AMD Phenom II X6 1090T And 890FX Platform Review: Hello, Leo

[jamsbong]

Wow! the price is really good for a 6core CPU!

it is slightly faster than the i7-quad and definitely a lot cheaper than the i7 in terms of overall system price.

Moreover, the system actually consumes less power at idle. Finally a video editing PC system that people can afford! That's power for the people!

 

[Otus]

As with all of the other 8-series chipsets, AMD’s 870 employs the same 4 GB/s A-Link III interface with whichever southbridge motherboard vendors choose to pair it up with.

I think the A-link as a x4 PCI-E link only has 2GB/s bandwidth (or 4GB/s bidirectional). That would mean four 6gbps SATA links could saturate it.

 

[andy5174]

what i want to see is a dual socket amd X6 vs a single intel 6 core just looking at what money can buy, im sure amd 2x X6 > then all intel single chips?

Instead of immensely overpriced i7-980X, you can always get two i7-930 which cost the same and performs on par when OCed, can't you?

Wow! the price is really good for a 6core CPU!

it is slightly faster than the i7-quad and definitely a lot cheaper than the i7 in terms of overall system price.

Moreover, the system actually consumes less power at idle. Finally a video editing PC system that people can afford! That's power for the people!

More correctly, this is actually the price of an AMD 6-core that performs merely on par with Intel 4-core.

 

[eddieroolz]

This X6 is plenty attractive to me, but I think I'll wait for the second generation of these chips. I think I can squeeze another year from my duals, though I'd really love one of these..

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]joneemcdowell[/nom]AMD X6 1090T or CORE I7 930???? HELP!! I'm confused now. I can buy the 930 for $199 from mirco-center and OC it to 4.2Ghz. So is that a better way to go instead of getting the AMD 1090t?-Jonee[/citation]
That depends on what your primary use for it will be, but I would honestly still go with the i7-930. The x6 1090T is impressive, for the first time AMD has produced a processor that's capable of competing against the LGA 1366 i7's in terms of performance, but it does so at a significantly higher load power consumption in comparison to the i7-930. For someone who does a lot of rendering that may be a significant factor to consider.

Add to that the boost in transistor count and die size in comparison to the i7's, the lower gaming performance, lower overclocking headroom (and by this I mean proportionate to its stock clock) when using practical cooling methods, and the less sophisticated power and clock management system, and the decision seems to lean more in Intel's favor. I've never been a huge fan of the Phenom architecture. It was simply never able to compete against Intel's latest offerings in terms of performance per clock and in many cases even power efficiency, a situation which was completely reversed back in the days of the Athlon 64. Add this all up and I just can't help but come to the conclusion that the i7 is the superior architecture.

There are some who would argue that the architecture is irrelevant, the consumer doesn't care about it, performance is what counts for the end user... but I've always found that to be an oversimplification and a bit deceptive when considering which processor to purchase. Granted I'm a long term purchaser, so I don't expect to be upgrading 1 or 2 years down the road. For me architecture and subsequently performance longevity are very important factors to consider. There were many examples of this during the P4/Athlon 64 days, where the inherent weaknesses of the lower performing and less efficient architecture became very evident as time and productivity software advanced...

The i7-930 for $199 is just a flat out steal, but again if you have $300 to spend on a processor I would still go with the i7...

 

[razzb3d]

not enough power (amperage) is getting to the CPU. your benchmarking rig is rubbish. (the mainboard to be precise).

explanation:

- i have seen this happening (lower performance while overclocked) with high end CPU's and crappy mainboards.
- i currently own a AMD Phenom II X6 1090T ES (on loan from a certain IT hardware imports company) running on a Biostar TA890FXE, accompanied by corsair Dominator DDR3 1600MHz ram and a seventeam ST-1000E-AD PSU.

- the results I get when overclocking the CPU to 3,6GHz (t-mode disabled) are way diffrent than yours. I get an increase in performance that is direclty proportional with the overclocking percentage.

ALSO, @ default, with t-mode disabled, the PIIX61090T slightly surpasses my i7 920 D0 @ 3,33GHz in crysis, far cry 2 and stalker: call of prypiat.

for those intrested in screenes, PM me.

 

[drowned]

Take note Intel: you don't need to charge an arm, leg, and 1st born for 6 cores!

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]razzb3d[/nom]not enough power (amperage) is getting to the CPU. your benchmarking rig is rubbish. (the mainboard to be precise). explanation:- i have seen this happening (lower performance while overclocked) with high end CPU's and crappy mainboards.- i currently own a AMD Phenom II X6 1090T ES (on loan from a certain IT hardware imports company) running on a Biostar TA890FXE, accompanied by corsair Dominator DDR3 1600MHz ram and a seventeam ST-1000E-AD PSU. - the results I get when overclocking the CPU to 3,6GHz (t-mode disabled) are way diffrent than yours. I get an increase in performance that is direclty proportional with the overclocking percentage. ALSO, @ default, with t-mode disabled, the PIIX61090T slightly surpasses my i7 920 D0 @ 3,33GHz in crysis, far cry 2 and stalker: call of prypiat. for those intrested in screenes, PM me.[/citation]

Well, that'd be an interesting one to take up with MSI--AMD sent 890FX platforms that *it* validated for this processor.

