HardOCP Overclock Phenom 9600 Black Edition

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HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

Thanks I needed a good laugh.
 
@ coret- Considering that you do all those things, then a quad core is a good purchase for you. Because I do a lot of things at once as well, I am also in the market for a quad core. Just a bit earlier today, for instance, my computer was slowed down to a near standstill as I overloaded its two cores. That doesn't happen often, but when it does, its very annoying. There are legitimate reasons to buy a quad core and I have no argument against those. For the moment, I just don't think Phenom is ready yet. The B3 stepping is supposed to cure its problems. I hope it does.

As to the TLB issue, I don't know how great a problem it is, other then AMD has admitted to it and has withheld shipment of higher clocked Phenoms until it is fixed. In a different thread (AMD giving away engineering samples for retail), Turpit speculated that there may be more problems than just the TLB for AMD to issue the stop shipment on the Barcelona variant and withhold the higher Phenoms. He also included the reasoning that if 98% of the people won't be affected, why the stop shipment? I don't know the answer to this, only see the effects.

For myself, next month I presently plan to buy a DFI 790FX board and a 5000+ BE for it. When the B3 stepping appears, if it is fixed properly, I'll buy one of those. ALternatively, if I see more good reviews involving the 9600 BE, I might give that a try instead of the 5000+ BE. I have a couple weeks to read reviews and think it over, so I'll be patient and let time show me the goods.
 


I was astounded by the DivX and Xvid encoding benchmarks in the Xbit article. They seem to scale about 25% quad over dual (Q6600 and E6850 are neck-and-neck in these benchmarks, the latter being clocked 25% higher), and yet even the 3Ghz Phenom comes in behind the dual-core!
 


Well, I'm an OC'er and I greatly care about Power Usage while OC'd.
That means more noise and more heat.

I currently have 4 systems running in my office and 3 are OC'd as far as I can OC them w/o needing a massive power increase. I want to minimize noise and heat put off by all of these systems while getting the maximum performance possible since I need both horsepower and the "Noise/Heat" savings.
 


sailer: Is the AMD Over Drive shipped with the 9600 BE or the DFI 790FX (or 790X) ?

There's no reason to buy a Phenom without the AOD.

 


I have to agree with Zen on this one TC. Your talking more about extreme overclocking rather than your average overclock.

I overclock to the limit of my hardware just to find its limits. I then back down to stock because in general the increased performance isn't really needed. Obviously depending on the cpu at stock anyway. To get my hardware to its limit means increasing all the fan speeds just to keep the heat down which is noisy and increases the system power consumption. If I start to find my hardware lagging then I can increase knowing were the limit is. Even then I will still try to keep the overclock as low as I think is necassary to keep noise/heat down.
 
For myself, next month I presently plan to buy a DFI 790FX board and a 5000+ BE for it. When the B3 stepping appears, if it is fixed properly, I'll buy one of those. ALternatively, if I see more good reviews involving the 9600 BE, I might give that a try instead of the 5000+ BE. I have a couple weeks to read reviews and think it over, so I'll be patient and let time show me the goods.
Click to expand...

I would still like to see a review using an AM2 cpu in an AM2+ board with ddr2 1066 compared to ddr2 800. K8's are notoriously sensitive to memory speed. For people looking to upgrade to an AM2 cpu it might give a nice performance boost.
 


You could just download it...
 
Ummm, With all due respect... you're linking a Phenom Black Edition review (overclocking Multiplier unlocked Phemom 9600) and discussing it's overclocking capabilities and then praising it. That's fine. But when someone points out the Q6600 (which overclocks far higher and is cheaper then even a regular Phenom 9600) you revert to talking about a standard Phenom 9500 as proof of a price perfomance lead by AMD. Honestly you're not being logical there. Face it, AMD doesn't currently have an answer to even the lowly Q6600 processor from Intel. Sure they have some Quads now and can now claim "Me too!" status and that's great and I applaud them. Technologically speaking, not process but rather core technology wise, Phenom (K10) is more advanced then Core2. I applaud AMD for their efforts and respect them quite a lot, but in my mind and the minds of most enthusiasts, overclockers and Gamers... Phenom, in it's current form, just plain sucks.
 


