Phenom 2 920 and 940 Benchmarks

[fazers_on_stun]

^ well said! However some here will label you as an Intel fanboy despite your giving kudos to AMD where deserved.

I think AMD is positioning the AM3 P2 (which is shorter to type than PhII) to get the new builds mainly, and the current Denebs to get the upgraders.

BTW I'm looking forward to the nVidia GTX295 CES demoes - dual 55nm GPUs on a card. Hopefully it won't take a megawatt PSU to run, or a Swiss bank account to buy, either. Otherwise it's a 4870 X2 for my next build.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

I agree with sedaine as well, well said
As for that 295, its a 289 watt killer, and at that usage, Im not sure how much overhead there is for ocing, but time will tell

 

[roofus]

bleh dual gpu cards.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Wow. Wall of text thread ahoy.

As for the GTX295, I want to see how much they can shrink that die size from how large the GTX280 is and somehow fit those onto a standard sized dual GPU board.

That will be the most interesting thing.

And I am sure it will need at least a 800+ PSU maybe a 1000w one for it.

 

[spathotan]

Its a sandwhich card jimmy, two PCB's. Just like the 7950GX2 and 9800GX2. And youre probably right about the PSU requirements.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Yea, dual pcb, weird clock/shader config, they had to do alot of dancing to make this one work.
OT, Im looking more forwards to ATIs quad drivers, and see how well they perform, should this month, or the next, plus theres a power setting driver coming up, if I recall

 

[jimmysmitty]

^Ewwww.... dual PCBs are bleh. In fact if I rememebr only nVidia has ever done that. I think ATI might if they try for a X4, basically 4CF one card, but thats a big if.

I mean the heat for a X2 is normally bad but with dual PCB it will be worse for one card than the other.

And the amount of heat GPUs put out these days compared to a 7950 is quite a lot.

 

[spathotan]

I dont think there is anybody that likes dual PCB cards, and if they do its that green blood in them making them say it.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Well, speculation has gpus using up to 4 cores in the future, and taking current 700 cores at that node, it is possible to have all 4 on 1 pcb, but again, this is speculation, tho, the di size would permit it, and possibly power levels as well

 

[Dekasav]

I can imagine AMD pulling a 40nm HD 5870 X4 out the week before Larrabee launches.

If 40nm comes out in June/July, and give them a couple months for the design of the X2, then a couple more months for a dual PCB X4. If this keeps up, we could see the old ring bus... but with GPU's instead of their parts.

 

[azxcvbnm321]

Yipsi, the social liberal/fiscal conservatives today are labeled libertarians and are considered conservatives in today's political arena. Judging by your stances, especially your pro-life and anti illegal immigration stances, you are also considered a conservative.

I'm opposed to conservative acceptance of capitalism at all costs. I'm opposed to conservative attacks on fair taxation as if no taxes beyond sales taxes are fair. That concept comes directly from Ayn Rand's playbook, as if everyone's rational enough to pay user fees to support public services in proportion to their need.

I think you need to elaborate on what a "fair" level of taxation is. Hardly anyone argues for the complete elimination of income and other federal taxes and virtually everyone believes that government should have some role in providing public services.

The differences lies with efficiencies. Libertarians (little L) like me understand that government operates inefficiently in most cases and so should be limited to providing services where they offer the best bang for the buck, where they are the best option. National defense and infrastructure are two key examples. Having privately funded armies and tanks doesn't make sense and would create a host of problems. That's why the government, wasteful as it is, is still our best option. I don't support private roads or government selling toll roads to private companies. I also believe in a minimal social safety net to prevent people from dying on the streets. Minimal does not mean the poor should be guaranteed a middle class lifestyle as most liberals believe, minimal means shelter, as in a small studio, food, and education up to 12th grade. The last two stances separates me from the hardcore Libertarian that you may be talking about, but those are very few in number.

