Overclocking: Core i7 Vs. Phenom II

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[citation][nom]jcknouse[/nom]Are you paying anything? Out of your pocket and directly to Toms...no...you're not...at least, not that I'm aware of. [/citation]

you dont pay them directly but if you buy a product they got money for to promote on there article, say intel gives them $1000,- to write an article on core 2 Quad and benchmark it faster then phenom 9950 sure they will do that and you will be guided to think it is faster then phenom 9950. and this is business you know. And yes i beleve certain benchmarks are rigged i dont accuse anyone but it would not suprise me if this how the whole OC and review site system works. It is all about $$$
 
Rather interesting to see this at least. Indeed, the Phenom II's overclocking performance is a tad of a disappointment, though it does seem to suggest that clock-speed-wise, at any rate, it appears to have at least caught up with Core2Quad or so. Of course, a more broad survey here to cover the previous generation of CPUs (at least the C2Q, if not also the original Phenoms) might also be most interesting to see.

I'm also curious as to how effective the inclusion of HyperThreading is in the Core i7. I think that I'm hardly alone in speculating that perhaps the bulk of the i7's margin in WinRAR over the PII was due to its use of HT. In such a case, it's most impressive to see how Intel's engineers have managed to maximize its effect from when they first introduced it with the later Pentium 4s. It makes me wonder if/when AMD might attempt to place such a feature in their own CPUs.
 
[citation][nom]spearhead[/nom]you dont pay them directly but if you buy a product they got money for to promote on there article, say intel gives them $1000,- to write an article on core 2 Quad and benchmark it faster then phenom 9950 sure they will do that and you will be guided to think it is faster then phenom 9950. and this is business you know. And yes i beleve certain benchmarks are rigged i dont accuse anyone but it would not suprise me if this how the whole OC and review site system works. It is all about $$$[/citation]

Are you implying core 2 quad is slower than 9950?
 
I really do NOT want to see a C2Q 6600 benchie compared here. The 6600 is dead, and near impossible to find. I would like to see the comparison to something easy to buy - like the 9450/9550.

I also agree with the previous comment - quit using Asus products, they are junk, they don't care about the customer, and we need a SOLID review, on SOLID, similar boards.

And why do you insist on testing a High end board VS middle of the road?
"Hi guys, guess what 12+2+2 phase power supports higher Overclocks than a 4 phase POS." BTW check the specs - The gigabyte has a NICE 12 phase power system VS the Asus 4 phase.

and "The cpu cooler we used has a copper base" Hell my old Thermal Take Volcano 9 has a copper base! would you use that here? Hell no! I ONLY use 100% copper HSF for my AIR OC's (Thermal Take V1 for one rig, Thermal Take Duo Orb for the other.) All copper makes a difference.

As to the ram - people here have already slammed you guys enough for that one! 4GB sweet spot.... Vista laughs at my 4GB of ram like its a joke... then stares at me like "wait, you're serious, that's all I get?"

This article was a joke, and waste of time. One of these days I hope to come to Tom's and find QUALITY reviews again. Until then... I just shake my head and wonder.
 
[citation][nom]nottheking[/nom]Rather interesting to see this at least. Indeed, the Phenom II's overclocking performance is a tad of a disappointment, though it does seem to suggest that clock-speed-wise, at any rate, it appears to have at least caught up with Core2Quad or so. Of course, a more broad survey here to cover the previous generation of CPUs (at least the C2Q, if not also the original Phenoms) might also be most interesting to see.I'm also curious as to how effective the inclusion of HyperThreading is in the Core i7. I think that I'm hardly alone in speculating that perhaps the bulk of the i7's margin in WinRAR over the PII was due to its use of HT. In such a case, it's most impressive to see how Intel's engineers have managed to maximize its effect from when they first introduced it with the later Pentium 4s. It makes me wonder if/when AMD might attempt to place such a feature in their own CPUs.[/citation]

Work done per cycle has not caught up. See benchmarks:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2009/01/08/amd-phenom-ii-x4-940-and-920-review/11
 
Since they used an epic fail mobo with epic fail power phases, and an epic fail cooler, I think they should immediately do a real ENTHUSIAST review with ENTHUSIAST parts(like, $50 more with AMDs oh so reasonable prices). Otherwise, it give the appearance that the entire review was rigged. Notice the close victories that the Core i7 eeked out? Well, with an extra 200-400mhz, AMD would've won all of the close contests. Besides, does anybody buy the whole "we're a leading hardware review site, but completely lack any AM2/AM2+/AM3 compatible heatsinks laying around anywhere. We didn't know that we'd need them."
 
amd it's a great company but they don't have the alpha dog ,so i use to think about amd...... they are little LIONS ....dont get this wrong !they are not alpha DOGs but they are lions, petit but .... they need our support
 