Or you could read what I said properly, along with the comment I was countering at the time. I was responding to someone calling the q6600 more affordable over the phenoms - I then showed that phenoms were cheaper. I was NOT comparing performance - but price. I know very well that phenom's performance isn't up to the same standards of Intels ... but then, they're not priced the same as Intel's offerings either.
 
Coret,

No, AMD has slashed the price of the Phenoms since the release.
Initially, the Low-End Phenoms were less than the Q6600 but the non-bottem end (can't call them high-end) were actually more expensive.

However, most of the talk here is of the Phenom 9600 Black Edition which will be priced very close to the price of the Q6600. On top of that, to OC the Phenom's well, it will require a 790 board which has all of the various MB voltage options. This will run you close to $200 for a board that can OC the Phenom. Compare that to a simple mobo like the DS3L which usually runs $80-$90, a good Phenom System still costs more.

Additionally, the I've read the Phenom Black Edition will not ship with a cooler, which will add even more to the cost. While the Intel Stock Cooler is not great for super OCs, it will allow some OCs and even at stock the Q6600 will beat a 3.0Ghz Phenom.

So, you could "technically" get a 4core processor into a system for a couple dollars less with AMD than Intel, it would be pointless from a performance or cost point of view. Far cheaper dual-cores which are faster in most tasks are available from both Intel and AMD, so somebody concerned over a couple dollars will go that way.

The X2 duals will be faster than the Phenom in the cheap AM2 boards since the Phenom will not OC but the X2 will hit 3.0+ Ghz and win most benchmarks. (Except the silly ones where the X2 is underclocked.)

If you want to try getting a fast and powerful Phenom which can beat the Duals, you will need the 790 motherboard. This brings the price to $$$, which means it is more expensive.

Therefore, with Phenom you will always pay more money and get less performance than you will with other options from AMD and Intel.
 
I'm talking about now

I realise this ... i started the thread. The point being discussed was the mention of affordability in the article where it said "There will be many Phenoms finding their way into enthusiast cases simply due to the fact that Phenoms can be found inexpensively". The section of the article in question was disputed by qpippas who said the Q6600 could be found more inexpensively. The article said "Phenoms" ... plural ... thus implying that it was talking about all of the phenoms, and not just the single BE phenom. Because of this, I counterred using information on all phenoms currently available, and even (in a follow up post) included the xeon 3210 since it is currently the cheapest quad core intel.

The BE is overclocked via the multiplier, which means the entire of the extra stress caused by an overclock is on the CPU - you're not adjusting the motherboard in any way. This means that it will overclock in existing AM2 boards (and even cheap AM2 boards). True, you won't be able to clock individual cores - but you can still overclock everything at once.

There's some question about this actually ... Kyle Bennett, when talking to his source for his BE in malaysia found out that it may actually have a stock cooler with it. I don't think we're going to know for certain if it will or not until release.

Or John Smith could take a phenom and drop it into an AM2 board he already has - saving the cost of the brand new motherboard and putting that money to better use ... maybe putting it towards a graphics or RAM upgrade, which would give him better performance overall. Afterall ... a 2.2GHz phenom with an 8800gts 512mb (the new one) vs. a Q6600@3.xGHz with a 8800gts 320mb (the old one). Which is going to give better performance at the resolutions people play at?

Unless you often run multithreaded applications which can take advantage of the extra 2 cores ... or if you multi-task ... or if you play supreme commander (my 6000+ doesn't like 81km maps much). In these situations it's viable, even in an AM2 board.

Wrong, due to the reasons I've mentioned earlier in this post.
 
Oh ... and this is just for the record, so I don't get branded an AMD fanboy/girl in the same way as Baron (I have no desire to end up that way ^^).

If someone is seeking advice on a new-build I normally recommend Intel chips (which chip depending on what they're going to be doing).

If someone is seeking an upgrade for an AM2 platform, I would recommend AMD (again, with chip tailored to what they'd be doing) as even with a phenom, the upgrade costs less than an entire platform change.

