This week there have been some movements in AMDs product portfolio. Not only did the chipmaker make some moderate price cuts, it also introduced a few new models as well as phased out some of the older offerings.
In the AMD FX camp, prices remained mostly stable, but some of the Vishera SKUs got their prices reduced. Given the current pricing structure, there is no incentive to buy the older Zambezi options which feature slightly lower performance. Alongside some of the pricing adjustments, AMD introduced two new AMD FX models based on the Vishera core. The FX 6350 features a 3.9 GHz clock speed with turbo up to 4.2 GHz and comes with three out of four compute units enabled, thus six cores. The FX 4350 is clocked at 4.2 GHz with a 4.3 GHz turbo and features two CUs (4 cores). In both cases AMD delivered a considerable speed bump over previous models.
When looking at Phenom II pricing, it becomes obvious AMD now officially retired the Phenom II X6 models based on the Thuban core. These models were already only scarcely available in the channel which means AMD stopped shipping them a while ago. Some of the quad-core models were phased out as well. Most prices remained stable but the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition got another 11% slash. This makes this model a very strong bang for buck offering. If you don’t mind missing out on some of the latest instruction set extensions, the time to buy one of those is now. Together with a suitable AM3+ mainboard and a decent graphics card this would be a capable midrange gaming system with the possibility to upgrade to later AM3+ CPUs should the need arise.
AMD also changed the pricing of some of it’s A-series APUs. The midrange of their Trinity lineup gets some cuts as well as the older Llano-based offerings as well. In either case the low-end and fastest options remained stable, thus protecting against further price erosion. Interestingly AMD said in their last earnings call they were able to sell off some of the Llano inventory they had to write off last year. Llano will stay around at least till the end of 2013 as it seems now.
The pricing of the lower end Athlon II and Sempron CPUs didn’t change in the last months. Some of those already saw considerable cuts the last time AMD made significant pricing adjustments.
