AMD Triple-Core Phenom 8600 Benchmarks

[epsilon84]

Phenom is not that bad. When B3 stepping is out the Phenom X4 9850 BE is finally on par with the Q6600 and when O/C to 3GHz it takes on the QX6800. AMD Phenom dose a lot better when the application takes 4 threads than 2 or 1. A sign of a true quad I think. And The X3 is a good way not to just waste money by tossing it. What would you do if you are building a CPU with 4 cores and you find one of the cores are bad. Would you tose it away and loss money or disable to core itself? Prescot is worse than Phenom.

Thats a nice spin on things.

First of all, the Phenom 9850BE is still not 'on par' with a Q6600 - please check the reviews again, it loses in most benchmarks.

With some luck you may get 3GHz from a 9850 (more realistic goal would be 2.8 - 2.9GHz) and it'll probably match a stock Q6700 at those speeds, not a QX6800, since Phenom is 10% slower clock for clock. But why would you compare an overclocked CPU to a stock one? Many Q6600s can reach 3.6GHz, I'd like to see how a 3GHz Phenom would compare to that. 😛

 

[fazers_on_stun]

Is he even still here?

I think Thunderpants - aka Sharikookoo - is in rehab along with Baron, 9-inch, MMM etc undergoing AMDetox.

So unless you wanna see some cross-dressing nerd crying "Just leave Britney -er, Thunderpants alone" on Youtube, then we should leave him in peace

 

[Amiga500]

Phenom is not bad its just not the great chip we were told by AMD to expect.

AMD told us Barcelona would be great - not Phenom.



Clock for clock, Barcelona is quicker than the Xeons in most server applications, and in workstation apps it kicks Xeon's ass.


It just hasn't ported terribly well to the desktop domain (at least, not near as well as K8).

 

[jimmysmitty]

AMD told us Barcelona would be great - not Phenom.



Clock for clock, Barcelona is quicker than the Xeons in most server applications, and in workstation apps it kicks Xeon's ass.


It just hasn't ported terribly well to the desktop domain (at least, not near as well as K8).

Well I remember Phenom being hoirted up as a great CPU not only by fanboys but also by AMD and their VP at the time. Hell AMD still acts like Phenom is the cream of the crop.

Barcy deson't matter to me. Thats for businesses and enterprises to decide. But yes Barcy's IMC helps a lot there. This will all change once Nehalem comes out as they will be on a level playing feild. Then it will just depend on which one makes better use of the memory bandwidth and such.

And you are right, Barcy ported horribly. K8 had a much better transistion to the desktop than Bracy and mainly due to the features that are used in the server arena are not the same in the desktop arena.

Either way I still stand that AMD in a way lied. Phenom was nothing that was expected. And if you tell me you expected Phenom to underperform vs a Q6600 then you are crazy. I expected Phenom to perform equal to or better than the Q6600.

 

[LukeBird]

The thing I find funny is the comments of Q6600 being bandied around....
Q6600 will easily hit 3.0-3.2GHz on stock voltage or with a small bump, but 3.6 is more than most cheap mobos will go and more than the CPU will go without either exotic air-cooling (not just a cheapy job, a decent air-cooler!) or water-cooling.
I'm not saying that AMD's are comparable OCing-wise to Intel's, just trying to remove the crap that sneaks in!
Also, the 9850BE is a BE, so unlocked multi, where's Intel's competitor eh? Oh £600/$1200 is it? 😉
Tongue-firmly-in-cheek! :lol:

 

[homerdog]

Also, the 9850BE is a BE, so unlocked multi, where's Intel's competitor eh? Oh £600/$1200 is it? 😉
Tongue-firmly-in-cheek! :lol:

Most overclockers would run a 1600MHz FSB on a Core2 anyways, so the locked multiplier isn't as much of an issue as AMD makes it out to be. If Intel transitions to a stock 1600MHz FSB then we might be in trouble, but that doesn't look very likely with Nehalem and QPI right around the corner.

 

[jimmysmitty]

The thing I find funny is the comments of Q6600 being bandied around....
Q6600 will easily hit 3.0-3.2GHz on stock voltage or with a small bump, but 3.6 is more than most cheap mobos will go and more than the CPU will go without either exotic air-cooling (not just a cheapy job, a decent air-cooler!) or water-cooling.
I'm not saying that AMD's are comparable OCing-wise to Intel's, just trying to remove the crap that sneaks in!
Also, the 9850BE is a BE, so unlocked multi, where's Intel's competitor eh? Oh £600/$1200 is it? 😉
Tongue-firmly-in-cheek! :lol:

Yea. 3.6GHz is possible with a TR Ultra 120 and 2 120mm fans and maybe your little brother blowing on it at the same time 😀

But it still OC's nice and gets you a 25-33% OC for free(3.2GHz on stock voltage is very lucky even for a G0). Where as not all Phenoms can get a 25% OC on the stock voltage nor fully stable.