For my own computer I'll probably end up going Intel as I need to do a platform change anyway - and that xeon 3210 is looking quite appealing (even with the 8x multiplier).
 
Havoc,

#1 - The mobo is very important for OCing the BE Phenom.
http://xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-phenom.html
You can also read lots of threads at Xtremesystems.org.
It's not all about the multiplier.

#2 - Even Multi-threaded apps will lag on a quad if the core speed difference is so great with little difference in IPC, the potential gain is very small. The upgrade makes very little sense. In most tasks it will be much slower and in the limited quad-core apps it will have little gain.

#3 - If you system is struggling now with the 6000+, then the Phenom is not the answer. You will need to Upgrade to the darkside.
 
Quotes are from xbitlabs' article.

No mention of not being able to overclock on AM2 ... in fact, they didn't even try overclocking on an AM2 for the article.

So it can go to 2.8GHz without any voltage increases whatsoever ... all you do is change the multiplier from stock to 14x.

And the threads you mention over at xtremesystems.org ... they're all concerning the multiplier-locked phenoms. There isn't any mention of the BE on an AM2 board. I admit that locked phenoms do have issues overclocking as you can't raise the bus speed high enough before hitting a cieling, even on AM2+ (though new bios versions are meant to be helping with this). However, if you can change the multi, you don't have to worry about the bus speed.

As for my system ... I'm getting the same performance in supcom with my 6000+ as I did with my previous E6600. And as I've stated both here and elsewhere, my next upgrade is likely to be to Intel - I buy what gives me the performance I want at the time I want - for the last couple years that's mainly been AMD, and for the next couple years it looks like it will be Intel.

This doesn't mean I have to sit back and just let the Phenom be badly criticised when (at stock speeds) it's priced to be on par with Core2Q in price/performance terms. What would be wrong is if AMD were trying to price it above Core2Q with whatever justification Ruiz could pull out of his backside ... but they're not.

Is it's lack of performance at overclocked speeds poor? Yes ... but it does have it's place in the market.
 


The last I read, the AOD was a download, so it wouldn't make any difference which of the motherboards you were using. For that matter, AOD is a utility and I don't know if any motherboard comes with it.
 


From the way I look at it, though the AMD Quad benched 25% higher than the AMD X2, the whole article was written with an artificial basis. Yes, clock for clock, the Quad might beat the X2, but the X2 has to be underclocked to make that happen. In real life, running at stock settings, the X2 would beat the Quad. Even given the Quad can be overclocked, the X2 can be overclocked as well.

When it comes to comparing the AMD Quad to Intel's Q6600 and E6850, the Intel chips have a superior design, use better gate materials so there is less leakage, have lower temps, can be overclocked far higher. There's no competition because they are in a different class.

Barring the TLB errata, had Phenom come out at the time the QFX did, Phenom would have been a fair contender to C2D, perhaps even the early Q6600, in my opinion. But its SOI design is self limiting, so it is hindered in anything it does to try to improve. Even if the B3 stepping is successful in getting rid of the present bugs and further improvements occur, I don't think Phenom has a chance at competing with Intel's chip design. For the AMD fans, they must now wait for AM3 and hope that chip will make a winning breakthrough.

I don't mean to say that the Phenom is bad and it has no potential of beating even the 65nm AM2 chips in daily useage, it just won't compete well against Intel's quads for top honors. Will Phenom eventually sell well? It might; if the bugs are fixed, if the price is kept low enough so that people going to Best Buy, etc see an AMD quad priced lower than an Intel quad, and to some extent, even among home builders such as ourselves. Even I might buy one if the price is low enough and the performance is good enough for that price. After all, my old 939 machine is starting to break down and I don't feel like putting money into a dead end technology. To me, it depends on the overall price to build the machine.
 


We did read what you wrote. The user stated that the Q6600 was more affordable then the Phenom in question. Although currently a Phenom 9600 is cheaper then an Intel Q6600 the difference varies from $14USD to $40USD (OEM vs. Retail Q6600). Considering the overclocking abilities of the Q6600 (and the horrid, horrible abilities of the Phenom 9600 in this department) then there really isn't a reason to purchase a Phenom 9600 if you're looking into overclocking. If you're looking at price performance, well a Q6600 performs more like a Phenom 9900 (and faster then that as well) therefore the Q6600 wins in that department as well.