For everyone bitching about rigged bechmarks, and I'm guilty of that myself, this is your chance to support the open source community and have REAL, PEER-REVIEWED, open benchmarks available to the masses. Get enough of you guys to donate a few bucks here and there and you'll have benchmarks which dont rely on the cpu vendor id saying Intel to get good results.
*cough*
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/atom-nano-review.ars/6
*cough*
 
Also, I know its been said before, but every other review site was able to get similar, if not better overclocking results for the phenom, using much less voltage, if you are going to provide a realistic expectation (though I do applaud toms conceding that the phenom does in fact use less power over time because the cpu is 90% idle normally) ... CAN YOU PLEASE REPLICATE THE TESTS WITH a different binned Phenom2 chip and post a followup/update on power-consumption at the same frequency but at < 1.5v which seems to be normal for everyone else.. maybe?
 
This is the worst review I've read here in Tom's. Totally crappy stuff I mean from the memory to the hsf to the skill of the person who did the overclocking and the motherboard used. AFAIK the highest OC records were achieved using a 790FX motherboard.. Not with the newer 790gx mobos.

World Frequency Records (AMD K10 CPU) :
Nº 1 : Team Finland (SF3D & Sampsa) reached 6435.62 MHz with an AMD Phenom II ES (45 nm) [Details]
MB : DFI LP DK 790FXB-M2RS (AMD 790FX rev 00) - RAM : OCZ 2048 MB
Nº 2 : Donbe reached 6420.62 MHz with an AMD Phenom II (45 nm) [Details]
MB : DFI LP DK 790FXB-M2RS (AMD 790FX rev 00) - RAM : A-Data Technology 2048 MB
Nº 3 : SF3D/Sampsa reached 6405.72 MHz with an AMD Phenom II ES (45 nm) MB : DFI LP DK 790FXB-M2RS (AMD 790FX rev 00) - RAM : OCZ 2048 MB
Nº 4 : futto-kun reached 6231.19 MHz with an AMD Phenom II (45 nm)
MB : Asus M3A79-T DELUXE (AMD 790FX rev 00) - RAM : Team Group Inc. 2048 MB
Nº 5 : authienvu8@OCCLub_amtech.vn reached 6231.01 MHz with an AMD Phenom II (45 nm)
MB : Asus M4A79 Deluxe (AMD 790FX rev 00) - RAM : OCZ 2048 MB
http://valid.canardpc.com/records.php

 
[citation][nom]scryer_360[/nom]Also, I have to ask about Memory: 6 gigs of DDR3 versus 4 gigs of DDR2. Speedwise DDR3 wins and there is two more gigs of it. So why is the Phenom so close in most games?For me to understand this AMD is going to have to ship some AM3 samples out to Toms and other sites so we can get equal amounts of memory at equal speeds benchmarked. Right now, with a little more memory at higher speeds, the Phenom II may even be quicker than an OC'ed 920...[/citation]
Its because games are more gpu bound than cpu bound. The review used the same video card for both systems. The core i7 is faster clock for clock. It just is, and its more expensive and requires a new motherboard (with new ddr3 memory). Also, dual channel memory is not supported, so that is why triple channel (and thus 6 GB) was used.
 
[citation][nom]chaos23[/nom]This is the worst review I've read here in Tom's. Totally crappy stuff I mean from the memory to the hsf to the skill of the person who did the overclocking and the motherboard used. AFAIK the highest OC records were achieved using a 790FX motherboard.. Not with the newer 790gx mobos. World Frequency Records (AMD K10 CPU) :Nº 1 : Team Finland (SF3D & Sampsa) reached 6435.62 MHz with an AMD Phenom II ES (45 nm) [Details]MB : DFI LP DK 790FXB-M2RS (AMD 790FX rev 00) - RAM : OCZ 2048 MBNº 2 : Donbe reached 6420.62 MHz with an AMD Phenom II (45 nm) [Details]MB : DFI LP DK 790FXB-M2RS (AMD 790FX rev 00) - RAM : A-Data Technology 2048 MBNº 3 : SF3D/Sampsa reached 6405.72 MHz with an AMD Phenom II ES (45 nm) MB : DFI LP DK 790FXB-M2RS (AMD 790FX rev 00) - RAM : OCZ 2048 MBNº 4 : futto-kun reached 6231.19 MHz with an AMD Phenom II (45 nm)MB : Asus M3A79-T DELUXE (AMD 790FX rev 00) - RAM : Team Group Inc. 2048 MBNº 5 : authienvu8@OCCLub_amtech.vn reached 6231.01 MHz with an AMD Phenom II (45 nm) MB : Asus M4A79 Deluxe (AMD 790FX rev 00) - RAM : OCZ 2048 MB[/citation]

That's what I'm trying to say in my previous comment. -_-
 
[citation][nom]anonymous x[/nom]Its because games are more gpu bound than cpu bound. The review used the same video card for both systems. The core i7 is faster clock for clock. It just is, and its more expensive and requires a new motherboard (with new ddr3 memory). Also, dual channel memory is not supported, so that is why triple channel (and thus 6 GB) was used.[/citation]


You cant just put 2 sticks of memory in? I thought it was capable of handling that... ?
 