Oh well what can ya do. Go to AMD's engies and bash them on the head with a book of knowledge?

 

[epsilon84]

The thing I find funny is the comments of Q6600 being bandied around....
Q6600 will easily hit 3.0-3.2GHz on stock voltage or with a small bump, but 3.6 is more than most cheap mobos will go and more than the CPU will go without either exotic air-cooling (not just a cheapy job, a decent air-cooler!) or water-cooling.
I'm not saying that AMD's are comparable OCing-wise to Intel's, just trying to remove the crap that sneaks in!
Also, the 9850BE is a BE, so unlocked multi, where's Intel's competitor eh? Oh £600/$1200 is it? 😉
Tongue-firmly-in-cheek! :lol:

The bottom line is that using good air cooling, a Q6600 has a better chance of hitting 3.6GHz than a Phenom 9850BE has of hitting 3.0GHz. That can not be disputed. 😉

 

[Hellboy]

Is he even still here?

Maybe hes been converted to the Dark Side.....



Its power will grow farther than imagined......



The current US recession will make AMD processors go down from 3 to 1 per day....

Unlucky time for AMD fans then........

 

[doomsdaydave11]

I think I'm just going to grab a AMD 6400 now and hope that AMD doesn't die by the time I need to upgrade again. I'm willing to chance it. Remember that Intel has had its bad times too. Good old days of single core Athlon 64... even the K6-II.

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

A quick hypothesis: Alan Wake looks like it could be the game of the year in H2 2008. Alan Wake is designed to use 3 CPUs to best effect. AMD and the Alan Wake developers get together to offer "Wake-enabled" PC certification. Hey presto: The developers get AMD support and AMD has the most competitive processor for the job.

Thoughts?

Core for core Intel is faster. So let's say for some reason a game only uses three cores, it will still be faster on the Intel processor and the Intel proc will have an idle core as gravy on the cake. (Yes, I think I just made that up, "gravy on the cake")

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

It's a new age CPU for Joe Public buying PC's off WalMart shelves along with their daily groceries.

Just watch and see ... a dumb salesperson's dream ... an extra core plus it is cheaper than the dual core.

Hmm ... 3Cores "core3" gotta be better than core2 ... pfftt... how confusing ... think I'd better get the extra in case I need it (rationalising the labels on the boxes). Gee ... I'm clever ... <leaves shop with smile>

core2 ... core3 ... core2 quad ... triple core ... quad core ....

This should finally confuse just about everyone.

Chuck in a "quantispeed" just for measure ... heh heh.

The poor customer.

No wonder it is so funny to reply to those "Need new Build Advise" threads ... but we try ... because we were all noobs once ...

I hope the marketing spin helps them recycle plenty of these out into the world.

I hear you need to put an extra screw on the right hand side of the motherboard when you fit the 8xxx series cpu's ... the boxer motor is a bit lumpy with the 4th piston missing ... tends to cause the case to rattle a bit otherwise.

I Suggest you sticky this advice

That's so funny and it's so true. LMFAO, "Quantispeed".



Walmart Customer: "My emachine has a 2 gig hard drive, 120 gigs of ram, it's a core 3 duo, and it's got QUANTISPEED!"

 

[blackpanther26]

Thats a nice spin on things.

First of all, the Phenom 9850BE is still not 'on par' with a Q6600 - please check the reviews again, it loses in most benchmarks.

With some luck you may get 3GHz from a 9850 (more realistic goal would be 2.8 - 2.9GHz) and it'll probably match a stock Q6700 at those speeds, not a QX6800, since Phenom is 10% slower clock for clock. But why would you compare an overclocked CPU to a stock one? Many Q6600s can reach 3.6GHz, I'd like to see how a 3GHz Phenom would compare to that. 😛

Then explain this? 4 threads seems to be Phenom's number.

source http://techreport.com/articles.x/14424

 

[epsilon84]

Then explain this? 4 threads seems to be Phenom's number.

Explain what? I said the Phenom 9850 loses in most benchmarks, not all. It comes close in many, but that still doesn't make it on par. Cherrypicking benchmarks where it wins doesn't make my point any less valid. For example, in the very same TR review I can find instances where under 4 threads a Q6600 outperforms the 9850BE - http://techreport.com/articles.x/14424/6

TR conclusion:

The Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition can't always keep pace with the Core 2 Quad Q6600 or the Core 2 Duo E8500, but it's close.

