Anandtech Phenom review is in

[Harrisson]

The 790FX costs just as much or more than the X38 deluxe boards.
The overdrive utility is nice, but a lot of mobo makers have an overclocking utility included with them nowdays - ASUS A.I., Gigabytes EasyTune, etc.
Quad GPUs? Can you point out any application that takes advantage of the setup?

790FX is probably more feature rich than x48 but costs a fraction of it, 790X is more like X38, and as usualy with AMD - similar products are cheaper than Intels.

AMD tweaking tool is far superior to Asus A.I. or any other tool in the market atm, just check what it can do and how many praises it gets for hardcore enthusiasts.

Quad gpu is the future (more accurately - multi-gpu is the future, soon it will be octo-gpu, etc), so its up to game makers and driver team to make it shine. For example Microsoft Flight Simulator in action: http://youtube.com/watch?v=A3jpG3rv4zI

Edit: Btw, Intels Larebee will be heavily multi-core driven too, so 800 pounds gorilla will help to move the games industry to the same direction

 

[xrider]

The appeal is a XFire board for $169, DDR2 1066 - much cheaper than DDR3 - and a <$300 qad core chip. You can get a whole Phenom system for around $600. That's not bad at all.

the only problem is for price you talk about the penryn when in reality these chip only match up to the old intel Quads. and also my 1year old nvida board will let me drop a penryn cpu in it. It's crazy how people cherry pick information. My 775 based mobo will run a penryn chip just like phenom will run on older AMD boards.

 

[cnumartyr]

The overdrive thing might be nice... but..

A) I can do just fine in the BIOS.

B) I have no need to overclock certain cores. I'm fine with the entire thing running at one speed.

 

[Ironnads]

amd's first quad core???

how about

"The first ever native quad!!! by amd!"

swings and roundabouts? more like slippery slope marketing.. I'm starting to believe that's tomshardon.com are taking a cut from certain INterested parties..
Ryan Adds

 

[Harrisson]

The overdrive thing might be nice... but..

A) I can do just fine in the BIOS.

B) I have no need to overclock certain cores. I'm fine with the entire thing running at one speed.

A) Thats true, just why you object having more options and even tweaking from OS itself? Its more convenient.

B) If all cores would overclock exactly the same, you would be totaly correct, just thing is - their OC potential is different. Thus your cpu can go so far as your slowest core allows.

 

[cnumartyr]

A) Thats true, just why you object having more options and even tweaking from OS itself? Its more convenient.

B) If all cores would overclock exactly the same, you would be totaly correct, just thing is - their OC potential is different. Thus your cpu can go so far as your slowest core allows.

I hardly object to it. However my experience overclocking in windows have never been the best.

And you are right on B).. however I guess in my opinion it's not a big issue. I figure that if all the cores will do 3.6 GHz does it really matter if one will do 3.8, one will be at 3.7 and the last 2 at 3.6 GHz? I'm just of the opinion that right now.. 3.0 GHz Quad will get you whatever you need.. so why the need to clock one even higher?

I think it's great for AMD however. If they ARE having thermal issues with their quads you can pick one up and OC 2 cores in it and get much better performance in "single threaded" applications and not have to deal with 4 cores of heat.

 

[xrider]

I'm full of indignation. I have always admitted that C2Q was faster. And yes I am holding out hope that the next rev will increase perf somewhat, but like I always say, I buy NO INTEL. PERIOD!! For me it's like the writer's strike. Big company beating up on little guy while gullible consumers hope for the best.

I hate Intel for their FUD back in the dark days of sub 1GHz chips. I'll never let them or you live down how they SABOTAGED the Opteron launch and undercut the market by charging $183 for a chip that was as fast as some of the former high end P4s.
Thats my opinion on the matter and it can be as fanboy as you like, that won't change the facts. Intel knew what would happen; that AMD would have to lower prices and lose money thereby causing issues with the new design.

Of course, no one will care until every chip is more than $500, but then that's their plan. Suck in the gullible. Suck up their money. I will continue to support AMD even if they're slower because it's just not that serious.

