Why would anyone want to spend almost $100 more on a 200Mhz overclock. Wouldn't they better serve their customers by serving up a K10 for the desktop?

Lol.

While I highly doubt it's possible, at the ~$250 price point, this processor should be competitive with Intel's E8650 and Q6600 offerings. Or you could look at it in terms of CPUs and Mobos (in which case, AMD Mobos are usually cheaper in my experience) and say that this plus a solid $80 Mobo, making the total around $330, should be competitive with some CPU-Mobo combo of Intel's.

ACtually, comparing this to the Q6600 isn't fair really, since it's two cores vs four, but assuming you got an E6750 (~$210) and a good LGA 775 Mobo (~$110) for the same price as this processor (~$250) and a solid AM2 Mobo (~$80), the two should be around the same performance for their price, or so one would hope.

Do I have this right?

It could be "Black Edition" because it is the death of 90nm processor line. Hopefully not the death of AMD.

I'm sorry, AMD, but releasing a played-out core at 3.2 ghz is starting to make you look like Intel did with their Extreme series while you were kicking their butts for the last couple of years. Why the bleepity-bleep-bleep-bleep would you do this when there's an entirely new core architecture that needs to be released and fine tuned? Why?

Maybe, however, this is a good sign. Intel came out with the C2D not too long after flogging the P4 to death. So, maybe we'll see something worthwhile in a year?

I'm just so disappointed that you didn't learn from Intel's mistakes, AMD. Now, go to your room and think about what you've done!

This is unfortunately the only way to go if you want a high-end AMD system between now and when Phenom launches (months away still.) or at the very least until Barcelona launches (and you are willing to have a server chip)

I'm not sure why anybody would be surprised about this. There is no point in holding anything back from their current architecture when they have a completely new one coming out next month (sort of). If somebody already has an AMD board, this would be a valid upgrade (or course its always better performance/$ to get the second fastest processor, the 6000 ), although I would wait for the new arch to come out and the corresponding drop / new procs.

Quad core provides no benefit for gaming, and this 3.2ghz dual core part is the highest clocking part I'm aware of.

Should be ideal for most gamers. Phenom is coming out at Christmas, so, hopefully the black edition will tide gamers over until then.

Ummm, news flash most gamers buy the low end of the class and overclock themselves.

They don't trash their same classed CPU to buy an AND or intel overclocked one.

If intel was in the hrtz war they could do like AMD and simply over clock the C2D to 4.3 or so.

I mean some of you like william, mike etc act as if these are entirely new processors.
It's overclocking and for gamers we do it as opposed to having AMD/Intel do it at their premium price.

The AMD 6000 (basically an overclock) has the equivalent performance of an E4300 overclocked. And is less than the E6400 overclocked.

Please guys do some research and don't make me post the results.

*do some research*

Actually YOU should do some research. Most gamers ***DO NOT*** overclock their CPUs. I've been to a couple of lanparties in my campus and most people did NOT have overclock on their PC. Yea in the gamer segment we find more overclockers than in other areas, but they are still a minority

Also the best performance/$ might the 2nd best (aka 6000 ), still some people want **the best**. If you are upgrading your AM2 system and you want the fastest processor you must go for this black edition.

This is just a marketting release, something to stir the water a bit and keep people interested...

Also AMD is probably making some decent profit out of it... This like the 8800GTX vs 8800Ultra. Is it worth paying 80% more? NO! will some people buy it anyways? YES!

Quad might not help games go faster but it sure will help the OS purrrr.

I now have to dismiss the theory that AMD forces intel to make better quality chips. While that might have been the case wtih C2D, intel chips will have to progressively get faster anyway.

I tried to install XP on a Pentium II 450MHz. Well, let's just say if intel doesn't make faster chips, newer OS will run like they are standing still.

Actually a better video card will improve a gamer's system a 200 mhz increase will not give you a 20% boost like from a 7900 to 8800 gtx.

That's pure BS... Wow I feel like Mopheaus in the first Matrix. "Free your mind Neo!"

