AMD Athlon II X4 620: A powerhouse for under a hundred bucks

primesuspect

AMD Athlon II X4 620: A powerhouse for under a hundred bucks

Thrax

I got to tinker around with this 785G+4200 IGP+X4 620+Windows 7 rig while it was on the bench, and I was seriously impressed with its HTPC capabilities. We plugged in ethernet, power, mouse/keyboard, and HDMI, and we were done. Get wireless mouse+ethernet+keyboard, and this PC only needs two damn cables. It was incredible, and 1080p back was super smooth. Very, very quiet. OUTSTANDING.

Cliff_Forster

Yeah, I think it changes the game for the low end discrete graphics buisness. The typical low end dedicated card you would look at for $35 on a low end build is no longer necessary. The 785G is a get foundation for any budget AMD system, I'm fairly certain even one of the new 45W TDP dual cores coming out when paired with at least 2GB of RAM will be enough to adequately accelerate HD video all while running as cool and quiet as possible. That 785G is a home theater monster, it really negates the need for a low end discrete graphics card in home theater applications, and even for users that just want enough acceleration to play the Sims, Spore, or Railroad Tycoon.

Getting back to the topic as hand, quads for under $100 is a bit of a milestone, and you know whats scary, if you look at recent financial reports, AMD is actually making a fair margin on their budget chips. I would have swore that they were nearly giving them away to be competitive, but that's how far the tech has advanced, they are probably fabbing these, packaging and shipping them with a heatsink for about $60 a pop, that just blows my mind. I agree with the sentiment of the article, in so many cases people are fixated with that CPU as the traditional heart and should of a good system, but things are changing, and its really about good system balance for what you require as a user. Graphics acceleration, the amount of Ram you have, and as Robert has been pointing out in the forums, the speed of your storage are all becoming just as, if not more important in the grand scheme of things, so people need to learn to think a little differently as they approach a modern system purchase, and not just look at the CPU spec as a singular guideline.

mirage

I agree with the capacity of this chip for HTPC applications. But I have some other heinous plans for this little chip for other applications. One or two of them will fall into my hands eventually Before that, I am looking out to catch deals for one or two good and economical overclocking motherboards like GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P.

MRFLAT8

I got this chip with the 785g gigabyte mobo, 4gb adata 1333 ram, ATI HD 4670 vid card, 500gb HD.
I can hardly believe the power, it's reall fast, and plays the games I give it (Autocad2010,proE,sims3,AOE3,spore,COD:MW2,...) highest settings on all and no hiccups. I recomend it to anyone that does moderate gaming and regular apps/engineering. Oh yeah, it does video and music perfectly in all ways!