Now, this goes further. Even if you don't overclock, it takes a Phenom clocked past 2.6GHz to match or beat the performance of a Q6600 running stock clocks of 2.4GHz... neither of these two parts fit the bill.

Q6600 is more expensive because it's faster, more stable (no TLB Errata here) and offers more compelling features. But being about $14 USD more isn't really what I would call more expensive.
When you claim that they're not priced the same you're only providing one side of the equation. By you own logic I could say that a Pentium !!! is not priced the same as a Phenom 9600 thus the Pentium !!! is a better buy. But of course not, you'd exclaim, price/performance!!

Price/Performance wise you cannot beat a Q6600. Add to it the overclockability and not having to worry about a possible issue with a TLB errata and you've got the full package.

All this of course is a moot point. Your thread is about a Phenom 9600 Black Edition. which has neither price, overclockability, features, energy efficiency, perf/clock or overall performance over a Q6600.
 


What's with the "Multi-core efficiency" result? What happened to the vaunted advantage of "native" quad-core?
 


Why are they comparing a cheaper, released Intel proc to a more expensive AMD proc that is hoped to be released in early 2Q?


Also, take a look at this:

Note*- Graphics testing may be confusing. So I will clarify why it is different from past reviews. The Phenom is part of a platform which is called Spider. In order to show how the Platform works as a whole I will show the Phenom using the ATI 3870 (Single and Crossfire), comparing it to the Q6600 with the HD 2900XT (Single and Crossfire) and as an extra bonus throw in the 8800 GT as a sneek peek for an upcoming review. Sorry for the confusion.
Raven
Click to expand...

Why the hell would he put a 2900XT in the Intel system but a HD3870 in the AMD system?

Would it not make more sense to use the SAME card in both? And then he throws in the 8800GT, which further confuses me.
 


I can think of a few possible explainations.

First they are on the Intel side and want to prove that even AMD's best CPU from the future cannot beat a year old Intel CPU. Of course, they also used defective motherboards, different video cards for the CPUs and and an engineering sample AMD CPU that was known to have defects in order to do this.

Second, they were trying to show how good the AMD chip is. In this scenerio, they used a more powerful video card for the year old Intel CPU, defective motherboards for the AMD, and an impaired AMD CPU to show that it could indeed shine in some tests despite its difficulties. But that scenerio doesn't fit because of their stated conclussions

Ok, there's a third possible explaination. Either the reviewer was stupid or he thought the readers were stupid. I suppose that might be the best expaination, a stupid reviewer, because it its not that, the reviewer was acting like an Intel shill.
 
Pros:
True Quad-Core
Optimized to work in conjunction with 790FX chipset (see cons)


Cons:
The 790FX chipset needs work in order to complete optimization
Will not overclock due to immature chipset features
Click to expand...

Oh dear.

So why the "true quad-core" a pro if it has no tangible benefit?
I love who a pro is that it is optimized to work with a poor chipset that needs work.



Also of note, AMD's top part wouldn't overclock, AT ALL for him.
 


In opposition to this review, which I think is poorly done, is one from hardocp:

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=mtQzMywxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzda==

Hardocp tested 4 9600 BEs and was able to achieve overclocks of 2.8ghz(1), 2.9ghz (1), and 3ghz(2) using the Overdrive application. As the author of the Hardocp aticle wrote, "The Phenom is in no way a bad product" and "In fact, Phenom is a very good processor, it just simply is not 'the best'". Further, they wrote, "we were able to get a very stable 700mhz of overclocking headroom (3ghz) out of our Black Edition 9600 running for over 14 hours at full load on all four cores".

Now given that Hardocp was using a processor that anyone can buy and now some engineering sample that is defective, Hardocp's review was much more responsible and informative in my opinion. It still acknowledges that Intel has better CPUs, but does not purposely shoot down the 9600 BE.
 
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