Lets examine and then you tell me who is right... (I hope honesty runs deep with you young one)

According to you I guess they have no sales and have just been advertising for years. LOL OMG "at the campus" my arse pal

Look your "couple of lanparties in my campus" does not equate to the vast many sites and books discussing overclocking. Those overclockers aren't doing it to run excel and word. And if you do some actual 'research' you'd find there are plenty of dedicated overclocker.

And those are different people not 10 of us using the same name.

Dell sells overclocked systems
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32139/135/

Ever hear of Falcon, Ibuypower, Biohazard etc

So answer the following:

1) How are they selling system at unreleased intel/amd speeds?
2) Why would they discuss overclocking in magazines
3) Why would THG post overclocking numbers.
4) Why are mother board rated with overclocking in mind?
5) Why are those top overclocking boards top seller such as the ASUS 965p Deluxe?
6) Why did Nvidia revamp their chipset and advertise a 680I with astromomical overclocking abilities?
7) Why does MSI and gigabyte have so many chip version with different overcloacking features?

Surely they aren't doing this for the few 10, 20, 50 of us overclocker.

I guess this is for fun and no one reads it or tries it. They manufacture probably hundreds of thousands of motherboard for an audience that QP says isn't there and is very small.

After you answer these question, go back and read your post. EXACTLY IT MADE NO SINCE !!!

Its been a mighty fine Cpu for the last 3 months (upgraded from a single core 3400 ). They do need to get on the ball with Phenom. Games dont use 4 cores now, it will be next summer before that starts to take effect. The X4 Phenom at 3Ghz should be out and smoking by then hopefully and at a descent price!

Almost forgot the big one...

FANS, if no one is overclocking why isn't everyone using the stock supplied fans. I mean they're approved for running at advertised speed (which is an overclock speed by the manufacturer ie X2 6000 and now 6400)

And you are full of it to tell me a gamer is gonna abandon lets say an E6400 and drop replace it for the sake of upgrading to an E6700.

You can set the E6400 at an overclocked level past the posted E6700 speed. So why in hell would a gamer choose to buy an E6700 and either let their E6400 collect dust and die. Or spend time selling it on EBAY for under the price of a new OEM. With your thought process I guess the guy with an E6300 would love to get his hands on a used E6400 so he can trash his E6300.

Come on guy...

You've got to agree you made no sense...

Its a marketing launch, basically there is a small niche for this kind of processor and thats what they are aiming for. The large spending in terms of making a big deal of it comes from the fact that this will probably be the last processor for a while until they come out with the new core. Im sure all this was explained in the article though...

While this is clearly insignificant in the grand scheme of things (in terms of health/$$), why shouldn't AMD do this? There is a core market out there who will buy top bin AMD no matter what - this chip probably cost AMD nothing other than the additional effort trying to cherry pick these off of their 90nm production line. AMD get's (milks) an additional 35% revenue with only a 6-7% performance gain over the X2 6000 - why not?

Also this helps set the pricing for Phenoms at a bit higher price when they finally get introduced. AMD has nothing over $170, so they would need the desktop K10's to fill in here - now they have something at $240.

Does any of this make sense from performance standpoint? No... I wonder what the 6400 price/performance will look like on the THG CPU charts... but hey from a business stance, it just goes to show - AMD will try to milk a paying customer just as much as Intel; they are not some "noble" company.

This is not a new processor release, just an improvement of an existing one. AMD doesnt create all those CPUs with a specific speed in mind, they create a whole bunch of em and then find the highest stable clock and label it one level down. i'd think in the long time 90nm processors have been around, they can refine the process enough so that they have enough "cream of the crop" processors to label black edition and sell at a higher price. Of course if the phenom is not ready yet, they will need to release something to keep theyre product fresh.

Another thing, think of the wider community. Gamers and true enthusiasts make up only a minority of total computer and parts sales, how many "normal" people out there do you know who are hanging off buying a computer to wait for phenom and benchmark results to come out? it is true, most peolpe dont care/know enough to research and find out.