Globalization is here to stay and a power that cannot be stopped. Globalization is a good thing overall for humanity, there's never been a program or force that has reduced poverty more than globalization has. And as emerging countries get richer, they'll someday be able to afford the high end stuff we create. No we don't create tangible goods, we create post-modern intangible goods like concepts, movies, brands, games, etc. These are every bit as valuable as tangible clothing or cars. A Nike shoe costs several times more to buy than a generic shoe, that's because the Nike Swoosh is more valuable than the shoe itself. That brand confers social status upon the wearer much as a Mercades car does for a driver. Humans are social creatures and social rankings will ALWAYS BE IMPORTANT. We are rich enough to own almost all the tangible stuff we need. In the past, material things conferred social status. The rich had nice clothes and horse driven transportation. Well everyone can afford decent clothing now and transportation to boot so there has to be another method to show social status and that's where branding and post-modern concepts come in. As long as humans strive for social status, and it is something innate within us, brands will be with us. An entire series of books can be written on this subject, so I won't go further, but don't worry about our competitive position. We have a comparative advantage in technology and post-modern goods, which is why we sell intangible stuff instead of tangibles. Each country should seek to export goods where it has a comparative advantage in. Manufacturing low value stuff will never come back to the US. Let it go, like candle manufacturing for light, those industries will be replaced by newer, more relevant stuff.

 

[patater]

yeah these will be sweet. i mean come on, who needs all that virtualization, zip compression/decompression, converting crap anyways? i dont. i want a chip to GAME...and from the likes of it, these phenoms will do the job, for half the price of those intel ones. its not fanboism...its just bang for buck you know? i love mopars...i dont like hondas...but i would certainly settle for an awd tsi talon...if you all know what that is, you put a couple parts on it, crank up the boost, and you are walking around with almost 500hp for say, 5k bucks..kinda like amd..why hop up that honda for this and that and spend twice as much for half the fun? not my cup of tea...

 

[jimmysmitty]

^Actually the Phenom II 940 is (supposively is key here) priced higher than a Core i7 920 and the Core i7 920 would do better in some areas and with some setups for gaming.

But Then again if you compare the right CPUs by price area instead of clock speed then see which one is better thats how you get the best bang for your buck.

 

[Just_An_Engineer]

^Actually the Phenom II 940 is (supposively is key here) priced higher than a Core i7 920 and the Core i7 920 would do better in some areas and with some setups for gaming.

But Then again if you compare the right CPUs by price area instead of clock speed then see which one is better thats how you get the best bang for your buck.

I'll be shocked if it ends up being priced higher than the i7 920. All of the places I have seen it listed thus far are selling the i7 920 for about $20 more than whatever they are listing the Phenom II 940 for.

 

[spathotan]

They wouldnt possibly be stupid enough to price it above the i7 920. The chip would be an instant failure.

 

[Just_An_Engineer]

They wouldnt possibly be stupid enough to price it above the i7 920. The chip would be an instant failure.

Agreed. I suspect that the Phenom II will debut at around $275 and then drop to around $250 whenever retailers finally get around to selling the i7 920 at the "official" retail price of $285 instead of the $300 it has been selling for since release.

 

[spathotan]

$275 is probably the safest estimate. However they will still be doomed if Intel musters up the courage and drops the Q9550 down below that.

Pricing will be the key ingredient to its success...not its performance.

 

[azxcvbnm321]

Radnor, you have a very skewed interpretation of events. The United States did not cause WWII and entered WWII only when Japan attacked and Germany declared war. Yes Europe was destroyed by war, war is indeed incredibly destructive and there might be isolated incidents where unnecessary destruction was caused, but the US was perhaps the least guilty of any of the major powers. Dresden was largely a British affair. And that incident can't compare to what happened on the Eastern Front where Germans destroyed, razed, enslaved, and killed Russians en mass during their occupation. That was repaid when the Russians entered Germany and systematically began to rape, kill, and pillage with the full approval of Stalin and the Soviet government. Japan's brutal treatment of other Asians is remembered and not forgiven to this day! To even mention the United States in light of the atrocities committed by other nations is ridiculous in the extreme. There was no major country that behaved more honorably than the United States in WWII. Remember it was the US who participated in daylight bombing of Germany to better target military installations and limit civilian casualties while the British thought it was too dangerous and participated in nighttime area bombings and firebombings.

The United States has subsidized the national defense for NATO countries for decades. It costs a lot of money to maintain and build all the equipment defending Europe. Yes Europeans contributed, but not their fair share. The only reason France and Germany can spend so little on national defense and so much on other social programs is because the United States pays for the rest. No one forced countries to join NATO, in fact, a lot of countries were denied membership. Some like Georgia desperately want to join because NATO membership has a lot of benefit and they know that the US pays the majority of the bill.

Of course we sell things. That's how trade works. But no one can force someone to buy stuff they don't want or need. Not even on Ebay can I sell my literal ****. I live near the beach but selling sand is tough. I hope you're not one of those people who believes that just because we gain, others must suffer. The beauty of capitalism and trade is that BOTH SIDES BENEFIT! Think of an AMD or Intel CPU. How much would it cost you to make your own if these companies didn't offer their goods? You would need to build a plant, design the chip, test it, etc. Yes Intel makes a profit from selling you a CPU for $160, but it still benefits you because you're saving a huge amount of money by buying from Intel. A simpler example would be a T-shirt made in China and offered to you for $5. How much would it take you to make your own T-shirt? It would probably cost more than $5 and take you a lot of time which also counts as money. So the seller makes a profit, you save money, everyone wins. Yes, even the worker making $1 a day sowing T-shirts wins. Why? Because without that job, he or she would have to work back on the farm where they can only make, let's say $0.50 a day growing vegetables. A person would only take a job if it is the best option available. The $1 a day looks terrible to you because you have a better option, but it looks great to the person who otherwise could only make $0.50 a day. And $1 in China can buy you a lot of stuff (not anymore, but then no one makes $1 a day sowing T-shirts in China anymore either). You have to get away from the mentality that if a country or person benefits from an exchange, then it must be bad or exploitative for the other side. How much would it have cost for other countries to develop their own F-16 fighters or tanks? Some countries do develop their own military equipment, but many find it better to buy from the US. And not everyone who wants to buy can buy.

 

[spearhead]

I'll be shocked if it ends up being priced higher than the i7 920. All of the places I have seen it listed thus far are selling the i7 920 for about $20 more than whatever they are listing the Phenom II 940 for.

that they dare to ask that much they wont sell much of them at such a price im sure of that. Phenom II is good when you place them in a am2+ config with a GX motherboard they sell pretty cheap here in the netherlands along with ddr2, but i doubt the AM3 version with DDR3 will be that interesting tough.core I7 ain't that bad just a bit overpriced here. most of the online shops just ask more in euro's then it would cost in dollars 🙁 that is crap to be honest, i mean the 1 euro is about 1,39 worth in dollars at the moment. means we pay 40%-50% more .
i want to get rid of my pentium 4 system and go for something decent, phenom II seems good enough while core I7 would be a better tweaker and but is above the buget for now. i just wait until 2nd Q and hopefully it drops the price of ddr3 and the motherboard a bit. say if i could get something nice around 800 euro it would be worth it. 😀 If things go well i should have enough money by that time.
i both had intel and AMD systems in the last couple of years. I dont care to much about the company were it comes from but more about preformance and stability. Yet i would be glad if Amd would be more competitive in the higher-end market. this would make the prices drop faster and force both sides to speed-up there road-maps. say if AMD is realy waiting until 4Q 2010 before they launch something 6 or 8-core then then phenom II better be a darn good cpu or either they are doomed in my opinion or they either should manage to get a strong foot in the middle class market with low prices same as the radeon line up. I wonder if they will manage to get even soon. they can't have much losses over and over anymore. but one thing is for sure they do better on the server market then last time with the barcelona fiasco, but will it be enough? that is the question.

 

[spearhead]

$275 is probably the safest estimate. However they will still be doomed if Intel musters up the courage and drops the Q9550 down below that.

Pricing will be the key ingredient to its success...not its performance.

i hope they drop Q9550 soon then. not because of the fact it would work against amd ,i wish amd to be profitable but of the fact that both Q9550 and 940 would be a bargain to buy for me if it would hit below 200 euro in the netherlands.

 

[caamsa]

Good lord turpit you just hijacked this great topic

Now you better lock the thing before you are again tempted to run off at the keyboard.

What the hell you never even read my great words of wisdom either.......

