sighQ2 :
But honestly, there are not many people commenting on the massive test results posted here. SO I thought a simple review might be interesting BUT I really want to know if there is agreement generally between the tests. If so, then we have hi tek info plus we have simple info so a lot more people can relate to what's happening - that's all.
I mean no disrespect to dattimr - I think it's magnificent that he has gone to all that effort to feed our starving interests. There is so much data here, like wow. This thread could be a reference perhaps for a long time.
Well, thanks for the recognition, although it isn't like I've written a true "article" or survey or something like that, but rather my common practice of always reading and searching anything I can about new tech and then sharing the results with people who might care about them.
Being an admirer of the Intel brand, I was sort of amused before Nehalem's launch. Not so much now, but I would happily own one if I had not to say goodbye to twice the amount of dollars the US guys do just because of a criminal tax that the Brazilian government demands for any imported tech.
Keep in my mind that I pay for a GA-EP45-UD3P what the Americans pay for a GA-EX58-UD5P, so I have a natural interest about new opportunities to get better performance for my money and, being this the case, I keep my "Intel liking" very away from me whenever I'm looking at benchmarks or using the credit card.
So far, my initial thoughts about Phenom II are:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2duo-64bit_7.html#sect0
As we have expected, nothing serious has happened. CPUs with Intel Core microarchitecture and EM64T technology work normally in 64-bit modes. No dramatic performance drop has been detected in most benchmarks.
At the same time I would like to point out that it looks like Athlon 64 processors ensure higher performance increase when switching to 64-bit work mode. The average performance improvement we have seen from Athlon 64 FX-62 equaled 16%, while Core 2 Extreme X6800 demonstrated only 10% average performance boost. This way, there is a certain difference: AMD K8 turns out 6% mode efficient in 64-bit mode than Intel Core.
Phenom II should wide this performance gap while in 64-bit mode or at least conserve it (when talking vs Core 2). The article was written prior to Phenom's I launch, but, if anything, I would say Phenom I still has this or a slightly higher advantage, being this a consequence of design or the simple lack of Intel's macrofusion in 64-bit. Nehalem, however, should not have this little reduction in performance while switching between modes.
Please note that all of these CPUs improve or decline in certain areas while going 64-bit, but, as the article stated, is just a matter of averaging the results, so, it's not that "AMD is faster than Intel in 64-bit", but rather than AMD improves itself more than
Core 2 does when operating this way.
Phenom II overclocks really well. Let us not talk about 1-second-stable-uber-overclock, but something that you and me can achieve with a half-decent cooling solution. Should the "previewers" and AMD prove themselves right, 3.6-3.8 GHz should be sort of an easy walk with a $25 cooler.
Probably, the stock voltage for Deneb is around 1.5 and, since it's a reasonably different 45nm approach from that of Intel, it should not be something to cry home about. Some say it can be undervolted and remain operating at stock speeds, so, expect at least 3.4 GHz at stock volts (if you are the lucky buyer of a good piece of silicon).
Phenom II will do far better than Phenom I in games and just reasonably better in most other tasks. AMD simply improved
a lot the cache subsystem, but they can't do sorcery and, with just a die shrink, have the performance jump of a whole new architecture.
AM3 and DDR3 will bring better performance across the board, probably 2-5% in games, some more in things like WinRar, perhaps the same in video-encoding, and little to anything else.
However, if they manage to clock the northbridge at 2.6 with later models (like most people who got samples are suggesting), there can be another general increase of 5% in everything (supposing it's not because of the NB clocks that AMD is claiming the performance jump of AM3).
The same increase can be expected in AM2+ while "tunning" the NB (which has been described by the previewers as having "a lot of headroom").
Also, it's being said that Deneb is full HT3 compatible, but that current chipsets are not. Supposing that is correct, perhaps another 5% performance increase can be expected in well multithreaded apps with the arrival of RD8xx, or perhaps not.
Remember also that, later on, AM3 will get SB800, which is said to be SATA3 compatible (and maybe, just maybe, RD8xx will get PCI Express 3). Such chipsets are said to support Fusion, so, personally speaking, I wouldn't get me anything less than an AM3 board and CPU.
General numbers: Phenom II might be 5-20% faster than Phenom I clock-per-clock, but that greatly depends on the product you are comparing it against and the "operational conditions" while using the CPU.
Forget about video-encoding and image-editing: think only blue when doing this (and i + 7).
For anything else: go for the price. But that applies if talking about Phenom II and i7. Core 2 is awesome, but should only be seriously considered (in my humble opinion) if going Dual-Core or for an upgrade right now, since LGA775 is dead and, when things get a little more optimized for Nehalem (as applications becoming NUMA aware), Phenoms will improve along while Core will be left behind (unless we talk SSE4).
- whatever
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