Intel is aggressively cutting its dual core to make way for quad core.. What does AMD think they're going to gain by delaying aggressive introduction/pricing of quad core processors? They are already under the gun in market share.. how about aggressively cutting some ATI video card prices.. that might help some..

Calm down, Enlighten. You might have a heart attack from all that stress.

It doesn't matter how many gamers would rather buy a low end chip and overclock because they can't afford this one and overclock it. The thing that matters is that there actually is a small segment of gamers who just want to have the biggest hardware-derived e-peen as possible. AMD is aware of this.

I've seen many "mainstream" gamers (i.e. non-overclockers) opt for the 5600 because it runs at the full DDR2-800 whereas the 6000 only runs at DDR2-750 as the performance of the 5600 with optimal memory usage is very close to the 6000 with gimped memory usage but the extra 200 MHz of raw speed. This probably didn't warrant the price premium before the last significant round of price cuts. I'm interested to see how the Black Edition benchmarks since it is 200 MHz faster than the 6000 in addition to being able to run at the full memory clock speed DD2-800 allows without an overclock.

The $240 price might not be so appealing at first glace depending on how this CPU performs, but if you're a mainstream user who has been planning on building a new computer very soon and does not want to spring for Phenoms, this might be your best move. Probably the only people who should not consider this chip are owners of the 5600 and 6000 , unless you have the spare $240 to burn.

...considering they don't have much to choose from before Barcelona/Phenom.

I agree with those who say it's a market move more than anything. I also think it's a smart move by AMD since it keeps it in focus. In addition, some articles mentioned that it will be a limited production processor anyway.

When it comes to gamers, once again I agree with those that say that most of the gamers do not overclock. However, most of HARDCORE gamers might overclock. In terms of market segments, though, hardcore gamers are simply insignificant.

I can't even begin to tell you how wrong you are. You are looking at the high-end gaming systems, while most PC gamers have low-mid range systems. I have been building computers for over 3 years, and while the majority of my clients are not gamers, the few that do come in looking for a machine that will run WoW faster, or play Oblivion without any dropped framerates have no clue what overclocking is.. are they not considered gamers?

Look at the bigger picture. Most gamers are casual gamers. The few that post on hardware/software forums are usually the hardcore who make a hobby of gaming and tweaking computers, but the casual gamers are the bigger market and they do not overclock.

Enlighten do ur research...most of the gamers (not the lan party with 200 peeps) but the ones who play the game for fun in thier home, they do not overclock and most of them dont even know how.
Most of the features on the mobos for OC is for people who want to do it (enthuziasts...ever heard that 1), and thier number grew big time compared to 2-5 years ago and also for custom builds.
as for "Black edition" I would get it to upgrade my box, so I can play pacman without lag and with 750 FPS :)

LOL, stress here??? Me???

I'm not sure what you mean, I look at the OC market differently. OC'ers are many, there are those that can or have a friend that can perform the OCing. And those that don't and simply buy an OC system or part.

How can it be a "small segment of gamers" when you look at reality?

How would a company sustain a business for years on a couple of sales. Do you really think zalman and those many fan companies have been remaining in business on sales to people randomly deciding "My new system could really use a new cpu fan, I think I'll upgrade the stock one for the hell of it".

Come on guys are you serious?

I hope this helps you all:
Some one is either buying a new system or putting together a new system. Why would they ever choose the OEM W/1 year warranty over retail W/3 year?

Price saving is extremely small two precious waranty yrs, unless of course "BINGO!!!" you will be OCing and don't give a damn about the warranty (OEM sell in 1,000 lots).

"It doesn't matter how many gamers would rather buy a low end chip and overclock because they can't afford this one and overclock it."

I'm not sure what you mean by this... As stated this is an OC chip and no room left in it. Technically intel could do the same thing and pump up and get into a clock war.

In which you'd hit the MB wall before CPU wall. Those who seek to educate themselves will no longer throw money away paying premium for other to sell them OC parts.

HOW CAN YOU GUYS KEEP SAYING VERY FEW ARE INTO OCing? You suckers have been OC for years and just didn't know it. Every component CPU, mem, GPU and Gmem is/has been OCed if not by you then on your behalf with your money.