Being close is not 'on par', its a bogey. 😉

 

[LukeBird]

The bottom line is that using good air cooling, a Q6600 has a better chance of hitting 3.6GHz than a Phenom 9850BE has of hitting 3.0GHz. That can not be disputed. 😉

No, no (as I'm sure you know, as we've both discussed said point before ) I agree with you, the Q6600 is much more likely to OC higher, but the point that 3.6GHz is an 'easy' overclock, is not a valid one!
Yes, as I admitted, it can be done but it requires more voltage, better cooling and a decent board.
Where as bumping the multi on a 9850BE should theoretically have no dependence on the quality of the board until you start bumping the Voltage considerably anyway.... 😀

 

[yipsl]

If gaming performance is anything like it currently is and what we have seen fo far a Q6600 will run Alan Wake better than a Phenom X3/X4 at certain speeds. And when OC'ed the Q6600 alone will have good FPS.

Alan Wake looks like the first game of the horror/adventure genre that I've looked forward to, the premise is interesting, compared to zombies infesting labs and whatnot. I agree that if it's optimized to use 3 cores, the fastest quads will do even better, as one core can handle background applications like antivirus.

What I'm really looking forward to is Spore. That's another game that's been delayed a bit with a unique premise. One of these days, I'll have a quad core for it, though I can't decide whether B3 9850 or just wait 7-9 months for Deneb. Am I really hampered in games with a 4600+?

Usually, I keep a CPU for two years and I got this one in February 2007, so upgrading now is a bit early. Will a B3 bring any kind of performance boost now, or will I only see that in games when Deneb's out? I've been saying quad cores are futureproofing, that we'll see more games using 3 or 4 cores by December 2008, but that's when we'll see Deneb too.

Why bother with B3? I want to order one in two weeks, but do I need one between now and Deneb? Of that I'm not so sure. If I get one, it will provide a better upgrade path to Deneb than a Q6600 would to Nehalem, because Denebs will support AM2+ boards like the 780G. That's one thing in AMD's favor.

Regarding the "on par" vs "close" debates, the 9850 BE loses, but not by much. Not at stock or with a 2.8 overclock. It's so close that most people wouldn't notice without hovering over benchies. If it stays priced at or lower than the Q6600, it's a good choice for a new build largely due to the viability of a 780G, 770 or 790 AM2+ socket for 45nm Phenoms.

 

[epsilon84]

No, no (as I'm sure you know, as we've both discussed said point before ) I agree with you, the Q6600 is much more likely to OC higher, but the point that 3.6GHz is an 'easy' overclock, is not a valid one!
Yes, as I admitted, it can be done but it requires more voltage, better cooling and a decent board.
Where as bumping the multi on a 9850BE should theoretically have no dependence on the quality of the board until you start bumping the Voltage considerably anyway.... 😀

A Q6600 needs a 400MHz FSB to reach 3.6GHz. Most P35 boards are capable of at least 450MHz, I don't see that as much of an issue. Sure, it needs more volts, and a good HSF, but we are talking a 50% overclock here. 😉

A 9850BE is probably 'easier' to overclock with the unlocked multi, but with only 15 - 20% headroom whats the point?

 

[LukeBird]

A Q6600 needs a 400MHz FSB to reach 3.6GHz. Most P35 boards are capable of at least 450MHz, I don't see that as much of an issue. Sure, it needs more volts, and a good HSF, but we are talking a 50% overclock here. 😉

A 9850BE is probably 'easier' to overclock with the unlocked multi, but with only 15 - 20% headroom whats the point?

Oh right, I thought 400-425 was the most a P35 board was able to give!
I'm no OCer, so it doesn't bother me either way!
Oh well, we'll see what happens when all is released! The 9x50 Phenoms are looking pretty impressive (more than impressive than a stepping change would lead you to think anyway!) so I'll reserve judgement until I can buy one! 😀

 

[zenmaster]

Explain what? I said the Phenom 9850 loses in most benchmarks, not all. It comes close in many, but that still doesn't make it on par. Cherrypicking benchmarks where it wins doesn't make my point any less valid. For example, in the very same TR review I can find instances where under 4 threads a Q6600 outperforms the 9850BE - http://techreport.com/articles.x/14424/6

TR conclusion:

The Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition can't always keep pace with the Core 2 Quad Q6600 or the Core 2 Duo E8500, but it's close.

Being close is not 'on par', its a bogey. 😉

Actually, it's not really even that close if you examine the other review sites.

The "Tech-Report"'s results are skewed due to incredibly poor hardware selection for the Intel Chips.
They chose to use DDR3 at very low speeds and very high latencies (8-8-8-20 @ DDR2-533 Speed)
Even the cheapest of cheap DDR2 would run much faster at stock speeds.

I'm not sure of the reason why Tech-Report chose to build such systems, but you will notice that the other review sites use DDR2 with reasonable latencies of 4-4-4-12 or something along those lines.

