AMD Phenom II X4: 45nm Benchmarked

[Guest]

You know what's funny is that AMD left massive amounts of room for OC on this chip, and everyone is torn up because they left it at a stock 3.0ghz for a reason. Only time will tell. Not to mention this is a new chip on an old platform. The i7 has a whole new platform. Keep in mind that AM3 isn't out yet.

Heck, I saw massive gains when I OCed my little ole x2 3800+ (socket 939). Granted they aren't much compared to now, but hey, that system has lasted me 4 years now. In that time I've only replaced a PSU that died, and swapped out my OCed single core 3700+ for the cheapo x2. Comes out to less than $50 a year for a system that ran every game on max graphics until dx10. That's with a 7950gt 512mb gpu and 2gb of DDR 400, btw.

 

[PCfreak15]

[citation][nom]reflex606[/nom]why would you bother running the i7 core with 6 GB($144) of RAM?? look at the prices, the other systems are running 4 GB($49), so the prices part of this article ARE FALSE!!!! take $95 off the i7 price and that would be more accurate!!![/citation]

Well since core i7 uses triple channel DDR3, the memory is installed in sets of three so 1GBx3, 2GBx3, or 4GBx3 for 3GB, 6GB, and 12GB configurations. Using the i7 with 4GB of ram would be like disabling dual channel mode on the AMD setup.

Phenom II is a great upgrade from the original Phenom. Kudos to AMD for the improvement and giving their user base of AM2 and AM2+ motherboards a nice upgrade. However, for the best performance there are much better intel options. Core 2 motherboards are not expensive at all and DDR2 is dirt cheap. A Q6600 at 3.2GHz would be about 33% faster than stock assuming linear increase with clock speed. So even if you drop it to 25% faster thats still going to put it ahead of the 3.0GHz Phenom II in most cases. Now assume you overclock the 3.0GHz Phenom II your at best going to tie the overclocked Q6600 maybe edge it out slightly. Thats nice for people upgrading from an old A64 X2 but a joke for anyone building a new system. The Q6600 is two years old. That's a very very long time in the CPU industry. Each CPU offers different customers their own advantages.

Phenom II = Nice upgrade for people with older AMD CPUs that want a boost
Core 2 = Cheap performance
Core i7 = Expensive but the best

 

[billiardicus]

Yeah, but my Q6600 overclocks to 3.5ghz with a $35 Xigmatek S1283 air cooler and costs $85 less. Who cares about stock clock performance when all the Intel chips OC so well? Wake me up when you've got that baby overclocked past the Q6600 on air. Then we'll see if it's worth the extra $85 bones.

 

[origosis]

Overall it's not too bad, but i was hoping for an overclock test, another day.

As for the Phenom II.. For me When the Phenom came out it was like the beggining of a Rocky movie... In Act 1 Rocky get's his ass kicked.. .not too badly, but still pretty bad , then Act 2 comes along. Rocky is training hard working hard getting ready for the big fight, leading to his overpowering win or barely winning.... or an awesome Stale mate by 2 amazing fighters... unfortunatly Rocky walks away from this one th weaker opponent, but able to hold his own, and thus a winnir in AMD fanboy hearts. and he did it with only a few old pieces of equipment and at a lower cost thus It is a win.

yeah the 'bad guy' won, but he had a Super gym and the best of the best trainers, but rocky came so close and with so little behind him that in comparison the bad guy should have owned rocky... Intel did not completely own AMD it is still the better faster CPU, but at higher prices you do pay for the extra performance. overall it seem Even, but I personally will still go with an Intel.. that's just me, but this looks a little better then the Phenom did... maybe in Rocky 2?

 

[PCfreak15]

Also why is everyone saying that the AMD system had DDR2-800 when I just quoted this from the Test Setup page:

We used DDR2-1066 modules from A.Data for all of our AMD processor testing, with timings set to CL 4.0-4-4-12. On the Intel platforms, we used DDR3-1333 with timings set to CL 7.0-7-7-21. Depending on how we clocked the processor, we used tighter timings on the RAM, as specified by the vendor.

 

[Onus]

[citation][nom]V3NOM[/nom]who cares about performance/watt? PRICE/PERFORMANCE is the big deal[/citation]

Plenty of people care, like those who run server farms, or want to put quads in a laptop (as someone else mentioned), or those of us expecting to see our utility rates keep getting jacked another 15%-20% per year.
Personally, I'm mildly disappointed. I had hoped for more, but until overclocking, AM3, and other data is in, I don't think I can reach a final conclusion.
Going to one of these would not be an upgrade from my Q9450, at least not on AM2+. It might make a great upgrade for my wife's 5000BE X2 on her 790GX. I think current pricing is aimed at initial adopters and upgraders, but will be notably lower in a couple of months. When it is lower, it could well become a viable choice in mainstream markets, even if the performance can't match i7.

 

[zodiacfml]

agree on consumption part, there's no cost savings on power consumption with the phenom II which is why i found the conclusion pretty low on quality. all systems are quite similar.

for a new build, i prefer intel,
yet for those with am2 boards like me wanting a quad core in the near future, phenom II it is. drops in phenom 920 prices will help.

[citation][nom]BSMonitor[/nom]No kidding. Recommended Buy? Bert is still drinking the AMD Kool-Aide. The conclusion is based upon a comparison to a 26-month old processor? Yes, if you would like to live in 2006 again, go out and buy this processor. Most energy efficient system? Aren't we comparing processors? Penryn Quad-Cores also come in at this price range. Heard of Q8200, Q8300, Q9400 ?? Where are they on this chart? They are also more power efficient than a 65nm Q6600.More than that, a Core i7 system gets the work done in 1/3 the time... So while Phenom is still cranking along at 100% load, the Core i7 is sitting at idle. Which is more power efficient? I think this guy needs to get out of his office once and a while.[/citation]

 

[Guest]

Intel quad 2.4ghz = $180. Amd Phenom 2 3.0ghz = $275. The Phenom outperforms the intel by only 10%. I can get an i7 2.66 that outperforms the Phenom by 22% for $289. Doesn't this leave anyone else scratching their head? How is this meant to compete at all with either the low priced intel quads or the i7's? Especially when the intel quads and i7's overclock amazingly too.

