Phenom II X2 555 Vs. Pentium G6950: The Rematch

[cleeve]

The last time we matched up Intel's Pentium G6950 against AMD's Phenom II X2 555, our overzealous overclocking efforts caused a processor meltdown. With a little more experience on Intel's 32 nm process (and caution), we offer a suitable rematch. Game on!

Phenom II X2 555 Vs. Pentium G6950: The Rematch : Read more

 

[Verkil]

I would love to see a comparison between i3-530 and X3 435 with GTA4.

 

[Guest]

This is exactly what I've been waiting for. The numbers matched what I had already assumed. I got the 555 but I will consider the intel next time to change it up.

 

[ta152h]

One thing to consider is the Pentium G6950 is tied to a crippled platform, whereas the Phenom II can be used with an 890FX, which has more PCI-E lanes for Crossfire, comes with SATA 6Gbps, and can have USB 3.0 added without either running degraded, or using PCI-E lanes used for the video card.

The AMD platform gives you more choices (integrated graphics, discreet graphics in several flavors, a lot of PCI lanes, or a few), and an unlocked multiplier.

All these are important considerations.

 

[Guest]

Considering you fryed one of the intel cpus quite quickly with only 7% more voltage...

Id like to see a serious stability test on both cpus. A couple days with a graphic benchmark on loop as well as prime95 running an instance on each core would do it.

 

[lashton]

I dont understand they talk about the dormant cores and you may not be successful, this is a dual core shoot out, so you intended buying a dual core, why not get the phenom II 555 and see if the cores unlock if they dont well no biggie still a fast CPU but if they do BONUS, also they dont tell you that with 2 cores the phenom can easily get OVER 4GHZ, this is typical of toms not putting everything into the tests, definately Intel fans

 

[notty22]

One thing to consider is the Pentium G6950 is tied to a crippled platform, whereas the Phenom II can be used with an 890FX, which has more PCI-E lanes for Crossfire, comes with SATA 6Gbps, and can have USB 3.0 added without either running degraded, or using PCI-E lanes used for the video card.

The AMD platform gives you more choices (integrated graphics, discreet graphics in several flavors, a lot of PCI lanes, or a few), and an unlocked multiplier.

All these are important considerations.

I dont understand they talk about the dormant cores and you may not be successful, this is a dual core shoot out, so you intended buying a dual core, why not get the phenom II 555 and see if the cores unlock if they dont well no biggie still a fast CPU but if they do BONUS, also they dont tell you that with 2 cores the phenom can easily get OVER 4GHZ, this is typical of toms not putting everything into the tests, definately Intel fans

I don't know if this is ROFL or just sad ? Try reading the article. Your embarrassing yourself.

More faulty logic by AMD fanboys. Which is it ? A budget bang for your buck rig,
H55/Clarksdale=200 dollars
or
890FX ($160.00 MIN)+ 555=260, all so you can buy another cpu, next year, that does not exist yet ?
and 890fx, you HAVE to buy a DISCRETE graphics card now.

AMD will love you , if you invest in all of this hardware , with plans to buy more, lol.

 

[Reynod]

Thanks Don ... another solid article without the fanboi slant.

 

[C00lIT]

I don't know of any business who is better off with an Intel CPU these days...

Businesses do not overclock and the AMD Platform with an ATI4200 onboard is just so much better then anything intel has to offer... Encoding ? Use and AthlonX4...

The only good thing about the Pentium would be trying to break overclocking records... other then that... it's just a cheep cpu that fails against any amd tricore.

 

[ta152h]

[citation][nom]notty22[/nom]I don't know if this is ROFL or just sad ? Try reading the article. Your embarrassing yourself.More faulty logic by AMD fanboys. Which is it ? A budget bang for your buck rig,H55/Clarksdale=200 dollarsor890FX ($160.00 MIN)+ 555=260, all so you can buy another cpu, next year, that does not exist yet ?and 890fx, you HAVE to buy a DISCRETE graphics card now.AMD will love you , if you invest in all of this hardware , with plans to buy more, lol.[/citation]

Hmmmm, talk about embarrassing yourself - didn't you even bother to find out if your numbers were right before posting? You can get a 890FX for $140, not $160 MIN as you stated. For $155 you can get one with USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps, and it's not implemented with the compromises inherent with the LGA 1156 platform.

You're quite incorrect about needing a discreet GPU. AMD sells the 890GX, 790GX, 785G, 760G, and 880G. In fact, the platform they used had an integrated GPU. The nice thing with the AMD platform is, they have sideport memory, so you don't degrade CPU performance when you use the IGP due to memory contention.

So, I can get the AMD platform with motherboards around $60 with an IGP, or I can get a powerful platform with two real PCI-E 16x slots, USB 3.0, and SATA 6.0 Gbps for $155. You don't have the same choices with the Pentium G6950 platform in either direction. AM3 processors have a very diverse selection of platform.

So, is your contention that choice is bad?

 

[ubercake]

You know they do this all the time... When they start comparing the game performance, they drop the i5 from the comparison charts. WHY??????

 

[Onus]

Very interesting article.
C00lit's point about businesses not overclocking is good, although I'm not sure strictly business users come to Tom's for guidance.
I think these are both lab chips; maybe fun to test and tweak and play with, but far from the most sensible choice for real use. The AMD X3 chips look like fairly definitive bang for buck winners all around.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]ubercake[/nom]You know they do this all the time... When they start comparing the game performance, they drop the i5 from the comparison charts. WHY??????[/citation]

I mention this in the article. The new graphics drivers really changed the game results compared to the old ones, and we don't have the i5 system here to retest. Since the game results weren't comparable anymore we left the i5 numbers out of gaming results.

