Anandtech Phenom review is in

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
For the price and features of the 790FX mobos, it's not a disappointment at all. A Phenom 9700 paired with a 790FX mobo will make a really nice gaming machine. C'mon, we're looking at quad gpu's! that's friggin cool! One thing is obvious from the reviews is that Phenom's performance will scale well with increased clock speed. Too bad we have to wait (longer) for the 2.8GHz and 3GHz parts.

There is no comparison between Phenom to Yorkfield when it comes to raw performance, but when it comes to the price, (Phenom <$325 whereas Yorkfield >$1250!!!) Phenom is a very attractive option. Even when pricing out a Q6600 based machine compared to a Phenom based machine, there's a respectable price/performance difference.

Some of these folks around here need to stop drinking the kool-aid, unclinch their sphincters and relax a little bit. Contrary to what some say, right now with the market and given the strength of Intel's product line-up, Phenom being "good enough" is all that's necessary, AMD needs to remain competitive and not trounce Intel with the release of every new proc. And, guess what, Phenom is competitive.

speedbird - I do believe AM2+ boards are not avaliable as of yet, but Tomshardware is completely Intel biased so it's convenient for them to have us believe Phenom is rubbish.
No, sorry, there are two 790FX mobos currently available on newegg, a gigabyte and an MSI. I'm curious to see what Asus and aBit put out.
 

epsilon84

Distinguished
Oct 24, 2006
1,689
0
19,780
It seems 'competitive' is a term thrown around loosely nowadays...

Explain to me, how exactly is Phenom competitive? It loses in EVERY aspect to a C2Q.

Lower performance? Tick.
Slower clock for clock? Tick.
Higher power consumption? Tick.
Lower price/performance? Tick.
Lower performance/watt? Tick.
Lower overclockablity? HUGE Tick!
Reliability? (TLB issues >2.4GHz) Tick.

So, again, let me ask, how is Phenom 'competitive'?
 

epsilon84

Distinguished
Oct 24, 2006
1,689
0
19,780


$266 Q9300 and $316 Q9450 to be precise... street prices will probably be a little higher of course.

These are going to lay a real smackdown on AMD, as if the current situation is not bad enough.

AMD will need to price their 2.6GHz FX @ $250 to compete, and their 2.2GHz quad at $200...
 

bfellow

Distinguished
Dec 22, 2006
779
0
18,980
You can't really toute lower power consumption when you are promoting quad GPUs. That's like saying you to get 10 miles to the gallon now compared to 8 earlier!
 

wolverinero79

Distinguished
Jul 11, 2001
1,127
0
19,280
What people aren't pointing out when saying the platform is a great idea is that the core - the CPU - sucks for the purpose. The 790FX mobos can let you run 4 ATI cards, right? Who would want that graphics power with a chip that can't keep up? If AMD was targeting gamers in any way shape or form, the CPU would at least try to compete with Intel's midrange Quad Core, or even the top end. The launch just doesn't make sense.
 

cnumartyr

Distinguished
Nov 3, 2007
2,287
0
19,780



Because even with 4 GPUs the CPU will not be the bottleneck at high resolutions. They could have released a 2.0 GHz quad core with 4 way CF and been fine. That's the only reason I can think of atleast.
 

epsilon84

Distinguished
Oct 24, 2006
1,689
0
19,780


Wrong, even with 8800GTX SLI CPU speed matters. http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI2MiwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Quad Crossfire on 512MB 3870s will be a joke in terms of scaling efficiency. There simply isn't enough VRAM to support resolutions such as 2560x1500. Remember, quad CF of 512MB cards != 2GB VRAM effective... you are still limited to the 512MB framebuffer.

To show the true potential of Quad CF, you need 4 cards with 1GB VRAM, which, needless to say, will hardly be cheap and is impractical for 99% of the market. And even then, you would be severely CPU bottlenecked with a Phenom anyway.
 

cnumartyr

Distinguished
Nov 3, 2007
2,287
0
19,780


I meant 4 ATI cards. A single GTX will still outperform HD3870s in CF (supposedly).

Edit: I can see where I am wrong on nVidia and would concede in that market. However I still believe 2x HD3870X2s will be CPU limited if paired with a B3 Phenom (which "should" be out when the X2s drop).
 

amddiesel

Distinguished
Feb 24, 2006
265
0
18,780


Looking good AMD! at the price point.. I will never buy a 1000 dollar processor again! Its not worth it..
 

BaronMatrix

Splendid
Dec 14, 2005
6,655
0
25,790




Oh those bastards. How could they? I'm so hurt, I'll never buy Intel again. Or something like that.
 

mimart7

Distinguished
Nov 6, 2007
101
0
18,680
I won't buy a Phenom even though I have an AM 2 mobo, I'll wait for AM 2+ or AM 3. But I would never spend $1000 on processor. Too painful, my wife just wouldn't understand. I'd rather spend that kind of money on other components, and spend at most $400 - $500 on a CPU.
 

mimart7

Distinguished
Nov 6, 2007
101
0
18,680
I won't buy a Phenom even though I have an AM 2 mobo, I'll wait for AM 2+ or AM 3. But I would never spend $1000 on processor. Too painful, my wife just wouldn't understand. I'd rather spend that kind of money on other components, and spend at most $400 - $500 on a CPU.
 

sailer

Splendid


Let's use this same comparrison with a different chip. The Phenom looses in every respect to the AM2 5000+ Black Edition. In fact, if the charts had included the much maligned FX74, the FX74 would have trounced Phenom. If Phenom would have been introduced last year instead of the FX74, then Phenom would have looked fairly good. Maybe not a champoin, but at least a contender. As it is, I don't think it was worth the bother.

