DailyTech, AMD is planning on halting production of the 2x1MB Athlon X2 parts and will focus instead on producing more 2x512KB parts. In addition to being cheaper to produce due to their smaller size, focusing production on the 2x512KB chips will allow AMD to increase the supply and improve efficiency (since they won't have to worry about supporting multiple CPU dies). Prices should also drop, and AMD has announced significant price cuts for late July.

If you don't want to wait another month, the best bang for the buck obviously belongs to the X2 3800+, currently going for $297 for socket 939 [RTPE: ADA3800BVBOX] or $324 for socket AM2 [RTPE: ADA3800CUBOX]. For the overclockers of the world, this chip is also very attractive and the new AM2 model is generally capable of reaching 2.6 to 2.8 GHz.

We mentioned pending price cuts, but those are only scheduled for the 2x512KB models. If your heart is set on one of the 2x1MB models -- and you don't want to fork out the $807 for the FX-60 [RTPE: ADAFX60CDBOX] or the $1222 for the retail FX-62 [RTPE: ADAFX62CSBOX] -- you might be best off purchasing now rather than waiting. The most attractive option is still the lowest price option, the AM2 X2 4000+ [RTPE: ADA4000CSBOX] for $385 OEM/$421 retail. For socket 939, the cheapest option costs quite a bit more, the X2 4400+ [RTPE: ADA4400CDBOX] currently sells for $460 -- but of course it also comes with a higher stock clock speed.


We already mentioned the Athlon FX processors, but here you can see the complete list of options for both socket 939 and AM2. Prices on these parts are substantially higher than other options, and we certainly wouldn't consider getting any of the single core versions these days. If you want the absolute fastest official CPU speed and you're willing to pay any price, however, the FX-62 is currently king of the hill. Just don't expect it to remain king for much longer, overclocked or not.


Rounding out the high-end AMD offerings, we have the popular Opteron 939 chips. Due to the more rigorous testing that takes place on Opteron parts, these chips generally overclock better than their Athlon 64 counterparts. They also cost a bit more, so it ends up being something of a wash, but the Opteron 165 [RTPE: OSA165CDBOX] for $327 and the Opteron 170 [RTPE: OSA170CDBOX] for $395 continue to sell well. The 170 is essentially the 939 equivalent of the AM2 4000+, and it's available from numerous resellers. Unfortunately, it also costs more than the AM2 4000+. Prices are always going to change in the future, so in the end you have to decide whether you want to upgrade or not. If you're currently happy with your CPU's performance, there's no sense in upgrading merely for the sake of upgrading -- unless that's what you really want to do.



Intel Dual Core/High-End CPUs

While AMD has just finished launching their new platform, we're still waiting for retail availability of the Intel Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors. All of the preview testing that we have conducted is extremely promising, and while there may be a few benchmarks that AMD can continue to win, we're quite certain that Intel will hold the overall performance crown in the near future. The one major question that remains unanswered -- and we're not too optimistic here -- is what the retail availability of Core 2 Duo parts will be at launch. Intel's prices on Core 2 Duo parts are pretty competitive, but if supply can't keep up with demand we expect to see some price gouging in the short-term. It may be that your best bet for getting a Core 2 Duo configuration near launch will be by purchasing a computer from a system vendor: Dell, HP, Falcon Northwest, VoodooPC, etc. That's all in the future, however, so let's look at the current processor offerings.


Intel seems well aware of the fact that everyone is waiting for their new processor line to launch. In the meantime, how do you get people to buy your current products? By making the prices more attractive, naturally. You can see that Intel made some major price cuts on most of their Pentium D offerings about two months ago, and while they continue to draw more power and run hotter than the Athlon X2 processors, their prices are far more compelling.

Roughly matching the X2 3800+ in terms of performance (though it remains slower in games), the Pentium D 930 is now selling for $176 [RTPE: BX80553930] -- you could almost purchase two of these for the price of the cheapest Athlon X2 chip. If you're more interested in spending the same amount of money, you can add an extra 400 MHz and pick up the Pentium D 950 for $328 [RTPE: BX80553950]. Either of those options is more than reasonable, but perhaps the most interesting Intel processor right now remains the Pentium D 805 [RTPE: BX80551PE2666FN], going for $112. The slower FSB speeds hamper performance, but it also means that you can usually get reasonable overclocking out of almost any motherboard. 3.5 GHz appears to be a relatively common result using the included heatsink, and even without overclocking it's hard to beat the price/performance offered by this chip.