[citation][nom]spearhead[/nom]you dont pay them directly but if you buy a product they got money for to promote on there article, say intel gives them $1000,- to write an article on core 2 Quad and benchmark it faster then phenom 9950 sure they will do that and you will be guided to think it is faster then phenom 9950. and this is business you know. And yes i beleve certain benchmarks are rigged i dont accuse anyone but it would not suprise me if this how the whole OC and review site system works. It is all about $$$[/citation]Well it would have to be alot more than that to rig the results. $1000 is petty cash. Rigging is what happened with the GTX295 launch benchmarks, not because the reviewers are biased, but because NVIDIA mandated 5 of the benchmarks.
 
Speaking of the Nvidia mandated rigging, notice that unusually small selection of gaming benchmarks in this and Anand Tech's review? AFAIK, Phenom II would've won most other game benchmarks. I smell an Intel mandate.
 
Hmmm,a badly configured phenom II system (only 3.64ghz??) compared to a fine tuned i7 with 160mhz advantage; not very interesting in my opinion. We know that phenom II is worse but this article isn't very realistic. At least your benchmarks should be at the same core speeds.
 
One thing I would like to point out is that from most reviews there is around a 20% performance advantage core i7 has over the AM2 platform, however this 20% increase in performance comes at an increased cost of anywhere from 30% to 40%. If you want 'the best' then obviously it doesn't matter so much, but if you are looking for the system that provides the most performance per $$$ AMD is clearly the winner. Given that a cheap C2D system is fast enough for 99.9% of the higher end gaming market, AMD has a strong argument over Intel given that PhenII outperforms C2D and is a better value than core i7. Of course, as the article points out this will change as prices shift down on the Intel side and up on the AMD side.
 
Intel get more Ram, a higher overclock and a better CPU cooler; while the AMD in this test wasn't able to reach the same OC as the Intel sample the best most valid would test would have been with the most level test bed. This test favored Intel.
 
i tell you why....because amd cpu in this case will OC much futher and at 4+ ghz will be much closer or even past it the performance of nehalem ...and a amd cpu with a 2 yers old soket and with DDR2, OC better than I7 ,whit same performance or better?...can u imagine? all the triple channel fancy mobo ,cooler, RAM etc will worth nothing
 
hummm ...Phenom II seems lower price and outstanding preformance and lower power needs.....i will choose AMD .....thanK's 2 AMD sOlUtiOn's
 
anonymous x
Its because games are more gpu bound than cpu bound. The review used the same video card for both systems. The core i7 is faster clock for clock. It just is, and its more expensive and requires a new motherboard (with new ddr3 memory). Also, dual channel memory is not supported, so that is why triple channel (and thus 6 GB) was used.
Click to expand...
I realize that Core i7 requires triple channel and therefore to get the memory working optimally it requires filled slots, but thats exactly my point. Triple channel is also faster than dual channel (more bandwidth) and in this case the RAM is faster and there is more RAM. Maybe it'd be better if there were 512 sticks of DDR3 so we could get down to four gigs of it.

Even though the games require heavy GPU and CPU usage, memory is where it all begins. Data from the HDD goes into the memory before making its way to the CPU and GPU, and with the faster DDR3 and with the extra storage capacity, I hope you can see why I'm wondering about the tests. Remember, the OS and benchmark software need to run behind the game to work, and the game's functions are stored in the memory.

Or look at it this way: say we compared Phenom II to a QX9770. DDR2 memory for both, but the Intel system got four one gig sticks at DDR2 800, where as the Phenom II system got four 512 mb sticks at DDR2 667. Of course the Phenom II would run games slower, especially if these were benchmarks in Vista. Vista almost needs two gigs to run ok for normal use, forget gaming.
In the case of Tom's benchmark of the Core i7 versus the Phenom II, the Core i7 gets the benefits of triple channel, two more gigs of ram and faster memory clock. All minor things for this benchmark, but considering how little a difference there is between i7 and Phenom II (especially given Phenom II's lower clock speed) in some of these game benchmarks, well, all I'm saying is that when AM3 comes around, and Phenom II gets DDR3, triple channel and two more gigs of RAM, not to mention the better platform we all expect AM3 to provide Phenom II, well, maybe AMD beat Intel again. Value wise of course they have, but it could even be a performance case now.

Its gone from Toyota versus Chrysler (Intel vs AMD) to Toyota and Honda now.
 
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