 

[enzo matrix]

[citation][nom]lashton[/nom]I dont understand they talk about the dormant cores and you may not be successful, this is a dual core shoot out, so you intended buying a dual core, why not get the phenom II 555 and see if the cores unlock if they dont well no biggie still a fast CPU but if they do BONUS, also they dont tell you that with 2 cores the phenom can easily get OVER 4GHZ, this is typical of toms not putting everything into the tests, definately Intel fans[/citation]
I don't quite follow your logic. Are you being sarcastic? They did try to unlock the cores and they were successful. bonus. They also did get two CPU cores to 4+ GHz...
So they did put everything into the test that you are accusing them of not putting into the test...

 

[Onus]

My take on the drop of i5 is that their numbers for i5 were based on systems using older drivers, and there was not enough time to re-run them all with updated drivers. I have no complaints about this; I don't think any rational individual was expecting this to be a be-all, end-all article on CPU performance. I5 was not one of the CPUs being compared anyway, and confounding the results with multiple driver versions would just bring out [strike]the[/strike] more trolls.

 

[buckinbottoms]

all the graphs are jumbled. can someone arrange them in a high/low setup?

 

[Onus]

My only disagreement was with the final word, "At the end of the day, both of these CPUs offer solid value." No, they don't; not when there are clearly better bang/buck choices available from both AMD and Intel.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]buckinbottoms[/nom]all the graphs are jumbled. can someone arrange them in a high/low setup?[/citation]

If they went high-to-low they'd simply be jumbled in a different way. This way, the relative position of each CPU is in the same place in each chart.

 

[ta152h]

[citation][nom]jtt283[/nom]My take on the drop of i5 is that their numbers for i5 were based on systems using older drivers, and there was not enough time to re-run them all with updated drivers. I have no complaints about this; I don't think any rational individual was expecting this to be a be-all, end-all article on CPU performance. I5 was not one of the CPUs being compared anyway, and confounding the results with multiple driver versions would just bring out the more trolls.[/citation]

I agree with you about the i5, but I do think article comparing the i3, Pentium, Athlon II x2 260, and Pentium G6950 would be kind of informative.

As much as people like to see expensive processors, the reality is that the lower end processors are often what people buy. In particular, I think the i3 is probably worth the extra money, considering it not only gets you 1 MB cache, but also hyper-threading which can be useful.

Also, I saw a review on another site on the Athlon II x2 260, which, when compared to the 255, is much faster than it should be. Performance went up more than the clock speed, and when I questioned them why, they brushed it off and just said they were only aware it was a faster clock speed. Maybe they tested wrong, maybe there is no difference, but another review showed the difference between the 260 and the Phenom II 255 to be quite small as well.

I think a lot people would be curious about matching low-end platforms on a cost basis. For example, if I save $25 on the processor, and spend it on the video card, what do the results look like. I would be impossible to do in one article, but I think a series of articles would be very interesting, covering different price points. It's time consuming, but, I think it's got broad interest and would get page hits. Of course, I could be wrong.

 

[Onus]

I was looking around yesterday for benchmarks on the new 45W AMD chips to see if one of them would be "acceptable," even though I'd expect them to be somewhat slow. I was quite suprised to see on quite a few tests (including games) they beat an i3, sometimes severely (others they lost, equally severely).
Just checked History, it was here: http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AMD-Athlon%20II%20X3%20405e%20-%20AD405EHDK32GI%20(AD405EHDGIBOX).html
and this was actually the 405e, not the new 415e or 6x5e.

 

[Stardude82]

If you are only going to drop $200 for a CPU/Motherboard, you you really think that there are many users that are going to drop $300 for a 5850? A 5770 or a GT 250 makes more sense here.

CPU temps are always suspect to me. If it is the CPU is the main source of increased power draw, then shouldn't temperature more or less be proportional to power draw? Maybe it's those gianormous AMD heat spreaders. What are the chipset temperature?

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]stardude82[/nom]If you are only going to drop $200 for a CPU/Motherboard, you you really think that there are many users that are going to drop $300 for a 5850? A 5770 or a GT 250 makes more sense here.[/citation]

Not when the point of the testing is to find the CPU's limits, not the GPUs limits. Besides that, a lot of folks will argue that the CPU is secondary to a gaming rig, and pairing a powerful card with a budget CPU isn't a bad idea at all.

[citation][nom]stardude82[/nom]CPU temps are always suspect to me. If it is the CPU is the main source of increased power draw, then shouldn't temperature more or less be proportional to power draw? Maybe it's those gianormous AMD heat spreaders. What are the chipset temperature?[/citation]

Maybe, but it's not something I had time to dig around for. CPU temp is also affected by the efficiency with which the CPU can transfer heat, so that's something to keep in mind.

 

[PeterHighlander]

I hate the OCing people keep talking about w/ Intel, here's why. I had the 1.6A @ 2.4Ghz for 2.5 years, then it stopped... was bearly stable at stock. The problem, I had to change out the entire platform because it was old tech! I currently run a Q6600. Started off stable at 3.5, now it's all the way down to 2.9Ghz to run stable after 1.5 years. It's all FSB related and it's happed over 2 different mother boards.

I doubt the long life of a 32mn chip at nearly 70C and 4.3Ghz. That's a silly OC that won't last.

 

[caamsa]

The AMD X3 CPU's are a far better deal IMO.

 

[obarthelemy]

I love Tom's usual impartiality: "the pentium overclocks like hell, so it's a bitchin' CPU" vs "You may, or may not, succeed in unlocking Phenom's cores, so we're relunctant to count that as a plus".

Talk about double standards ?