Phenom II 955 Versus Core i7 920: Gaming Value Compared

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Please Pauldh, not yet another E5200 build. When you can partner a PhenomIIx2 550 or a PhenomII x3 710 and a 760G sb710 motherboard for $155 of 780G sb710 for $175 why would you kneecap that system with a 4850? Haven't we seen enough overclocked E5200s?
 
[citation][nom]playerone[/nom]955 are good for 3.9-4.2 on air WTF? I7 was DDR3 so you had to go with the DDR3? Oh, ok. but then why did you set it up with less bandwidth than most DDR2 can be pushed? and then again why did you only do 3.7?I supose you will now change the subject...[/citation]

I'm happy to stay on subject. It allows me to remind you that you've gone out of your way to pretend the i7 doesn't exist at all, which we all know will go a hell of a lot higher than 3.45 GHz. :)
 
[citation][nom]ImaxAMD[/nom]I'll erase your childish emotive comments and try to keep it objective for you...[/citation]

Heheh, they're getting to you, huh? 😀

[citation][nom]ImaxAMD[/nom]So you are saying the CPU O/C is more important than the Dram timings, HT, NB subsystem? [/citation]

You know what I'm saying, and that's why you've spent a large number of posts ignoring the point; that the Phenom II had an optimistic overclock compared to the i7, and that if the overclocks were both on the same level any latency or HT adjustments would probably result in a net decrease in performance.

End result: the data and subsequent conclusion is valid. You want me to admit it's not a perfect AMD setup? I did that already. But your obsession with the minutia shows a certain amount of ignorance as far as the big picture is concerned.

Uhoh, I feel a childish emoticon coming up... 😛
 
LOL wow. Cleeve I can't even believe you are actually responding to some of these comments. Unless, you just do it for the lulz.
 
[citation][nom]dirtmountain[/nom]Please Pauldh, not yet another E5200 build. When you can partner a PhenomIIx2 550 or a PhenomII x3 710 and a 760G sb710 motherboard for $155 of 780G sb710 for $175 why would you kneecap that system with a 4850? Haven't we seen enough overclocked E5200s?[/citation]
Actually, as soon as people bring the Phenom II 550 into a gaming discussion as a way to save money and provide more budget for graphics, the E5200 deserves to be in the next sentence. Have you seen a max OC'ed shoutout between the two?

Shoot, I'd imagine a 4.0Ghz E5200 will more than hold it's own with the same graphics solution, but add the $30 difference to graphics and I doubt the PII stands much of a chance.

Having said that, I'm quite excited about the 550, 710 and 720 and would definitely consider them in any gaming build. These make sense for overclockers and non-overclockers alike.
 
[citation][nom]Crashman[/nom]Those complaints about the AMD overclock are a scam. Nothing more than lies and deception made to tell the exact opposite of the truth.Everyone can see that the AMD overclock was "better" than the Intel overclock, in that the AMD overclock was far closer to max than Intel. If anything, Don cheated against Intel on this by giving AMD a better overclock. ... [/citation]
Oh I agree with you and also understand why he did it. Had the i7 been pushed hard, I'm sure Don would also have done at least the same for the PII.

That's exactly what I did with the AMD Unleashed story. I wanted to draw some comparisons to the previous SBM systems, which were pushed pretty hard MHz-wise anyway. I made sure to squeeze every MHz I could from the AMD's and also push NB frequency too so if anything give tweak time/favor to the AMD rigs. And I made that intention clear too.

It's just in this story, whether it's just the return of those with a beef from the cyberpower piece, or simply because i7 is added to this mix, there seems to be a few more aggressive/desperate critics hitting the discussion.
 
[citation][nom]dirtmountain[/nom]E5200 SBM build - E5200 May 09http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2310.htmlE5200 SBM build - E5200 Feb 09http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2144.htmlwow E7300 SBM build -E7300 Dec 08http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2113.htmlE5200 SBM build - E5200 Nov 08http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2082.htmlIt's BEEN done, give it a freaking rest[/citation]
And your point being? It's been in SBM's because of it's price/performance. So now that means we should drop it and not compare it to the 550? Makes no sense.