The best thing I can say here is that a person might buy an AM2 motherboard and stick a 5000+ Black Edition into it, thereby getting the advantage of having faster ram, DDR 1066 instead of DDR800. That might be a help to the 5000+ BE performance, but it would just make the Phenom look even worse. By going this route, if AMD introduces a better Phenom later on, it could be dropped in with no further upgrades.
 

BaronMatrix

Splendid
Dec 14, 2005
6,655
0
25,790
I think it looks really good from the perspective that there is an errata, Sandra has a problem recognizing the dual controllers and every test showed slightly different results on the benches each place used.

Liek I said, this L3 bug may be limiting the performance of all chips while I have heard no talk of recompiling - or compiling - under the new PGI compiler.

A lot of this is more than likely due to not being optimized. Tom had possibly the most in-depth article and perhaps they will try to compile under PGI and see if there is a difference.

Most things are optimized more fully for Core 2 at this point so I would have expected different numbers than with the older revs and patches.

I still say it's a great start for such an overhauled chip and new chipset. We also see that 2 3850s are coming out faster in some cases than a 8800GTX.

I would bet that as new BIOS' are released and AMD has a chance to get the new revs, it will, I believe, be more competitive. I have sen three reviews and they ll say that the newness of the platform is as much of a problem as having an "inferior" chip.

That's AMDs second problem, more companies will optimize for Intel and AMD either has to use the same "SSE" or convince SW folks to do more optimization for K10 SSE.

Not too bad, AMD.
 

BaronMatrix

Splendid
Dec 14, 2005
6,655
0
25,790


Because it does what you need faster than the older dual core chips at a good price. The only cases where dual core chips even at 3GHz win is where only clockspeed matters - single core. but then, I guess AMD should give up like Intel did and not even bother.
 

epsilon84

Distinguished
Oct 24, 2006
1,689
0
19,780


I said at the start of this thread no flame baiting of AMD fanboys, and I will stay true to that.

If you really think this is a 'great start' then more power to you. I'm glad you are so rapt with Phenom, and that it lives up to your expectations.

Please excuse the rest of us if we are disappointed with Phenom, however.
 

amddiesel

Distinguished
Feb 24, 2006
265
0
18,780



but am2+ socket will be around till 2010 why not?
 

Worf101

Distinguished
Jun 25, 2004
498
0
18,780


Sigh... My sentiments exactly. I'd hate to "jump ship" but unless AMD can start producing chips that are at least "competitive" I don't know when I'll be able to build a new rig. How can things go so bad for AMD so fast?

Da Worfster
 

BaronMatrix

Splendid
Dec 14, 2005
6,655
0
25,790



You can be whatever you want. I look at the big picture and it has writing that says, CrySis and Valve are the future, not SuperPi or even DivX. At the mainstream GPU resolutions and settings, the chips are on par.

AMD never said word one about Phenom's perf so you all built this magical "phenomenon" in your own heads. Everywhere it should be faster than 3.2GHz dual chips it is. I just hope Anand gets off his "I'm so upset" soapbox and tests X2 vs. K10 like he did when Barcelona was released. They could underclock FX74 or OC 9600. I'm just happy that the "native" quad core chips have all basically appeared and I look forward to CTI improving the chips.

I was always under the impression that this year's earlier losses meant AMD couldn't take as many tool sets off of Turion and Brisbane to adequately debug K10 in time for the launch. It seems as though I was right if the L3 errata is any indication.

I meanit's not liek they can make K10 at Fab 30\38 yet. And from what I've heard at Fabtech, they closed Fab 30 entirely at teh end of last month for the upgrade, so we may never see another 90nm Opteron. That means more wafers for doing K10 revs which WILL SAVE AMD MONEY as they will get twice as many chips from 30mm wafers as from 200mm.

Keep on trucking AMD. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. Naysayers come and go but CPU engrs.. crap I can't think of anything.
 

bfellow

Distinguished
Dec 22, 2006
779
0
18,980
Where do u see the K10 beating the 3.2 ghz part (6400+) in Anand or Tom's review? Some of them are even lagging behind the 5200+ or 5400+ in a few cases. Do you mean u see K10 is faster clock-to-clock than K8 based on the 3.2?
 

Wombat2

Distinguished
Jul 17, 2006
518
0
18,980


If Hector took a steaming dump in a Phenom box and shipped it to Baron his reaction would be:

Wow! AMD really delivered this time around!
\
:pt1cable: BM
 

pete4r

Distinguished
Jul 16, 2006
226
0
18,680
I've got to have a Phenom X4, the logo sticker looks so good, it really makes up to a *gamers pc for noobs* with that sticker :lol: :lol:

Where the Intel Core 2 Quad is just plain boring :lol: :lol: :lol:

Agree? Disagree?

Now on the product launch. Im a bit dissapointed, but not at all a disaster, as I can see Phenom sell well. We have placed an order of 2000 9500s from a tier 2 distributor and expect stock on the 29th November (20 days before christmas, so very tight on marketing and jobs)

But hopefully AMD can delivery :sol: