Now, with estimated dollar-to-pound pricing hovering between £100-£150, knowing what etailers will be charging, on pre-order, can enhance or detract away from the attractiveness of the DDR2/DDR3-compatible CPUs. Priced, say, 15 per cent too much and they become pointless. Priced 15 per cent lower than what we reckoned in the review and they become intrinsically attractive.
Let's take a look at how much well-known UK etailers are charging for the CPUs.
| Processors | Cores | Architecture | Process | Form factor | Clock speed | L2 cache (total) | L3 cache | TDP | review estimate | cclonline | eBuyer | Scan.co.uk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMD Phenom II X4 910 OEM | 4 | K10 | 45nm | AM3 | 2.6GHz | 2MB | 6MB | 95W | N/A | N/A | N/A | £167.33 |
| AMD Phenom II X4 810 | 4 | K10 | 45nm | AM3 | 2.6GHz | 2MB | 4MB | 95W | £145 | £159.69 |
N/A | £144.56 |
| AMD Phenom II X4 805 | 4 | K10 | 45nm | AM3 | 2.5GHz | 2MB | 4MB | 95W | N/A | N/A | N/A | £149.99 |
| AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition | 3 | K10 | 45nm | AM3 | 2.8GHz | 1.5MB | 6MB | 95W | £125 | £131.26 |
N/A | £121.58 |
| AMD Phenom II X3 710 | 3 | K10 | 45nm | AM3 | 2.6GHz | 1.5MB | 6MB | 95W | £115 | £112.63 |
N/A | £101.80 |
| AMD Phenom II 940 Black Edition | 4 | K10 | 45nm | AM2+ | 3.0GHz | 2MB | 6MB | 125W | £190 | £191.24 |
£195.76 | £187.32 |
| AMD Phenom II 920 | 4 | K10 | 45nm | AM2+ | 2.8GHz | 2MB | 6MB | 125W | £160 | £202.40 |
£183.96 |
£160.18 |
The AM3 pricing is wholly pre-order; no-one has stock of the parts today. eBuyer, for now, doesn't have any listed, although a sub-category does exist for the parts - well. it did this morning.
Dabs, too, has nothing under AM3, neither does Novatech, microdirect. Overclockers has them, at around cclonline prices.
Looking at the figures, pre-order pricing is actually pretty close to what our estimates reckoned it would be.
AMD needs to get the chips out to etail partners forthwith, because they make a reasonable amount of economic sense.
We'd urge AMD to cut the buy-in pricing for Phenom II X4 810 by another £10, to make it somewhat attractive against the faster-clocked, higher-cache X4 920 (AM2+), and snipping the X3 710's pricing below the magical £100 would also make a lot of sense.
Are you considering buying an AM3 part knowing the lack of DDR3 boards and expense of the memory itself, or would you rather stick to tried-and-trusted Phenom II AM2+? Love to hear your thoughts.