Show me one review where we OC'ed both E5200 and a PII 550. Show me one with an E5200 + a high end GPU or dual GPU's. For that matter, show me one such review anywhere. You push the PII's (for good reason), but why rule out one of the best competing value gaming CPU's (unless it's intimidation)? Sorry, but if a budget CPU shootout were to take place, the E5200 deserves to be in it as much as any PII does. Leaving such a CPU out of the mix would IMO be incomplete.

 
I was referring more towards using the E5200 in another SBM. Using an AMD7850, E5200, E6300, P2 710/720/550 would be an interesting article. Looking through the articles about the SBMs the last budget build i saw using an AMD CPU was one Cleeve did in May of 2007. A quote from that article

"Yes, we admit that in our opinion that at least right now the Core2 Duo is a better platform than the Athlon X2 when it comes to performance, power consumption, and upgradability. Having said that, the important point to us was that the X2 platform offers very good performance - and even upgradability - for the low price category."

I'd just like to see an AMD CPU used in the SBM articles and benchmarked so we have some basis for a rational comparison at a specific price point. No intimidation of any kind was ever intended.

 
In my sound mind, any frame rate over 60 is overkill. Almost all of those results on both CPUs where over 60... Pointless waist of money unless your headed for bragging rights. Also the PII stock scored as good or better than the i7 so if your concerned about you CPU lasting longer than three years the PII is a fine choice.
 
[citation][nom]dirtmountain[/nom]I was referring more towards using the E5200 in another SBM. Using an AMD7850, E5200, E6300, P2 710/720/550 would be an interesting article. .... I'd just like to see an AMD CPU used in the SBM articles and benchmarked so we have some basis for a rational comparison at a specific price point. No intimidation of any kind was ever intended.[/citation]
OK, I was not referring to an SBM, although I think the E5200 competes well for gaming even up beyond the $600 budget. I was responding to all these 550 vs i7 requests that need to be brought back to reality by adding a CPU that would actually compete in that arena. Regarding SBM's, your voice (and others) have been heard though. As Don mentioned, talks started long ago about the next SBM.

No doubt AMD has game, especially the 550, 7x0 and 940. I highly doubt I'd ever put a 7850 in a SBM machine unless it was a sub $500 build. The 550 has way more to offer, both stock and OC'ed. If you remember, the OC'ed 7750 failed to come anywhere near an E5200 or PII. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-cpu-overclock,2304-9.html

take care dm.
 
Am I the only one that thought the article simply showed that there are no current CPUs powerful enough that crossfire 4870s would be a bottleneck, therefore an AMD CPU is simply too cheap for this price point? Spending more on GPUs gives you no more performance.

What I'd like to see is a test of different price points of graphics cards to find out where the sweet spot is for which CPU; if you have an x CPU at y speeds, how pricey is the cheapest graphics card(s) that leaves you CPU bottlenecked. Is 2 x 4870 also overkill even for an overclocked i7?

Another point: Neither system had any problems with playable frame rates for 1920x1200 gaming, even at the highest detail settings / AA tested. If you're talking about a system for strictly gaming, it would seem you are "monitor bottlenecked" at this price point. What's the cheapest system thet gives you playable frame rates for most current games at 1920x1200? I'd assume that would be far cheaper than the ones in this test. How about going to 2560x1600?

tl;dr:
- At this price point the GPUs are a waste of money since you are CPU bottlenecked in all games.
- At this price point the CPUs might be a waste of money since the 1920x1200 resolution is playable at high settings in all games.
 
[citation][nom]the_timonator[/nom]In my sound mind, any frame rate over 60 is overkill. Almost all of those results on both CPUs where over 60... Pointless waist of money unless your headed for bragging rights. [/citation]

Anerage frame rates over 60 aren't overkill when minimum frame rates can dip much lower.

If minimum framerates are over 60, then you'd have nothing to complain about.
 
It all started because of the heat sink. I just could not understand why they would choose to use 2 different enthusiast heat sinks. Tom's HW did kind of over state the fact that the Zerotherm was only $10 more and you could use whichever you wanted, fair enough, but then again ... They always come with universal mounts so why the difference? Maybe the Xigmatek, did not include the AM3 mount, check on newegg, nope, even has a combo with AMD Phenom II. Oh I noticed that the S1283 is not the dark knight version the s1283v is, which is $44.99 btw.
So what else is odd, the DFI is a bit of an odd duck Micro ATX Motherboard, weird for an i7. Hey that's $229.99 at newegg not $199.99. What are they thinking that no one would check? But why a DFI vs an Asus? Strange Asus has several x58 motherboards, it looks as though the the p6t is the closest in features to the M4A79T. What do they have for prices on these? Oh the p6t is $239.99 to the M4A79T $..hey its only 189.99, that's $50 difference, and $10 less on the AMD setup price. Ouch Intel fanboise are being raped by Asus.
What else, that memory part number for the AMD is identical to the Intel setup. That just can't be correct. So what do they have at newegg for that? Looks like the g.skill F3-10666CL7D-4GBPI would be the only choice for cl7 ram, guess the AMDtards have to bite the bullet on that one as it is $66.99, instead of the stated $64.99.
Processor, Intel i7 920 $279.99, and the AMD PHeII 955 $... hey it's on 210.00, that's $34.99 less than the listed price. What about combos. Well lookie here the p6t has a combo with the i7 920. Hey the M4A79T has a combo with the PHeII 955. Well what does all these numbers mean?

Intel core i7 920 setup
CPU core i7 920, MB Asus p6t combo $479.98
g.skill 10666CL7T 6GBPK $94.99
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 $39.60 (not the dark knight which is s1283v)
Total ------ $614.57

Using the stated DFI x58 JR MB your total goes up to $644.57 as there is no combo deal, Tom's total $614.95

AMD Phenom II 955 setup
CPU PheII 955, MB Asus M4A79T combo $314.99
g.skill F3-10666CL7D-4GBPI $66.99
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 $39.60 (not the dark knight which is s1283v)
Total ------ $421.58

Tom's total $539.97

So in 3 days Tom's Intel configuration jumped $29.62, where the AMD configuration dropped $118.39. That gives a real price difference between the 2 setups of $222.99. The price of a very nice video card plus a cheap case of beer. Of course this is just market fluctuation, right? But there is that odd $10.00 more for an unnecessarily expensive heat sink, I just can't understand. For 90% of the performance and 2/3 the cost the Phenom II 955 is an undeniable value.

All prices are from Newegg and are correct as of 1:00pm EST 2009-07-16, YMMV.
 
The prices they used for the i7 build were when they were ordered..... in early May. Some of the mATX X58 boards weren't available then and they also used a micro ATX mini tower case which is one of the reasons for their cooling solution and the low overclock.
 
"To truly realize the cost difference, we need to list and price the PC components that are linked to either the Phenom II or Core i7 CPU." There is no indication of the date the items had been purchased. The article was published in July not in May. The impression is that the prices are current, and for the Intel setup the are indeed close. The problem is obvious people are not using this as a guide to purchase a computer in May of 2009 but in July of 2009 and beyond. Without even an asterisk to let people know that the prices are not current they would quite possibly make an error in there purchasing decision. In very bad economic times $222 is very significant. The conclusions drawn are not consistent with the actual real price of the products as purchased today or even 3 days ago when this article was published. I understand the time necessary to do the work to create such an article but to not at least give current prices on the date of publish is simply lazy and ultimately dishonest. To not indicate clearly within the price list that they are simply not current is again dishonest. There is still the little matter of the silly over priced heat sink. This certainly looks as though the writer was intentionally stacking the deck in favor of Intel. It all adds up to the appearance, actual or not, of biased reporting.
As far as the Micro ATX board the logical alternative would have been either the DFI LP JR 790GX-M3H5 or the Asus M4A78T-E both of which are available for $139.99 which skews the pricing issue even more in favor of the AMD solution. The only real loss is PCIE 2x16x16 2.0 for PCIE 2x16x8 2.0. Which would only be of value to someone interested in crossfire or sli, neither of which is now nor has ever been an enormous value proposition. That does not include the issue of cooling a second dual slot card that has it intake close to the side/bottom of the case in question. You seem to have missed that I did use combo deals for both alternatives that I presented. Even using the logical mb alternative for Intel the price was flat. Again the minor pricing fluctuations trend downward over time for computer equipment. As is clearly the case with AMD. Intel has apparently decided that bilking it's customers is still sop. The numbers at the time of publication indicate the conclusions drawn are flawed. If you wanted a May article Tom's should have published in May.
The writer could have easily avoided the issue by dropping an asterisk and a date. Even better he could have finished the race and indicate the current pricing and dropped a whole paragraph into the conclusions that would have indicated that yes the AMD solution is going to get the job done much cheaper than Intel. He was stupid and lazy, and assumed that he would not be called on it.
 
[citation][nom]pauldh[/nom]In your example, the i7 is ridiculously unbalanced for a gaming rig. I'll add a third system though...[/citation]

My point was not to say that my example comparison was more or less valid... It was to say that a -balanced- article would explore multiple price points. One could argue that the price point in this article was chosen to favor the Core i7, while the price point I chose would clearly favor the Phenom II. It is silly to make any conclusions regarding value when the article is incomplete.

As for your defending the overclocking method... I never said anything about that. You may be replying to someone else.
 
[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]Anerage frame rates over 60 aren't overkill when minimum frame rates can dip much lower. If minimum framerates are over 60, then you'd have nothing to complain about.[/citation]

Shut up Cleeve! Your moronic thoughts on the left side of your brain have penatrated the right side of your brain where your tech center is. Your review turned out stupid, Again! I love you man! (sorry for my bad inglish)
 
I agree with PJMH the prices on the AMD rig have dropped substantially because of the combo rig. Also I am wondering why they jacked up the AMD rig in price with the more expensive Seagate Barracuda ST31500341AS
1.5 TB Hard Drive when the Intel Core i7 920 build had the much less expensive Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB Hard Drive.This could have saved more money to get much better graphics cards than their
2 x HIS Radeon HD 4890 in CrossFire choice.Look at Tom's recent graphics chart showing the difference between the Sapphire Vapor-X HD4870 2G
(HD 4870 2048 MB)model and a ordinary HD4870 model especially at 1980 by 1200 resolution here.There is quite a substantial difference.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-cards-charts-2009-high-quality/Sum-of-FPS-Benchmarks-1920x1200,1345.html
Right now newegg has the Sapphire Vapor-X HD4890 2G (HD 4890 2048 MB)model and these should have much better frame rates with 2 of them in Crossfire than the 2 x HIS Radeon HD 4890 in CrossFire used for the AMD system when in high resolutions (1080i and above).Anyway Intel of course has the more powerful CPU.
 
[citation][nom]jj463rd[/nom]I agree with PJMH the prices on the AMD rig have dropped substantially because of the combo rig. Also I am wondering why they jacked up the AMD rig in price with the more expensive Seagate Barracuda ST31500341AS1.5 TB Hard Drive when the Intel Core i7 920 build had the much less expensive Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB Hard Drive.This could have saved more money to get much better graphics cards than their2 x HIS Radeon HD 4890 in CrossFire choice.Look at Tom's recent graphics chart showing the difference between the Sapphire Vapor-X HD4870 2G (HD 4870 2048 MB)model and a ordinary HD4870 model especially at 1980 by 1200 resolution here.There is quite a substantial difference.http://www.tomshardware.com/charts [...] ,1345.htmlRight now newegg has the Sapphire Vapor-X HD4890 2G (HD 4890 2048 MB)model and these should have much better frame rates with 2 of them in Crossfire than the 2 x HIS Radeon HD 4890 in CrossFire used for the AMD system when in high resolutions (1080i and above).Anyway Intel of course has the more powerful CPU.[/citation]
Along with your valid points, its all lost on Cleevage or anyone else who wants to try to take sides with some brand. That ilk just thinks that way instead of trying to report or review harware objectivly. Just as you wuestion so the same argumant has been made about why he chose the CPU as well as the ram and then run it as like he was a noob. The overclocking part should have been done to a decent max, for both CPUs and memory subsystems within what the budget allowed, so what if I7 burried the PHII, atleast anyone with half a brain then could see what you can do for X $ for each brand. But no, its more of the same lame Cyberbullcrap type of review. Since Cleevage will not offer to except valid points when they come out (until his next review) he will try to go off topic as though the question is a Fanboy type thing and try to stick words in your mouth. Butt I love him though. Hi Cleevage!
 
[citation][nom]ImaxAMD[/nom]Since Cleevage will not offer to except valid points when they come out (until his next review) he will try to go off topic as though the question is a Fanboy type thing and try to stick words in your mouth. Butt I love him though. Hi Cleevage![/citation]
Dude! "Cleevage" ROTFLOL! I love Cleevage!
 
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