Just let us lowly AMDers suffer at a mere 86 fps, while you Intellers zoom by at 100 fps... what, you can't tell the difference and no one times their encoding. Well, hell, give me the slower chip that represents the little guy making it through.

So when AMD had the performance crown from 2003 until 2005 what major advancements did they come out with, and what did they charge for there CPU it seems to me is they did the exact thing that intel did inflated prices because they where in the lead, so what did intel do oh cut prices of there CPU because AMD clearly lead in performnce. Does this sound familure. bottom line AMD got fat and lazy riding K8 to death.

 

[cnumartyr]

amd's first quad core???

how about

"The first ever native quad!!! by amd!"

swings and roundabouts? more like slippery slope marketing.. I'm starting to believe that's tomshardon.com are taking a cut from certain INterested parties..
Ryan Adds

/clap for AMD for making a quad core that is native. Seriously it's a great engineering feat that Intel said they would not try til 45nm. They did something that Intel said was not worth it. Intel said from the start they didn't think the engineering issues involved with that monolithic core would be worth it on 65nm. Thus.. AMD once again beats intel to the punch on another technological feat. HT Link First? AMD. Integrated Memory Controller First? AMD. Native Quad Core? AMD.

Now there is only one problem.. their native quad core performs worse clock for clock (at the moment) than Intel's POS dual core X2 that got glued together. OH NOEZ.

 

[NMDante]

790FX is probably more feature rich than x48 but costs a fraction of it, 790X is more like X38, and as usualy with AMD - similar products are cheaper than Intels.

AMD tweaking tool is far superior to Asus A.I. or any other tool in the market atm, just check what it can do and how many praises it gets for hardcore enthusiasts.

Quad gpu is the future (more accurately - multi-gpu is the future, soon it will be octo-gpu, etc), so its up to game makers and driver team to make it shine. For example Microsoft Flight Simulator in action: http://youtube.com/watch?v=A3jpG3rv4zI

Well, I do agree with you that the 790FX is a board with a lot a features. As for the X48 costs, I wouldn't know, since I haven't seen the pricing for the X48 boards. The X38 boards are still in the $200 range, and the 790X/FX is in the same range right now. The Gigabyte board is retailing for $269 and the MSI for $179 @ Newegg. The X38 boards range from $229 to a ridiculous $334.

The Overdrive is nice, but all I've seen is the program, not what the CPU has done when a single core is overclocked and used. It's not an automatic sensing program, that will overclock the single core when only a single core is needed, so one has to manually set it, before running a program. Other than that, it does a few other things that other overclocking applications can't do, true.

Multi-GPUs, I believe, won't be the future. I think there will be a push for multi-core GPUs, similar to CPUs. Or even a meld of GPU/CPUs, before the need of multi-GPU setups will be mainstream. I think just the fact that present day single slot GPUs can outperform the last generation of SLI/Crossfire setups shows that multi-GPU setups are for a niche market. If nVidia or ATI/AMD design a multi-core GPU (not a multi-chip on board), it could be more advantageous in both performance, price, and power consumption, than multi-GPU setups. Imagine a multi-core GPU in a single slot with the performance of a quad-GPU without the power consumption of a quad-GPU setup. Of course, a multi-GPU setup would mean more profit for the GPU company (with multiple sales of GPU cards), so maybe they would rather push the multi-GPU setup, over the cheaper multi-core setup. Who knows with the GPU companies?

 

[bfellow]

How can AMD push for multi-GPU for the future and Fusion at the same time? Buy your 2 3870 X2's now but throw those away and your quad core chip for a single chip.

 

[Ironnads]

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'?

erm? What's green and foldy??

As with the 3000 series against the 8800gt same green foldy upper hand....

(sigh)

Ryan Adds

 

[Ironnads]

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

So thats

1) value/performance - tick
2) availability - tick

Iron ya Nadds

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

2:30 CST INTC stock down 0.86%

so they are both losers? You can't base reasoning on stock price... who cares?