News flash:
1) if you bought an X, XT, XTX, GTX, Ultra etc card
2) DDR2 800
3) AMD 6000, 6400 etc intel e6400, e6600 e6700
etc welcome to the to the OC world.

I mean come one people reach deeper, learn and grow...

First off your terminology is off a true PC gamer is up on tech but wont buy bleeding edge. Many will seek to get the most output of the their affordable components. Hard core gamers are ones blasting high est refresh rates and resolutions as humanly possibly. They either will buy the latest and/or OC everything possible.

Playing games W/included MB card or the best buy $50 special is NOT a true gamer. You're a wanna be that probably defers to a PS2/3 or Xbox(360) and stating "graphics are so much better".

As Willz correctly stated it earlier that I guess keeps going over peoples head.

The processor is released and offered to us as a class of CPU's with speed rated setting by the CPU manufacturer. As an example the E6300, 6400, 6600 and 6700 is a class. There is very little technically different inside of the processor (some specific groups/batches of processors can be OC'ed higher).

The difference in the boxed CPU's between the E6300 and E6400 and E6600 (2 meg more cache) is the fan. Each has a better class of cooling option. Each stepping stone released is an OCed component. With the exception of stripped processors such as the E4300 down graded for lower market.

And lets clear one myth being a system builder makes you nothing more than a person assembling pre-constructed parts and hitting the on switch for those choosing not to attempt it themselves.

So when as this case AMD releases a 6400 processor you the people that are getting their mouth all watery and saying OMG I got to have one. You'd simply be paying AMD for a batch of their same tech OCed.

IMO a true system builder that have a customer come to them shouldn't recommend a person abandon the same classed CPU for a higher OCed one.

And my point was that most gamers (real gamers) would choose to OC an old chip rather than drop in an AMD OC'ed premium upgrade special especially prior to the price war when AMD refused to lower prices.

Okay I admit I'm so so very wrong there is only 10 to 50 OC and we buy up all of the fans, OC friendly MB etc to make it look as if there are more of us.

But wait don't get too happy, please post the number used to back up that OCing is very small.

Have any of you been to the various sites and talked with people?
Do you think THG posted these for a few hundred people? and have been posting it for years...

www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/18/overclocking-guide-part-1/
www.tomshardware.com/2007/02/12/extreme_overclocking/
www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/11/core-2-duo-overtakes-core-2-extreme/
www.tomshardware.com/2006/10/10/cheap_thrills/
www.tomshardware.com/2005/07/25/the_athlon_64_fx_overclocked_to_3_ghz/

Please post your facts where over clocking is a very small number?

Please answer the questions posted as a response to QP.

I'll post the sites, book/mags and you guy get the numbers. Is that a deal?

I guess that vast feedback received for THG to post OC CPU number in the chart was for decorations.

This site has been loaded with OC and tuning information for a very very long time.

www.tomshardware.com/2006/08/02/thg_tuning_test/

"AMD has built overclocking protection for RAM into its new AM2 socket, which means that memory won't run faster than 400 MHz. But Nvidia SLI chipsets offer a workaround for faster memory, and enable the use of higher FSB clock speeds. In our case, we were able to boost the FSB clock rate from 200 MHz to 254 MHz and the aforementioned chipset made the necessary adjustments to permit memory speeds to increase by the same proportion."

Why oh why would Nvidia do this for a mere 20, 50 or 100 of us?

I guess you people are very new here but if your remember articles like
www.tomshardware.com/2000/06/23/overclocking_amd/

This is when OC died a little and then picked up steam.

I remember a mega article that got me my first D805.
THG and a few other sites OC'd that baby past a pent extreme. Saving almost 10 fold the cost. The sites were buzzing not with 10's or 100's it was much much more.

I never said the majority of owners are OC'ers (they should be if they were knowledgeable).

But you guys are coming to a historic OCing discussion site stating we are few. It makes no sense, look into the back ground of this sites and OCing in general.

Again "Free Your Mind Neo's"...

