From a strict performance point of view the AMD Phenom X3 8750 CPU is not going to win any awards in most cases. The 8750 cannot be compared strictly against the Intel Quad Core CPUs with the exception of the Q6600 which has a nearly similar price point on the market as of today ($224 versus $199). One might say that a 10% difference in price is not in the same category, but the fact is that someone wanting to buy a CPU would usually have a price range of 10% plus or minus in mind. Having said that the Core 2 Duos are the most comparable in terms of price as the E8200 has a price of $180 online at PC Club, with E8400s running around $205 online at Newegg.
From a platform point of view, AMD is announcing their new “Cartwheel” platform centered on Phenom CPUs and the 780G graphics platform which has the great HD3200 class graphics. This turns the argument on its head. A Phenom 8750 with a 780G motherboard would cost around $290 today. This will give you excellent integrated graphics with full compatibility across DirectX 10 titles, with nearly the performance of the HD3400 series discrete graphics. The competition in the form of the Intel E8400+Intel G35 chipset would run you around $300.
The problem when using an Intel motherboard with integrated graphics today is that there is no DirectX 10 feature support except for one beta driver on a website that is not Intel’s. Without DirectX 10 support, the latest games like Crysis, World In Conflict and many others will not run with the full visual fidelity you would get from the AMD combination. According to early reports on the new Intel driver, performance under DX10 is not all that it’s cracked up to be. Yes you get the visuals but performance is rather dismal compared to 780G.
In that vein the Phenom X3 8750 CPU makes for an interesting choice for the hardware enthusiast. Do you buy a Dual Core Intel CPU with a G35 motherboard with admittedly mediocre graphics performance and no official DX10 support? Or is the better choice to buy a similarly priced Triple Core+AMD Integrated graphics solution that gives slower CPU performance but higher gaming performance across the board with full DX10 support? The choice is pretty clear to me as a reviewer, I want to game. Balancing that out is the fact that hardware prices seem to change faster than you can blink. Intel may lower the price of the Q6600 to this level, bringing full quad core CPUs and change the equation.
