An early look at Phenom dual / tri core performance

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epsilon84

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http://www.erenumerique.fr/test_processeur_amd_phenom_x4_9600_drole_de_rel_ve_-art-1804-11.html

The article is in French, but the benchmarks speak for themselves. It also shows the differences between ganged and unganged memory mode, something most articles have failed to mention, so kudos to the author for the added testing. It also serves as a good yardstick for measuring clock for clock performance between K8 and K10.

In a nutshell, a Phenom X3 @ 2.3GHz is ~= to E6750/E6850 in multithreaded benchmarks, with lower single threaded performance obviously. The Phenom X2 @ 2.3GHz is a good match for a E6400.

What is striking to me is that clock for clock, Phenom is not that much faster than K8. Improvements range between 5 - 10% generally. I was under the impression it was a lot higher than that...

These results make it very obvious why AMD is delaying dual/tri core Phenom until Q2 2008. Unless AMD can get the clockspeed up, a Phenom X3 is no better than current C2Ds, and they may as well forget about Phenom X2 until it reaches 3GHz, otherwise it will be outperformed by an X2 6400+.
 
Ain't life a bit"c for AMD these days.....thanks guys for all the lies and delays. I was hoping for a upgrade and some performance increase from these new CPU's but it seems i should buy an intel cpu instead of W8ING for U guys to "ramp up production and clockspeads".... LOL
 



This is actually the test of K10 vs. K8 and you can see in Half Life the X2 @ 2.3GHz scores 91fps while the K10 dual scores 117fps which is a 23% boost clock for clock. It does scale 100% from 2-4 cores though, in POVray but the dual scores show only 4% improvement, while 3DStudio shows 11%. WinRar also shows 10%. I guess that's why AMD said "on a variety of workloads."

Hot Hardware has a really good Vista analysis though it doesn't have Kuma and Tolliman, it does show nice increases in the new PC Mark Vantage tests.
 
Half-Life... what a mixed bag. Here's what I can draw:

- It doesn't use more than 2 cores.
- There is a disadvantage when moving from 90nm 1mb/core cache to 65nm 512kb/core cache. Whether it's the latency or amount of cache, I can't be sure, but cache seems more likely (affects Core 2 also).
- AMD's limitation to 1mb/core cache creates an illusion of the GPU starting to bottleneck the test, while Intel shows that is not the case.

It's a poor test to judge % improvement. The 2.3GHz Brisbane core you compared with also loses 10fps vs. the 90nm Windsor core when matched at 2.6GHz. And who cares, when everything AMD has loses so heavily to Core 2 anyway?

Why not bring up something more positive, like how Phenom sets the curve for WinRAR or reaches middle ground between A64 and Core 2 in 3dsmax?
 



Once again, Baron 'cherry picks' the benchmarks which present his favored entity in the very best light possible, completely disregarding those (the majority) which do not show the results he desires.

Thats standard practice, but whats most interesting, had Baron bothered reading it, is the conclusion. The conclusion states the TLB bug reared its ugly little head during an un-GPU bound 3DMark test. Using the 9600. Seems pulling the 9700 from the launch was pointless after all, since this test demonstrates the TLB bug has now been shown to occur at clockspeeds less than 2.4GHz

Worth noting was the hardware used for the test...including the much vaunted 790FX chipset on a MSI K9 Platinum mobo, OCZ Gold XTC DDR2 800 and a Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra.....in otherwords, the CPU was not limited by the hardware, so no excuses there.


 



Please. I selected all of the benches, not just a few. All of them showed per-core improvement. Did I mention I hate "high and mighty" people?

I already knew that the TLB issue.... Ehhhh, never mind. You'll never change.
 


No you didn't, you selected the ones showing the most scaling between K8 and K10, and ignored the rest. Do you want me to highlight them?

 


You most certainly did not 'select' all of the benches.
Here are all of the benches

3dmark2005_gpu.gif

3dmark2005_cpu.gif

3dmark2006_cpu.gif

winrar.gif

photoshop_cs3.gif

povray.gif

HL2LC.gif

3dstudio_max9.gif

x264.gif



Youve made the same comment about me never changing before, and I will give you the same response: You're right, I will never change...I will always despise liars and cheats, and will always work to afford them the credit they deserve.
 
OK, here is a breakdown of the percentages in K8 -> K10 scaling:

3DMark05 GPU: +10.68%
3DMark05 CPU: +21.92%
3DMark06 CPU: +2.25%
Winrar: +10.15%
Photoship CS3: -8.64% (minus!)
PovRay: +3.29%
Half Life 2: +28.67%
3DS Max 9: +11.91%
x264 encoding: +3.37%

Average difference: +9.29%

We will need more benchmarks to confirm but so far K10 is under 10% faster than K8 per clock.
 
So which one doesn't show scaling increases? Photoshop? Oh, so you just have to have something to say about the underdog.

Besides Anand got 15% so it shows that benchmarks ARE NOT GOSPEL. They are just a guide. I imagine that if the L3 bug IS affecting general perf (which I think it is) we will see at least 20% and maybe 30%.

It looks liek certain workloads don't hit the problem as AMD says, but if you look at Sandra Memory, NO chip should have higher bandwidth than a Phenom with 1066DDR2, but they ALL do.

I guess AMD is moving totally away from Intel's "methodolgy" so they need K10-optimized benchmarks or they won't see the improvements.

That's my guess though, not meant to be taken as fact, like YOU ALL USUALLY DO.
 
Now now, If you keep that up you will have to lock the thread. :lol:
 
C2D vs K10

Note I'm comparing the 2.33GHz E6550 against the 2.3GHz Phenom X2, so the results will favor the 2.33GHz by ~1% or so, keep that in mind.

