AMD Phenom II X4: 45nm Benchmarked

[mapesdhs]

juggernaut, your math is wrong. If I buy an i7 system which
completes a video conversion 40% faster, then the system can
be turned off much sooner, thus using a lot less power overall.
The price difference you quote may me too much for you, but
not for me, not when the performance difference means the
work I have to do will take 2 years instead of 3, which is
a significant power saving. My main task is video encoding,
for which the i7 far outfperforms the Phenom2. Besides, the
PC for final conversion is only part of the total cost (other
hardware is involved), so the difference is less important
than would be the case for someone thinking only about gaming.

The Phenom2 is clearly a good choice for a gaming PC, even if
it's not the absolute fastest, but don't pretend that means it's
good for everything.

I explained these factors in an earlier post btw.

Ian.

 

[Guest]

If your working on projects that take two years you should be using workstation processors... not consumer so you should not even be interested in commenting on these processor benchmarks. If you are that worried about getting things done faster then you should be using 4 socket motherboards like intel xeon or amd opteron with 16 cores total.... for about 4-5 grand total system price.

 

[mapesdhs]

jdot, the project timeframe is long purely because I have
hundreds of documentaries to digitise, but I'm not rich.
However, I do buy some items which are above consumer level, eg.
I have lots of SGI systems (quad-1GHz Tezro, etc.) and all my PC
storage is U320 SCSI. My current PC system is an AMD 6000+, but
the mbd has PCIX (ASUS M2N32 WS Professional), and atm it's
likely I'll get the equivalent ASUS i7 board that has PCIX when
I'm ready to buy in May/June.

Spending 4 or 5 grand on a multi-socket system is just a waste.
Beyond a certain point, the extra expense is not worth it. I do
have to deal with a hefty workload, but on a tight budget, so I
get a lot of stuff 2nd-hand (eg. bought an LSI 22320-R PCIX card
yesterday for 60 Euro). I have lots of SCSI storage, but all
purchased 2nd-hand. Part of what I'm up to also involves working
out how to blend the best of what SGIs and PCs have to offer.

The long timeframe is more a function of just having so many
tapes to deal with, and the fact that I can't work on them all
at once.

That's not to say I wouldn't nab a workstation-class bargain
if I found one (indeed, my 1st proper PC was a dual-XEON P4/2.66
Dell Precision 650, which cost me less than a quarter of its
normal 2nd-hand value at the time, and I still sold it 2 years
later for a tidy profit) but if I was going to do something like
that then I'd rather bag an SGI VS250 with 8 Opterons (32 cores),
or an Altix ICE cluster or somesuch. 8)

No point bothering with older XEONs anyway, since i7 is so much
faster. Early tests on renderfarms using XEON i7s show speedups
of 2.5X to 3X over the old chips. I want to get the processing
done in a timely manner, but not at any price. I simply don't
have five grand to spend, but even if I did, I highly doubt my
fiance would be too happy about my spending so much on a tech toy
as opposed to a luxurious holiday somewhere.

Ian.

 

[Guest]

I understand the Intel chips are faster out of the box, but I would want to see a "best" system configuration. Out of the box focuses on Intels strong points as every gamer knows that AMD has always been the front runner in the tweaking department. I would like to see a comparison between a top end over clocked and tweaked AMD/ATI system vs. an equally tweaked (If you can) Intel/nVidia or ATI system. I would prefer ATI Simply because Crossfire is way better than SLI. Also Western Digital VelociRaptors would be preferred, to keep pesky HDD bottle necks out of the way. Or at the least, benchmark out of the box, and over clocked with the current configurations that you have.

 

[Guest]

I thought so. I knew that the new AMD will be much slower than the new Intel i7. It's always like that. Apart from that, AMD produce more heat and more BSOD errors come up!

 

[jfurterer]

[citation][nom]reddozen[/nom]You people keep raving about the 9xxx series...http://www.amdzone.com/index.php/r [...] on?start=1yes, it's AMD zone, but it's a comparison with a 9xxx series, and the Phenom II still comes out ahead. You guys are serious AMD haters...Established:I7 > Phenom II > Core 2It's not like AMD took the crown, but it's no longer behind the Core 2 series.[/citation]

Even in that review they "conclude" that the P2 940 is just above a Q9400. However the Q9400 runs 333mhz slower and can OC higher then the P2 940 at stock voltage.

The way I see it the Q9400 = P2 940 only due to the $30 price difference. If the Q9400 drops in price it becomes the better buy.

Also I think there is some confusion, the P2 940 and 920 are AM2+ only and won't plug into an AM3 board down the road. They are an upgrade option for existing AM2+ users and likely the Last option as everything migrates to AM3 and putting an AM3 chip in an AM2+ mobo would be crippling it.

 

[mapesdhs]

I just think it's sad that so many AM2 boards can't take the earlier PhenomII. Would have been a nice upgrade, even without DDR3.

Ian.

 

[asssets]

Why use DDR2-1066 modules for AMD? you compare DDR2 and DDR3. How come?

 

[jfurterer]

The Phenom 2 x4 940 only works on AM2+ boards which only support DDR2 memory. The Core i7 runs on X58 boards which only support DDR3 for the most part. That's why the mismatched comparison.

 

[Guest]

I agree that the Phenom II is a bit old but it is the company's strategy to fill a market niche, therefore its release seems reasonable. The Phenom II is definitely a competitor for Intel and I'm anxious to see a development of the war after the AM3 is present...

 

[flagoman]

can you show a graphics of the cpu usagge?? asking this becouse i have a phenom 8450 with three cores with an ati hd8450, and once playing CRYSIS, windowed, i nottest that it only use 1core, and the other ones go from 20 to 60 percent, while playing left4dead all three cores go to 90% to99% of usage, so i disable the one core and played CRYSIS again with only two cores of the phenom8450, and guess what i got 10 to 15fps more than what i get with the 3 activated, this only works on crysis and did some test with left4dead again and it does shows a downgrade at the fps with two cores. so crysis doesnt get use of more than 2cores, as it should. maybe this happens with other games or software and thats why we see a great development on some software as they get use of all cores as it should

 

[flagoman]

mmm, sorry ati HD4850

 

[Guest]

Want to buy and test this one

Toms.
http://www.omnisecu.com

 

[saint19]

Really good rewiev....at least don't throw up my money with the X4 955

 

[JohnnyLucky]

This is an older article but still very informative as I am considering an energy efficient system for my next build.