 

[Guest]

Lets wait for AMD mobos with DDR3 triple channel then lets see how much faster those Phenom IIs will go.

 

[FlukE]

Maybe I miss read the review but it looked pretty sad for the deneb. It's being compaired to an aging 'kentsfield' which is 2 generations behind the current lead Intel chip and generally lost. And the final bullet of the i7 is only 22% faster must be comparing the i7 940 against the deneb 940 as illistrated on the intro pages. The i7 965 mops the floor with deneb. Tom, please dont skew data to keep the AMD fans reading the site. It is a good standard 'tick' for AMD, thats all. They are 2 generations behind and flagging in the race. If you look at the increases since Conroe, AMD better come up with something better than cheesy spiders and dragons. What is the deal with that anyways? Are AMD fans the kind of dungeon and dragon playing fattards that would be impressed with a 6d20 silver dragon? lol sorry, it just seems kiddie to me 😛

 

[mindless728]

Not bad AMD, but a long way to go to catch up

and yes, Intel is still in the lead, but, this might be a nice upgrade for me running an AM2 board

 

[AMD_Phenom]

Seth – you mentioned an extra 22% for $289 but does that include the price of an x58 board and DDR3?

 

[chaohsiangchen]

Good article.

Just one thing: were SpeedStep and CnQ option on at the test? If Phenom II 9x0 idles at 800GHz, then it is possible that benchmark performance will take serious hit just like Phenoms. Phenoms can lose up to 5% performance with CnQ, and I doubt AMD fixed that yet. Intel's SpeedStep incurs much less performance hit.

Can you guys of Tom's Hardware verify this?

 

[Aviking]

It's always funny to see so many people that are convinced that the article is skewed one way, and then a bunch more that are convinced that the article is skewed the other.

If you already have an AMD mobo seems like a good upgrade, if you are building a new system, intel still seems like the best choice. I really don't see what's so conterversial about that.

 

[Guest]

what about overclock potential for this AMD? No one will use intel processor at stock speed.

 

[pender21]

Should be comparing 45nm Yorksfield too. Appartently the Phenom II should OC well according to AMD. Like to see overclock.

 

[pender21]

Nice to see AMD finally heading in the right direction after 2.5 years of Intel domination.

 

[pender21]

Hopefully this will reduce the price of some older but good Intel Kentsfield and Wolfdale CPUs

 

[frankscastle]

AMD I have been a fan for a long time but you need need to change your game plan. Drop the price to get these chips out the door. I cant tell my customers that these chips are a bargain. Maybe these price points will work for AM3 socket but not for people trying to replace TLB error chips that they got a while back.

 

[grieve]

This is a decent effort, keeps AMD alive anyhow. I don’t see why anyone building a brand new rig would purchase this, however this is fantastic news for upgrading people.

Before we know it Q9550 will be low end, and head to head with AMD’s top end 🙁

I7 for me.

 

[the inquisitor]

.... The Phenom II is pathetic... Just had to get that out of the way.
On over half the benchmarks the processor ahead of the lolblack edition 940 is a stock clocked Q6700.... a processor that's two years old... and will probably overclock to a faster speed than the phenom II... (3.6 is pretty realistic w/ voltage)

Granted, the core 2 platform has had its last hurah with the 45nm core 2 chips, its still cheaper and faster than the phenom II "dragon" platform...

 

[Guest]

Total agree with other posters. Better comparison would have been against the Intel Q9x50 series.

 

[megamanx00]

I like that there was a comparison to the 6600, as it represents a good value and is of similar performance to the Q9300, but I would have prefered for the Phenom IIs to be compared to the Q9450 and Q9550 as that is more their price range. Seems like the Phenom IIs match up well with the Q9000 series and I expect their prices to fall to reflect their relative performance. Prices are always high at launch after all. While this will help AMD out I think they seriously need to consider releasing 3.2 and 3.4GHz models in the coming months when Intel drops prices on their Q9000 series.

 

[marraco]

Ok. I gonna wait to see if Intel drops his i7 920 price, before updating my PC.
Anyway, my old X2 3600+ oc will not be updated to Phenom X4.

is fun AMD choose i7 like naming -Phenom II "9x0"-, because phenoms are no match to i7. No way.

Altought the main vantage whit i7 is his SLI and crossfire scalability. It would be nice to compare the video scalability of Phenom II.

 

[nsimo86]

Just a few points I'd like to make:
1. the am2+ phenom 2's have no business being compared to i7's. when am3 phenom 2's are out with DDR3 then lets start the comparison.

2. who cares if the q6600 is two years old, it still costs nearly $200. Very few people will ever own top of the line cpu's so the midrange battle is more relevant.

3. a yorkfield should beat the phenom II as it costs more. price per performance is the only thing that matters, forget about what generation the chip is or when it was released.

4. this is pure speculation but it seems like most current applications benefit much more from L2 cache than L3 and this is what puts the phenom 2 and even the i7 at a disadvantage in many apps, most notably in games. of course raw clock speed can make up for this but overclockability is on the side of intel and is keeping amd in second place.

5. in all reality, the am2+ phenom 2 should only be considered as an upgrade for people like me running an althon x2 or phenom 1.