DDR3 is great for Extreme OC's of 1333 FSB chips, but it's not needed for Air Cooled OC.
Or if you do choose to use it, you need to crank the RAM speeds up and not leave at the slow default clock rate.

 

[LukeBird]

Actually, it's not really even that close if you examine the other review sites.

The "Tech-Report"'s results are skewed due to incredibly poor hardware selection for the Intel Chips.
They chose to use DDR3 at very low speeds and very high latencies (8-8-8-20 @ DDR2-533 Speed)
Even the cheapest of cheap DDR2 would run much faster at stock speeds.

I'm not sure of the reason why Tech-Report chose to build such systems, but you will notice that the other review sites use DDR2 with reasonable latencies of 4-4-4-12 or something along those lines.

DDR3 is great for Extreme OC's of 1333 FSB chips, but it's not needed for Air Cooled OC.
Or if you do choose to use it, you need to crank the RAM speeds up and not leave at the slow default clock rate.

Sorry, but to me that makes no sense...
Surely DDR3 even with higher latencies is going to be faster then DDR2? 8-8-8-20 for DDR3 is comparable to DDR2 @ 4-4-4-12 anyway isn't it? Much like DDR2 @ 4-4-4-12 is comparable to DDR @ 2-2-2-6...
I'm surprised to here complaints about using DDR3 in an OC though... 😉

 

[zenmaster]

Sorry, but to me that makes no sense...
Surely DDR3 even with higher latencies is going to be faster then DDR2? 8-8-8-20 for DDR3 is comparable to DDR2 @ 4-4-4-12 anyway isn't it? Much like DDR2 @ 4-4-4-12 is comparable to DDR @ 2-2-2-6...
I'm surprised to here complaints about using DDR3 in an OC though... 😉

No, DDR3 is not any faster than DDR2 at the same Clock Rates.
It's all about Clock Rate and Latency.

Unlike DDR->DDR2, DDR3 does not move any more data in a cycle.
As a result, If you clock DDR2 and DD3 the same speed with the same latencies the performance will be the same.

If they would have run the RAM @ Stock Speeds instead of down clocking it, the memory tests would have been much better. I'm not suggesting any type of OC, just not an Underclock. And if you are going to Underclock, they should select RAM that properly reduces the latencies to compensate for the very slow clock rate.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Sorry, but to me that makes no sense...
Surely DDR3 even with higher latencies is going to be faster then DDR2? 8-8-8-20 for DDR3 is comparable to DDR2 @ 4-4-4-12 anyway isn't it? Much like DDR2 @ 4-4-4-12 is comparable to DDR @ 2-2-2-6...
I'm surprised to here complaints about using DDR3 in an OC though... 😉

You would think but not yet really. Its like when DDR2 first came out. It was the same performance. It will take about 6 more months for DDR3 to fully outperform DDR2. Especially for the price.

I like to see what the best high end parts can do, but would like to see a normal enthusiast build too. Your know Q6600, 4GB DDRs 800/1066 and a nice P35 mobo. GPU does not matter when testing the CPU power.

Heck DDR3 is nice for more bandwidth but we all know that most programs do not need that extra bandwidth. Maybe Nehalem will make better use of it and use it to its advantage to help speed some programs up but who knows.

 

[bluekoala]

It doesn't look too bad. It can prove to be quite successful if the price is right.

 

[Space_Monkey]

Sooo let me get this straight. AMD puts out a faulty quadcore, that is supposed to be "True Quad". They put out a half-assed fix for it. Then they get around to throwing out the new B3, which is not a new chip, it just fixes what should have been fixed before release. and then after all that they have left over faulty chips, so instead of tossing them they disable the faulty core and sell the faulty chips as a cheaper(hopefully) and newer chip? I'm really starting to lose faith in AMD if this is right. Please somebody tell me that i'm wrong here.

 

[LukeBird]

Sooo let me get this straight. AMD puts out a faulty quadcore, that is supposed to be "True Quad". They put out a half-assed fix for it. Then they get around to throwing out the new B3, which is not a new chip, it just fixes what should have been fixed before release. and then after all that they have left over faulty chips, so instead of tossing them they disable the faulty core and sell the faulty chips as a cheaper(hopefully) and newer chip? I'm really starting to lose faith in AMD if this is right. Please somebody tell me that i'm wrong here.

The Phenom is not a bad CPU, it's just that comparably to an Intel quad it is. The Intel quad's are strong hence showing the AMD quad's up due to the performance gap. No different to Nvidia's 8-series, it was an astounding series, hence they were further ahead than ATi, but that didn't make ATI's GPU's poor!

Oh and thanks zenmaster and jimmysmitty for explaining that, I had (mistakenly) assumed that DDR3 could do more per clock than DDR2 and hence the higher (relatively) latencies would be more than compensated by the higher speed!