I don't think you can look beyond your own small circle. Even if you go to every overclocking forum on the net and count up all of the users you are going to come up with a couple hundred thousand people. When you look at the total number of PC users in the United States that game you are talking in the tens of millions. Percentage wise overclockers are a small minority. Yes the minority is large enough to keep custom hardware makers selling and of course everyone is going to market their products as "extreme overclocking" but have you ever been to a Fry's and watched the people who buy the stuff, it't all flash and marketing. I would also like to see your numbers on gamers who overclock, your opinion may be skewed because of the sites and news you use. Of course overclockers are going to look like a large group but that is only because they are all attracted to the same places, your average users are not. Either way, there are no hard numbers out there and this can't be proven so you shouldn't act offended by others points of view.

It would also seem that "Enlighten" is forgetting one other small fact. Everything out there from Memory to CPUs to Video cards are NOT in fact OC versions of a lower end model. Check out the system specs yourself on some of that memory or video cards from links earlier. Check out the Specs for the processors. Yes, higher clock speeds might be one part of it, but have you ever noticed that there are also different PARTS included in those higher end items. Higher clocked Memory usually has the ability to get a CAS rating that is higher then lower clocked Memory. Is this achieved only by a higher clock speed? Nope! If that were true then just OCing my memory would allow me to hit the CAS ratings of those faster chips. Doesn't seem to happen. With Video cards those added HARDWARE abilites (better decoders, more ram, more pipelines) seem to indicate that you are not buying a video card that has just been over clocked from the MFG. The same holds true with CPUs. Look at the core specs between different processors... higher amounts of transistors would usually indicate that maybe two processors are not created equal. Hmmm... maybe that is why you can't OC an e6300 to the same level you could OC the e6700. Granted you could over clock the e6300 past the e6700 clock speeds, but at the same time if you OC the e6700 you can take it to speeds the e6300 can't reach. Hmm... if your theory of everyone just buying overclocked parts from the MFG held true then this shouldn't happen. I should only be able to over clock the two of them to the same level if your theory holds true... guess it doesn't.

Also as BG stated earlier, Millions of people are buying computers and or parts each year. Lets say they sell 100 million new computers over the next year (the estimates for new computer sales are actually closer to 125 million just from standard MFGs like HP, Dell, Gateway...) and only 10% of those people are going to OC their stuff. Hmm... that would still be a minority of people, that would still be 10 million people that might like to have OCing articles, that would still indicate that these are people who might have some computer knowledge and are not the average user, and yet I am sure that out of those 100 million people who decide to buy a new machine more then those 10 million are going to want to play games on their machines. But wait... 10 million people would still be enough people to market a product to and make a profit off of... hmmmm... maybe making OCing parts and marketing them to that Minority might be worth it. After all you don't see Alienware selling a few million computers a year, but they still market their product and they still make a profit off selling a few hunderd thousand computers each year.

hahaha calm down enlighten..this isn't beat the geeks..this just an article hehehe.... in any case (since i didn't read all your comments because their too long).. I think only real hardcore gamers overclock but not casual gamers.. casual gamers like students who are still on allowance... yes sometimes we buy OCed products but they are factory OCed. They dont overclock themselves because you lose warranty if you do so.... peace

I agree, most gamers don't overclock. And many of them don't even have a fast computer.
Valve's Steam client does a computer survey, and out of hundreds of thousands of computers, the majority of them were running Radeon 9600's and equivalent, or Geforce 6600's and equivalent.
Those cards are in no ways considered "Fast" in our market today.
Also, the majority of the steam gaming market is still running on either entry-level P4's, or Athon XP's.

There is a clear dividing line between GAMERS and ENTHUSIASTS.

Learn it before you post!

So is AMD's latest round of chips worth it or are they not gonna sell many anymore?

DL, if students are on a tight budget they will overclock especially for projects that require video processing. Overclocking a C2D does not require any fancy factory overclocking, and basically since they are all the same product you just get a cheap one and don't care about voiding your warranty. Your chip won't suddenly die, not if you know what to expect..