At the other end of the price/performance spectrum, you can find Intel's Pentium Extreme Edition offerings. Dual cores along with hyper threading give you the ability to run up to four threads simultaneously, though whether or not people will realistically be able to make use of such a configuration is debatable. If you're looking to spend over $1000 on a processor, we definitely recommend AMD's Athlon FX processors over the current Intel Pentium XE chips. A better recommendation would be to wait for the launch of the Core 2 Extreme, as it will carry a similar price while offering more performance and lower power consumption.



AMD Single Core/Midrange CPUs

Moving on to the mainstream offerings, prices become far more attractive on the AMD side. There have also been some major price cuts recently, dropping even some of the fastest single core offerings into the mainstream/budget price ranges. Check out the price graph on the Athlon 64 3800+.

If all you really care about is gaming performance, a fast Athlon 64 processor is currently the best price/performance offering. At the previous price of $280, the 3800+ would have been a tough sell, but for $147 it's a great buy [RTPE: ADA3800BPBOX]. Unfortunately, the great prices don't extend to the San Diego cores, so our recommendation is to either spend the money for the X2 chips or stick with the Venice cores. Here are the complete price lists for single core Athlon 64 processors for sockets 939 and AM2. (Please disregard the FX chips that show up; the granularity of our filtering has some limitations.)


After carrying an initial price premium, the AM2 processors have once again matched their 939 counterparts in terms of price. For the overclocking enthusiast that doesn't want dual cores, the most attractive option on either socket is the 3200+: [RTPE: ADA3200BPBOX] $98 for socket 939 and [RTPE: ADA3200CNBOX] $105 for AM2. The reason we recommend the 3200+ over the 3000+ for overclocking is that the 10X CPU multiplier provides a bit more flexibility, and we feel it's worth the extra $10-$15. If you're willing to spend a bit more, the AM2 3800+ [RTPE: ADA3800CNBOX] at $149 is a great midrange pick for AMD's new platform. Perhaps it will be enough to keep you happy while you wait for the quad core chips to arrive?



Intel Single Core/Midrange CPUs

While AMD's single core chips are still reasonably attractive given the high prices of the X2 lineup, the same does not hold true for Intel. If you plan on spending anything more than $100 on an Intel chip, you should clearly be looking at the Pentium D lineup. AMD's Athlon 64 chips also have a definite advantage in terms of price/performance, with the single core 3800+ outperforming pretty much any of the Pentium 4 offerings. About the only reason we would even consider a Pentium 4 chip at this point in time would be as a replacement or upgrade on an older motherboard that can't support Pentium D. Even in that case, we would give serious thought towards upgrading to a new motherboard and CPU instead. Here's a quick look at the Pentium 4 prices. (Note that the Extreme models that show up in this case are actually single core + Hyper-Threading models -- not that we'd recommend them at current prices.)


Other than the Pentium 4 506, all of the Pentium 4 prices bottom out at around $150. The 506 is also limited by a slower front side bus, and it has the same clock speed of the dual core Pentium D 805. An extra $30 will basically double your theoretical computational performance. If you really need a Pentium 4 processor and you can't use (or don't want) Pentium D, the best price/performance option is the Pentium 4 541 [RTPE: BX80547PG3200EK], priced at $168 for the OEM version. If you need a retail processor, on the other hand, go for the Pentium 4 631 [RTPE: BX80552631] for $173. It has a slightly lower clock speed but comes with 2 MB of cache. Flip back to the Pentium D prices and you'll see why neither of these is a great buy -- you can basically get the second processor core for free!



AMD and Intel Budget CPUs

Moving on to the AMD budget offerings, things have become both more interesting and less interesting. With socket AM2, you can now run everything from a lowly Sempron up through the fastest Athlon FX-62 on the same motherboard. Sounds great, right? The dual channel memory controller present on all AM2 processors should also improve performance relative to the older socket 754 Semprons; in fact, Sempron chips running on socket AM2 should be very close in performance to single core Athlon 64 chips. So what's the problem? Prices. Here are the socket AM2 Sempron offerings.


Other than the Sempron 2800+ [RTPE: SDA2800CNBOX] ($65) and the Sempron 3000+ [RTPE: SDA3000CNBOX] ($75), all of the Sempron AM2 parts cost as much as equivalently clocked Athlon 64 AM2 chips. The 2800+ and 3000+ are clocked at 1.6 GHz with 128KB and 256KB of L2 cache respectively, with the 3200+ and 3400+ clocked at 1.8 GHz -- the same as the Athlon 64 3000+. If you're looking to save money by purchasing the cheapest processor available, go ahead and grab the 2800+. Otherwise, you might as well skip the Sempron line and go straight for the single core Athlon 64s.