Ummm... AMD announces a major product line which they touted as being "40% better" and it has terrible benchmarks compared even its own previous products.

Stock closes down 4.51%.

Coincidence? I think not. Where do you think they get these prices from? They pick numbered balls at random?

 

[Ironnads]

so.
1 value
2 availability
3 4 x crossfire..

 

[cnumartyr]

so.
1 value
2 availability
3 4 x crossfire..

1 Q6600 = $280
2 I still don't see Barcelonas... but hey I'm sure they are more available than the crap Intel has.
3 Available on the X38 and X48

 

[Harrisson]

Multi-GPUs, I believe, won't be the future. I think there will be a push for multi-core GPUs, similar to CPUs. Or even a meld of GPU/CPUs, before the need of multi-GPU setups will be mainstream. I think just the fact that present day single slot GPUs can outperform the last generation of SLI/Crossfire setups shows that multi-GPU setups are for a niche market. If nVidia or ATI/AMD design a multi-core GPU (not a multi-chip on board), it could be more advantageous in both performance, price, and power consumption, than multi-GPU setups. Imagine a multi-core GPU in a single slot with the performance of a quad-GPU without the power consumption of a quad-GPU setup. Of course, a multi-GPU setup would mean more profit for the GPU company (with multiple sales of GPU cards), so maybe they would rather push the multi-GPU setup, over the cheaper multi-core setup. Who knows with the GPU companies?

Actualy its whats I was saying, just I dont make much difference between multi-gpu and multi-core gpu's, since from program side its pretty much the same thing. We will see more multi-core (as well as multi-gpu atm) in the future since by shrinking tech process opens up much better posibilities to do so. Its similar to cpu's - not so long ago putting 2 cores in one cpu was impossible, and now necessity. Patch also was similar - single cores placed in multi-socket systems, then single cores "glued" to dual cores, then native dual cores "glued" to quad's... you get the picture. Graphics are following the same footsteps, just with its own specifics. R700 (probably) and Intels Larabee (almost definately) will be heavily multi-core from the start.

 

[NMDante]

so.
1 value
2 availability
3 4 x crossfire..

1. value - Q6600 ($278) - 9500 ($286), 9600 ($322) *Directron prices 11/19/07.
2. availability - Q6600 (in stock) - 9500/9600 (out of stock - no ETA)
3. 4x Crossfire - AMD advantage. What actual advantage will 4X crossfire bring to the table? How much of gain in gaming? How much power consumption will it use over a single slot or even dual GPU setup? Is the cost of the quad GPU worth the performance gains? Unknown.

 

[NMDante]

Actualy its whats I was saying, just I dont make much difference between multi-gpu and multi-core gpu's, since from program side its pretty much the same thing. We will see more multi-core (as well as multi-gpu atm) in the future since by shrinking tech process opens up much better posibilities to do so. Its similar to cpu's - not so long ago putting 2 cores in one cpu was impossible, and now necessity. Patch also was similar - single cores placed in multi-socket systems, then single cores "glued" to dual cores, then native dual cores "glued" to quad's... you get the picture. Graphics are following the same footsteps, just with its own specifics. R700 (probably) and Intels Larabee (almost definately) will be heavily multi-core from the start.

Okay. I was just under the impression that you meant only a multi-GPU (boards) setup, and not a multi-core setup.

Then I do agree with you about that. LOL. Multi-core GPUs should be the next line of evolution, imo. Look at how enthusiasts were running dual CPU systems, until dual core CPUs arrived. Now, the multi-GPU setups (SLI/Crossfire) should start to meld into a single multi-core GPU. That would be the natural progression, I think.

 

[yomamafor1]

so.
1 low end
2 limited availability
3 unknown 4 x crossfire performance..

 

[LukeBird]

/clap for AMD for making a quad core that is native. Seriously it's a great engineering feat that Intel said they would not try til 45nm. They did something that Intel said was not worth it. Intel said from the start they didn't think the engineering issues involved with that monolithic core would be worth it on 65nm. Thus.. AMD once again beats intel to the punch on another technological feat. HT Link First? AMD. Integrated Memory Controller First? AMD. Native Quad Core? AMD.