Casual gamers also turn into overclockers once they look at the return they can get from their Intel and AMD processors. Overclocking is addictive and these big corporations know this, that's why they clock limit their chips, not clock lock them. I can afford to get another one and I have never destroyed a processor through overlocking, not even a an old Socket 7 K6 or Cyrix MII :) In some cases overclocking gives a massive return as long as you have a decent graphics card and a game that can scale well.

Wow some of you really need to stop posting some of this stuff. But it's awll fun and I hope helps us all learn and get a better understanding of what is going on.

I'll start with BG:
"When you look at the total number of PC users in the United States that game you are talking in the tens of millions"

Ummm very wrong... If there was greater than ten million gamers, the PC market would never ever never hit a lull. Companies would not shun the PC market in favor of consoles.

"I should only be able to over clock the two of them to the same level if your theory holds true... guess it doesn't."

There a thing set by intel called a multiplier. This is an internal limiter to the amount of over clocking that can be done.

The E6300 can't be set past or equal to E6700 because intel set it to 7. The E6400 is set to 8. But its basically the same processors as I stated before.

If I'm wrong then please post the various components within that make the 6600 different from the 6700 as an example.

I shall return when I can take a break...

By the way you guys are responding but I haven't seen answers to the questions. ANSWERS PLEASE...

I had to split my comment. First part:

The multiplier does NOT limit overclocking (atleast not directly). Basically, you determine the clock speed by taking the base FSB (before quad-pumping) and multiply it by the multiplier. In the case of the E6300, the clock speed of 1.86GHz is reached by using a multiplier of 7 at a base FSB of 266mhz (1066MT/s), so 7x266MHz=1.86GHz (I'm not trying to teach you something you already know, but I feel it's important that others understand the discussion as well). This also means that for the E6300 to reach the same frequency as the E6700, you must use a higher FSB. Ex: at 3.0GHz, the E6700 is operating at a base FSB of 300MHz, whereas the E6300 is operating at at a base FSB of 430MHz. Thus the E6300 puts a significantly higher stress on the motherboard/memory than the E6700, at the same frequency. This may prevent the E6300 from reaching it's maximum frequency, and it could therefore appear that the E6700 can reach higher speeds. Even if you had a motherboard/memory combination with no limitation on the FSB, the E6700 would still, on average, reach higher frequencies, due to the selection process at the factory.

Apart from the frequency/multiplier, the E6300 differ from the E6700 by having only half the L2 cache. As a result the E6700 would still outperform the E6300, even if they had the same frequency and FSB.

It is certainly possible for companies to live off only overclockers. Even if overclockers only constituted a few percent of the entire PC market, there would still be enough profit for several companies to enter the market. Look at creative for example. It is estimated that they hold 1-2% of the entire PC sound card market, and that includes low-end creative audigy cards, yet they persevere, and even ASUS is intending to contest creative for that miniscule market.

Most companies that make OC'ing components also make other stuff. Creative has their mp3 players, but since they don't overclock very well, I'm going to leave creative for now. Zalman, for example, makes silent components aswell as OC gear. They PSUs and computer enclosures. They have deals with other companies to deliver cooling components (the x1950pro Ultimate comes to mind, but others use Zalman coolers aswell). OCZ, Corsair, kingston and all the other high-end memory makes all have their value series memory, which I dare say sell a lot more than their enthusiast sector.

Many of the components that are good at OC'ing are also good at low noise cooling. Though I have no proof, I'll go as far as to say that more people buy aftermarket coolers and other supposed "OC gear" to reduce noise, rather than improve performance.

The basic question seems to have been lost in the discussion. As far as I recall, the question was how many gamers that overclock. I cannot present any numbers in that matter, but I too remember the survey done by Valve on their STEAM software, and I think it's compelling indications against your claim that most gamers are aware of overclocking and special overclocking gear. The vast majority of gamers use computers even slower than mine, and no amount of overclocking could possibly bring my cpu anywhere near that x2 6400 . Most gamers are not upgrading from a E6300 to an E6750. They're going from an XP 2800 to an E4400, hardly something you could achieve with "a little tweaking and tinkering".