 

[Krank]

i agree on that jaydeejohn pehnom II gives good competition for its price. i hope to see some overclock benchmarks from both the 920 and 940 soon. i might go for the 920 if it overclocks almost the same. for its price it a bargain compared to q9450 and q9550. im still thinking about what motherboard to choose my choice fel between Asus M3A78-T and GA-MA790GP-DS4H. the main diffrence is asus has express gate which is a very nice feature in my opinion and overall more features and gigabyte has a dual bios heatpipes and 8 pin power connector on near the voltage regulators asus has a 4 pin connector on that place. so what is better?

An ASUS M3A79-T DELUXE has it all. I've been using this one for few months. As they say "Rock Solid. Heart touching." 😀

 

[spearhead]

An ASUS M3A79-T DELUXE has it all. I've been using this one for few months. As they say "Rock Solid. Heart touching." 😀

thank you for your advice i take this in account

btw i think that amd would do a good job when they would allow us to use the onboard igp as physx processor once they get there physx off the plate. would be a good thing as a cheap solution make the radeon line-up even faster at minimum cost. atleast it would boost the reason to buy an amd chipset over an nvidia one even more.

 

[sedaine]

They wouldnt possibly be stupid enough to price it above the i7 920. The chip would be an instant failure.

It's important to consider FULL system cost. Even if AMD priced the PII 940 $50.00 more than i7 920 - the cost of the full AMD system would still be much less. You can get decent AM2 board for $100, compared to decent i7 for $300.

Still crying over the extra $25 for the P2 940?

Then consider the cost of DDR3 compared to DDR2 - OHHHHH and rememberyou now need 3 sticks! That means you'll pay $180 for cheapest i7 RAM (6GB) and $40 for cheapest P2 940 RAM (4GB).

Hmmm, are we still crying over that $25?

On Newegg i7 is $295. Let us assume P2 940 is also ~ $300 then cost of these parts from Newegg as of today would be:

P2 940 System:

CPU: $300
Board: $100
RAM: $60 (6GB)
----------------------
Total: $460.00


i7 920 System:

CPU: $300
Board: $300
RAM: $180 (6GB)
--------------------------------
Total: $780.00


People with existing AM2+ will ask - Should I spend $300 on P2 940 or $800+ for new i7 920 setup (assuming you reuse PSU etc.)?

I don't think many Core 2 people will be heading P2 direction... doesn't make any sense to do so unless they know something I don't. But as far as I can tell - the 940 is in the Q9450/9550 territory. In fact a Q6600 owner should still feel masculine with that CPU.

WAIT...

Something I would wait for if you are considering P2 setup - AM3 boards in Feb. You may see between 5-10% improvement on SOME benchmarks since it'll support DDR3.


My Recomendations

NEW SYSTEM

Unlimited funds: Get i7 setup. Best thing out there.

On Budget: Get AM2+ setup - or wait and see how much AM3 costs in 4 weeks time since it could mean 5-10% performance boost.


UPGRADE

X2 (any nm) AM2+: What are you waiting for... get Phenom 2 now. You have nothing to lose... instant Q9550 upgrade!

X3 (65nm) AM2+: I never liked 3 wheeled cars or bikes. However, a manage trois is always better than having just one. I'd upgrade to X4.

X4 (65nm) AM2+: You KLUTS - why did you buy Phenom I?

Core 2 Duo: Are those the Q9450/9550 tumbling down the hill? Sure looks like it.

Q6600: Same as above

Q9450/9550: Don't you just wish Intel would drop the price on those Extreme's? You're probably stuck with your setup for now... makes more sense to get i7 if you really need that performance.

 

[EXT64]

Spearhead, I was trying to make the same decision and got the Gigabyte board because it was on sale. You mentioned most of their notable features, and I was going back and forth nearly every day. I finally grabbed the gigabyte because it was $10 off (thus making it $20 less than the Asus). The Asus seemed very well thought out and solid, but the combination of better cooling, 8 pin power plug, a brand new (F3H, just a couple weeks old) BIOS, and a $20 lower price won me over.

Edit: I also liked the onboard since it allows me to test the PC without using my reused 4850 (which I know works) until I test the rest of the system.