Now there is only one problem.. their native quad core performs worse clock for clock (at the moment) than Intel's POS dual core X2 that got glued together. OH NOEZ.

It's an interesting point the above, because there are many things that AMD has achieved that are pretty impressive for such a (relatively) small company.
Anyhow back to Phenom, as has been said above, Intel said there would be no point in going to native quad until 45nm. Begs the question that with their clear market dominance why they didn't take a bit (what, maybe 6 months) extra time with their new 45nm's to make them native quads? To me, I could really not give a **** what the core tech. is, so I don't really care between 90, 65 or 45. But heyho, if they bring benefits then I'm certainly not going to turn them down.
I think the Phenom pulls in a reasonable performance and it obviously scared Intel enough to paper launch the QX9770! I fancy a faster Phenom so I'll wait until something in the 2.6Ghz+ is out and have a look then
Oh and could you guys lay off the Baron baiting, does it really achieve anything. Yes I know he is obviously a big AMD supporter (myself included) but does that really make it Ok to lay into him about everything he has ever said?
Grow up!

 

[Ironnads]

1) wait for the actual launch price..
2) 2 months more available? (if we go by gpu output..)
3) How much do you want o spend?
4) Do you really want an Nvid mobo for SLI?
5) - I'm sure we'll see "spider" systems price/price/solidity/future-proof.. etc rocking!

A team is worth more than the sum of its parts.. (I hope)

(sigh)

Ryan Adds

 

[cnumartyr]

It's an interesting point the above, because there are many things that AMD has achieved that are pretty impressive for such a (relatively) small company.
Anyhow back to Phenom, as has been said above, Intel said there would be no point in going to native quad until 45nm. Begs the question that with their clear market dominance why they didn't take a bit (what, maybe 6 months) extra time with their new 45nm's to make them native quads? To me, I could really not give a **** what the core tech. is, so I don't really care between 90, 65 or 45. But heyho, if they bring benefits then I'm certainly not going to turn them down.
I think the Phenom pulls in a reasonable performance and it obviously scared Intel enough to paper launch the QX9770! I fancy a faster Phenom so I'll wait until something in the 2.6Ghz+ is out and have a look then
Oh and could you guys lay off the Baron baiting, does it really achieve anything. Yes I know he is obviously a big AMD supporter (myself included) but does that really make it Ok to lay into him about everything he has ever said?
Grow up!

Intel has adopted a tick-tock market strategy and is sticking to it. If Penryn was never released and the next chip we would see is Nehalem this would be an entirely different story. Unfortunately for AMD they must compete with a 45 nm chip that takes less voltage, clocks higher, and runs cooler.

 

[Ironnads]

The big question of course is: will the standard 2.6 hz thumbin , sorr I mean Phenom, when it arrives in q1 2008, be any faster than an OCd 2.4 like next week.. ??

Ran away

 

[cnumartyr]

The big question of course is: will the standard 2.6 hz thumbin , sorr I mean Phenom, when it arrives in q1 2008, be any faster than an OCd 2.4 like next week.. ??

Ran away

Yes I'd like to see if the errata fix really does improve performance by 10% as has been claimed. If it does then the B2 launch was a joke and the biggest slap in the face AMD Loyalists possible.

 

[Thom457]

How does all the negatives change with the Phenom running at 3.0 Ghz which was mentioned in the review but not shown for test purposes? After all the 6400 X2 is running at 3.2 Ghz and 90 mm based. Based on my experience with mp servers running windows you rarely see linear performance from most single applications even one supportive of multi-threads. The clue for this is when dual cores have similar scores to quad cores. A 6400 X2 producing the same or better score as a Quad Core that shows a 20% boost per clock rate suggests there it more involved in testing out these mp than just running your favorite game software. The AMD generally scales better for multiple applications than the Intels in the Server world and the Athlon was a 64 bit server chip from day one. There is some hope that a couple surprises are down the road. Hope.