Like it or not, AMD had to do put out another processor before the K10s come out... In terms of "mainstream" desktop CPUs (non-FX), a spread of ~$105 between the least & most expensive CPUs is way too small and signals a very weak product line. Now the spread increases to ~$165--IMHO still too small, but gives me a teeny bit more faith regarding the solvency of AMD...

I'll try setting the stage again, because some of you fools are lumping everything known to man as a gamer. There's a difference between a true gamer and someone just playing games.

A true PC gamer is up on tech, but not purchasing bleeding edge. And certainly not in the dark ages with his own equipment. Hardcore is buying the best and more than likely tweaking the rest.

True gamers can look at there closets/shelves can pull out games purchased and used a couple of times. We read titles & articles and the mouth starts watering, buy the game only to be burned.

YOU ARE NOT A TRUE GAMER IF YOU ARE:
* using the crappy video chip included with your mother board

* have a 40 to 80 dollar card special from comp usa, best buy etc and its a couple of steps behind a current mainstream processor (ie ati x850 or lower)

* had only 1 of the titles as primary (ages of empire(s) or unreal(s) or quake(s) or star craft or an RPG). And maybe purchased 1 other title like madden over the the same period

* If you sit back and buy games only after they win an awards for the past one to two years (You're relying on real gamer to set the bar)

* If you have to get mom or dads permission to use puter and they limit you to a couple of hours during week and more on the weekend

* If mom or dad needs to talk to sales rep or review game rating and limit you two two new titles a year

* If you fire up your pc game and think my ps(1,22) or xbox looks so much better
* Have a 14 or smaller monitor
* Using AGP or Vesa
* Windows 98se
* Thinking about adding to your 256/512mb ram
* have the same mouse from over 5 years ago
* original keyboard from over 5 year ago

STOP THE MADNESS... I don't give a crap about valve surveys, hell most don't even fill out a registration cards.

If a persons budget is so tight for the past they're using athlon XP and ati 9700 they aren't a gamer. They wouldn't be able to afford 40 and higher new game, let alone have it playable.

"I don't think you can look beyond your own small circle." I actually can, I even clarified my statement several time.

I never said overclockers were the majority. I responded to 'plus' saying this processor "Should be ideal for most gamers.". I can almost guarantee that most gamers aren't mouth watering over this processor and would choose to OC a cheaper model over purchasing this one.

So for every one of you posting and answering nothing try to read and understand.

With the announcement of the future processors. AMD moving to quad and 65nm and hopefully 45nm. A very small number of gamers would upgrade to this processor for gaming. IMO they wouldprefer to OC the processor they have rather than buy the top of the line.

How do I know because when C2D was released the E6700 wasn't the top selling processor at 1000 plus a clip having an equal price to the pentium 4 EE.

If you telling me that I'm wrong then those people would have already upgraded to the best processor a year ago. They would currently have an FX, X2 4200, 4400 etc or C2D.

How and why would they go from the dark ages and think "Damn I'm a gamer I have got to have an AMD 6400".

Why would a gamer do that today in all of this processor turmoil. So please leave the statement within the content of the discussion. I never said OCers out number non OC'ers.

I did later in fact state and standbuy that the number of OC'ers is a lot larger than you line up and claim comparing your lan parties and 18 YO neighbors.

Most OC'ers don't do to FRY and have no reason to meet OC'ers face to face. Again the very site that you're on right now has historically discussed & performed OCing. And received lots of feedback, questions and had to come back with part two's to articles. These aren't people just curious and intrigued by the discussion for well over 5 years and never trying it.

"There is a clear dividing line between GAMERS and ENTHUSIASTS.
Learn it before you post!
SuperK"

"While the term technically includes those who don't necessarily consider themselves to be gamers (i.e., casual gamers) it is commonly used to identify people who spend much of their leisure time playing or reading about games."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamer

Just as stated most casual gamers don't consider themselves gamers. Technically they are the vast majority of gamers set the bar much higher than that technical term of anyone playing a game is a gamer.

If a guy comes up to you saying he's a hard core gamer. You inquire "what games do you play? what system do you