What about socket 754? AMD has indicated that socket 754 will remain around longer than socket 939 in terms of chip production, but that's probably more for the mobile sector than for budget offerings. If you've already got a socket 754 system you might be able to find a reasonable upgrade, but as more time passes socket 939/AM2 are only becoming more attractive for the desktop. Anything beyond the Athlon 64 3400+ Newcastle [RTPE: ADA3400AXBOX] ($146 retail) and you should look to upgrading your motherboard as well as processor instead. (We mention socket 939 as an upgrade option simply because if you already have DDR memory you will be able to keep that, move to a dual channel memory controller, and get the option for dual core processors as well.)


We didn't include the non-64-bit Semprons, simply because they are priced basically the same as the 64-bit versions so there's no reason to lose that feature. Also note that similar to the AM2 processors, there's no reason to get anything above the Sempron 64 3000+, as the socket 754 Athlon 64 parts are priced about the same as the Sempron 64s with the same clock speed.


Intel's NetBurst architecture is far less forgiving of L2 cache size reductions, so even with higher clock speeds than Pentium 4 chips the Celeron D will often perform worse. If you need a cheap socket 775 chip and you don't want to spend $85 on the Pentium 4 506, we would suggest going with the Celeron D 331 [RTPE: BX80547RE2667CN] for $53. For about $10 more, you could also upgrade to the Celeron D 341 [RTPE: BX80547RE2933CN]. Even with a clock speed of 2.93 GHz, though, the 341 will typically be outperformed by the 2.66 GHz Pentium 4 506.



AMD and Intel Mobile CPUs

AMD's mobile chips are still stuck in the single core, single channel memory era; the Turion chips are basically mobile versions of socket 754 Athlon 64. They still perform quite well, and with lower power requirements they fit the mobile sector better. You might also be able to pick one up and stick it in a desktop socket 754 motherboard for some decent overclocking, but given the prices there's no reason to go that route over 939/AM2. We're really looking forward to the launch of the dual core Turion chips, as they will provide some much-needed competition to Intel's Core Duo lineup. Of course, by the time such chips are available they might need to go up against Core 2 Duo mobile chips instead. Here are the Turion chips we're currently tracking.


Turion prices have bunched together in the past few months, with the difference between the cheapest ML-30 (1.6 GHz and 1MB L2 cache for $143) and the most expensive MT-40 (2.2 GHz and 1MB L2 cache for $230) being $87. If you need a faster Turion chip than what you currently have, you might as well go all out and purchase the MT-40 [RTPE: TMSMT40BQX5LD].

Intel has quite a few more mobile offerings, though you will need to make sure that your laptop supports the processor you want. 945GM/PM chipsets will support Core Duo/Solo as well as Pentium M, while 915GM/PM chipsets and earlier will only support Pentium M.


Unlike AMD, Intel is still charging a hefty price premium for their faster mobile processors. The cheapest Core Duo T2400 [RTPE: BX80539T2400] ($250) costs more than the most expensive Turion, and Core Solo T1300 only costs slightly less [RTPE: BX80538T1300] ($211). We skipped the Core Duo T2300 because an extra five dollars to add 133 MHz is money well spent. Pentium M prices are a bit lower, but dollar for dollar we would give Turion the advantage over Pentium M, so for Intel mobile chips the Core Duo is the way to go. Celeron M (479) is basically disappearing from the market, so we didn't bother to list those prices as we're only seeing one processor that's still in stock.



AMD and Intel Server CPUs

We'll close off our CPU Price Guide as usual with the server/enterprise parts. Prices are substantially higher on the majority of these chips, but price is rarely a major concern when you're looking at building 4-way and 8-way servers.


Not counting the Opteron 939 offerings, the best price/performance Opteron server product would be the Opteron 270 [RTPE: OSA270CBBOX] ($448 OEM/$471 retail). If what you need is maximum performance with four or more processors, however, look no further than the Opteron 885 [RTPE: OSA885FAA6CC] ($2089 OEM). With a clock speed of 2.6 GHz, dual cores, and support for up to 8-way configurations, the Opteron 880 is currently the fastest shipping server processor. The launch of Woodcrest may change things, of course, but that hasn't officially happened.


Most businesses tend to purchase servers with all of the CPU sockets already occupied, of course, but if you need another Xeon processor there's your list. The highest performing option we're currently tracking is likely the Xeon 3.6 GHz 800FSB 2MB [RTPE: BX80546KG3600F] ($708).

Conclusion

That takes care of this month's CPU Price Guide. Now may not be the best time to upgrade processors unless you're in a really big hurry, as we should see retail availability of Intel's new processors in the next month or so. What will availability be like, and how much will they cost? Those are both good questions, and the best way to find out is to wait. However, time is money, so if you find yourself in need of a new processor and can't wait, hopefully we've been able to provide you with some useful advice. We'll be taking a look at the motherboard sector in the near future, so if you need advice on a home for your processor as well, we'll be covering that next week.