3DMark05 GPU: +8.01%
3DMark05 CPU: +16.06%
3DMark06 CPU: +16.35%
Winrar: +8.2%
Photoshop CS3: +29.41%
PovRay: +32.31%
Half Life 2: +28.57%
3DS Max 9: +14.78%
x264 encoding: +9.88%

Average: +18.17% (~17% after compensating for 1.3% clockspeed difference)

Wow. This was more than I expected. A ~17% difference clock for clock between K10 and C2D. By the time Phenom X2 launches, it will be competing against Wolfdale 45nm, which would put the difference out to ~22%.

To put things into perspective, the slowest Wolfdale at launch, the $163 E8200, runs at 2.66GHz. It will take a 3.2GHz Phenom X2 to compete with Intel's slowest C2D in 2008. Unless AMD can get their **** in order real soon, they won't be selling Phenom X2s for over $150.
 
There are 13 reviews on NewEgg for Phenom 9500. Gee, I wonder how many of the reviewers actually have one?

I don't think I've ever seen so much mixed bitterness / blind faith / anger over a product.

Baron, when you getting one? Or you still gonna get the 4x4? 😀
 


Anandtech's results were comparing a single socket QC Barcelona vs dual socket DC Opteron, I would assume the dual socket Opteron would be running at a slight disadvantage in terms of per core scaling.

This is a direct Phenom X2 vs A64 X2 comparison, so I would say this is a more accurate reflection on the scaling between K8 and K10.

You're not seriously thinking Phenom performance will jump 20 - 30% due to the L3 bug right?! I am trying to be civil here, but sometimes you make it very hard for people to take you seriously. 😗
 



Yup, he makes outlandish claims that end up being false. "AMD will change the color of the shipping boxes, that'll give 'em a good 2-3%".

I'll give him credit on this one, he didn't present it as fact, but rather as speculation. However, he needs to be careful, benchmark cherry picking is a Sharikou strategy.
 

I missed that part because I was just trying to go off the pictures and didn't translate the article. So it looks like a currently released Phenom running at stock already contains a bug - they are not even sure if that is the TLB at fault, and it happened just once. Very troublesome if stock stability is at issue.

3DMark05 GPU: +10.68%
3DMark05 CPU: +21.92%
3DMark06 CPU: +2.25%
Winrar: +10.15%
Photoship CS3: -8.64% (minus!)
PovRay: +3.29%
Half Life 2: +28.67%
3DS Max 9: +11.91%
x264 encoding: +3.37%
Click to expand...
Looks like HL was indeed cherry-picked, being the best K10/K8-Brisbane performance ratio across all 9 benches. The scary thing is most of these improvement ratios would be lower if compared to prior generation K8-Windsor parts. I say this because we are in the odd situation that the generation immediately preceding K10 was a downgrade in two ways - smaller cache and higher latency design - with no accompanying clock frequency improvement typical of node shrinks. In technology I like to evaluate a company based on best pre-existing design, not simply what came last.

So which one doesn't show scaling increases? Photoshop? Oh, so you just have to have something to say about the underdog.
Click to expand...
"I selected all of the benches" but really only 8/9 are true to the statement? Then there is no basis to say "all," but only to say "almost all."

I imagine that if the L3 bug IS affecting general perf
Click to expand...
Generally, memory-related bugs artificially inflate performance by allowing a logic shortcut that should not be there because it is not always logical - a dangerous situation. If it were a bug that cuts performance, an OS or program patch would often be enough to get around it until the next stepping. The product wouldn't have to be recalled. That 9700 was recalled hints at the more serious type of bug.

What if that 3dmark-CPU bug hit a scientific application? It is perhaps that AMD has such a minority share of the CPU market that, despite its being a multibillion dollar corporation, it is unlikely to be forced to recall its existing and, likely, buggy Phenoms.
 
3DMark05 GPU: +10.68%
3DMark05 CPU: +21.92%
3DMark06 CPU: +2.25%
Winrar: +10.15%
Photoship CS3: -8.64% (minus!)
PovRay: +3.29%
Half Life 2: +28.67%
3DS Max 9: +11.91%
x264 encoding: +3.37%
Click to expand...

That drop in Photoshop makes me wonder how they "created" the dual core Phenom I am wondering if it has to do with the way the memory controller works in the Phenom compared to how it works in the Athlon 64's making it the reason for the slow down.. We will see when the actual Phenom X2's are released if this is an issue or not.

My thinking is that if they created it by using the affinity command in Windows is that they may have used two cores that were connected to one memory controllers instead of the ones that are connected to separate controllers. Either way I can't read French to find out what they did so.. If someone knows do tell..

EDIT: Ok nm I see what they did.. Still the issue I talk about is still viable for what they did. I am wondering if those two cores are on the same side of the chip, heck even being adjacent from each other might cause a latency issue..
 



That's because all of you want AMD buyers to be wrong you read what you want. It should be obvious that I meant GROW to 20% over X2 K8.
 



Now they also know why you can't even quote yourself in YOUR sig. You just take your silly reasoning and run. I'm not going to preface my statements anymore cause it never worked in the past.
 


It's a certain % faster now. Only biased people would jump by the fact that it means GROW to 20%. Not add 20% on top of the current. I guess context clues weren't your forte.
 
My apologies for misinterpreting your post, after rereading it I understand what you mean. To be fair, your point wasn't exactly clear, and it seems others had the same interpretation as I did. And no, not because they are 'biased', but because you worded things rather ambiguously.

Anyhow, that is still a rather bold claim, you are predicting a 5 - 15% increase just from the L3 issue alone.
 
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