 

[IzzyCraft]

It's a nice show but frankly i'll stick to a 930 oced, it still based on the same old arch just with more cores so some threaded things does work some it doesn't it still looses per the clock to intel's set up but for 300 i rather have a more consistent performance from the 930.

i'd just hold out until amd puts a new arch out on the field. intel still holds the highest end of the cpu market.

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]coldhart[/nom]Anyone know the release date of AMD Phenom II X6 1090T[/citation]
Its already available...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103849&cm_re=Phenom_II_X6-_-19-103-849-_-Product

 

[togenshi]

I wish AMD went back to the drawing board and tried to get more efficiency per core. But never the less, good job AMD on the PII-X6.

 

[falchard]

MSI put some absolute genious design into this board.
http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=1&cat2_no=171&prod_no=2025

I am ofcourse speaking of... The Clear CMOS button on the Back I/O Panel. Also you can setup 4 dual slot cards in the PCI-e slots. Have 7 SATA ports, PATA port is gone, 2 USB 3.0 ports, and Winki.

 

[Kelavarus]

[citation][nom]togenshi[/nom]I wish AMD went back to the drawing board and tried to get more efficiency per core. But never the less, good job AMD on the PII-X6.[/citation]

That's the idea for next year. This hex-core is just something to tide people over. Theoretically, next year will be a completely new architecture, and with luck, they'll take some hints from their graphics team and pull off a similar miracle.

 

[Guest]

Go to Guru3d and read a real review. Sorry Toms.

 

[liquidsnake718]

Crazy as it sounds, I too might eventually get the 890X AND this hexacore.................... IF IT HAS USB3.0, hahaha. Wow... what a review, this might have persuaded me not to get the x58 and i930

 

[DjEaZy]

... not bad, not bat at all...

 

[andy5174]

[citation][nom]togenshi[/nom]I wish AMD went back to the drawing board and tried to get more efficiency per core. But never the less, good job AMD on the PII-X6.[/citation]
Well said! It is not that hard for AMD to design a X6 that can at least beat instead of performing on par with Intel quad i7, isn't it?

 

[Moshu78]

What I'd love to see is a review with 2 x 5870 or 2 x 5850 vs. a Phenom II X4 at clock speed + OC. In such system the X4 is the bottleneck... will the X6 perform better (increase the FPS)? Your tests with 5850 clearly show that the video card was much under the CPU power in all tests. So... is the X6 architecture performing better with a high-end videocard setup? Thank you!

 

[notty22]

These aren't your low priced AMD best bang for your buck days anymore.
To compete with Intel I5 750 and a Gigabyte p55 ud4p which costs 199+170
AMD has countered with a 300 dollar cpu and Asus ASUS Crosshair IV Formula AM3 AMD 890FX 230.00.
Thats a 530.00 dollar platform VS 370.00 for Intel ?
Now Intel is the value choice !
Oh and Guru 3d , documented 285 watts out of the o/c hex a core. Get ready to need a new psu for this 'pig'

 

[micky_lund]

[citation][nom]englandr753[/nom]I'm buying from AMD for my next cpu! Way to go AMD! I still have another Q9550 system so don't think I'm an AMD fan boy but I do love it when AMD gives such a great value for such a great product. Everyone should...[/citation]
yeah, because without opposition, its pointless for companies to put their prices down.

 

[xizel]

[citation][nom]Doltron[/nom]I think you should add Bad Company 2 to the benchmarks.[/citation]

what he said

 

[xizel]

[citation][nom]m1losh[/nom]Go to Guru3d and read a real review. Sorry Toms.[/citation]
sorry dude but the review on Guru3d really suks

 

[jimmysmitty]

Its not impressive really. I guess its missing something. About equivalent to a Core i7 quad clock per clock in most but in gaming its not the best option.

 

[ohim]

[citation][nom]andy5174[/nom]So basically 6-core PII-X6 performs just about the same as 4-core i7 if they are OCed to the same frequency... Not impressed at all performance-wise! How sad that AMD CPUs need 50% more cores to match Intel CPUs at any given frequency. Given that the PII-X6 1090T costs approximately the same as i7-930/i7-860, I will definitely choose i7 between the two considering i7 OCs higher and more efficient. 1055T which costs a little more than i5-750 seems to be the only hope for AMD now. It would be a huge success for AMD if the 1055T can at least reach 4GHz, because consumers would get an i7 equivalence for the price of i5-750. Otherwise, although PII-X6 is definitely not a fail, it would not be impressive/attractive too.[/citation]
Get it trough your head, this trend will go like this from now on, stop comparing GHz and core numbers, look at videocards, nobody compares ATI vs Nvidia by core numbers or speed. The only things that matters now are Price, performance and Upgrade . And taking into consideration this 3 things i`m sorry to say but intel`s 1000$ flagship fails so hard.

 

[DjEaZy]

... the same architecture in 3nm and this chip is a screamer...