AMD’s new X4 quad core

Posted 03/26/08 at 11:02:28PM | by

Gordon Mah Ung

It’s been a pretty lousy six months in AMD fan boy land. Even the most vocal of fan boys have found themselves ducking for cover as AMD was hit with delays, production problems and errata bugs.

With the release of the Phenom X4 9850, AMD hopes to finally put some of those problems behind it. Dubbed “B3” chips, the new CPU no longer features the infamous TLB bug that hobbled performance of the original Phenom chips. If it isn’t already obvious to you, AMD is also reverting back to the X4 nomenclature that it had toyed around with before Phenom launched. New Phenom’s will now carry the X4 designation for quad cores and X3 for tri-cores (of if you want to be snide, quad cores with one bad core).

We tested the new 2.5GHz Phenom X4 9850 using an Asus M3A32-MVP board with 2GB of Corsair Dominator RAM at 1066MHz data rates, a 150GB WD Raptor, Windows XP SP2, and the new Nvidia GeForce 9800GX2 GPU. For a comparison, we populated a new 45nm Penryn Core 2 Quad Q9300 and a Core 2 Quad Q6600 in an EVGA nForce 790i Ultra motherboard. For those who don’t know, the Q9300 doesn’t have the same relationship that the Q6600 has to the top-end procs. Intel has cut the cache in half from the 12MB in a Core 2 Extreme QX9650 to 6MB in the Q9300. This makes it sort of a “Penryn-lite” chip. Why? There’s probably two explanations: Intel has either decided to do something with its Penryn CPUs with some bad cache (ala AMD) or it has decided to hobble the chip intentionally to give its top quad cores more of an edge. We set the pair of 1GB Crucial DDR3 modules at 1333 and installed Windows XP SP2 on a WD Raptor 150GB drive. Finally, the same reference GeForce 9800GX2 card was used in the same machine and the same public drivers were used for both tests. Is it fair to pit a DDR3 platform against a DDR2 platform? We think so. Afterall, we would have tested Phenom on DDR3 but there’s just no support for it yet. Even though the DIMMs in our Core 2 platform cost more than the CPUs, we think it would be unfair to not put the Core 2’s best foot forward. If anything, Intel is probably grumbling that the test should be conducted on X48 which, we’re sure, the company thinks is a better and faster platform.

For the most part, the Q9300 owned the night. It generally outpaced the old Q6600 quad core and the new Phenom quad core in most of our tests. In a clock-for-clock test between the Phenom and Penryn, we would declare the Q9300.

AMD fans shouldn’t hand their heads in shame though. The Phenom numbers weren’t so far behind as to be dead in the water. Certainly, it doesn’t go quite head-to-head with the Penryn-lite but it is still fastest AM2 chip available today for most apps. That makes it a pretty good upgrade for those with AM2 boards that are capable of supporting Phenom. If you had to start afresh though and you weren’t opposed to Intel for anything other than religious reasons, Core 2 is still the champ in the cheap quad core category.

AMD’s big problem is expectations. When Phenom first launched late last year, the company had built up wild expectations that Phenom would level the playing field with Intel’s quad core. In truth, all it could do was barely compete with Intel’s lowest of the low quad cores – a chip that was a year old. AMD still has no response to Intel’s 3GHz Core 2 Quad QX9650 and the soon to be released 3.2 Core 2 Quad QX9770 chip and it doesn’t look like the company will for several more months. Meanwhile, Intel is already demonstrating fully functional Nehalem CPUs and says they’re on track to launch later this year.

Benchmarks
	Core 2 Q9300	Core 2 Q6600	Phenom X4 9850
Clock	2.5GHz	2.4GHz	2.5GHz
L2	6MB	8MB	2MB
L3	N/A	N/A	2MB
Rated TDP	95 watts	95 watts	125 watts
FSB	1,333	1,066	N/A
Bulk Pricing	$266	$266	$235

3DMark06 Overall	13,990	13,565	13,594
3DMark06 CPU	4,103	3,856	3,807
Valve Particle Test	87	76	72
Valve Map Build (min:sec)	2:42	2:48	2:57
CineBench R10	9,622	8,763	8,065
ScienceMark 2.0	1,572.21	1,393.57	1,606.46

PCMark05 Overall	9,080	8,948	8,547
PCMark05 CPU	8,064	7,746	7,396
PCMark05 RAM	6,012	5,434	4,761
PCMark05 GPU	15,643	15,806	13,972
PCMark05 HDD	7,633	7,647	7,766

Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 (min:sec)	15:45	17:33	18:01
Photoshop CS3 (min:sec)	2:20	2:28	3:35

FEAR (fps)	199	209	200
Quake 4 (fps)	169.7	166.6	165.7
Unreal Tournament 3 (fps)	119	105	87
AutoGK DIVX 6.8 (min/sec)	9:36	10:07	11:44
AutoGK XVID	11:08	11:38	12:42

View / Add Comment(s)

-ADVERTISEMENT-

RELATED CATEGORIES

News & Views
Gordon's Blog

Daily News Brief: Phenom Bug Discovered Phenom bug could foil performance, Microsoft plans to clamp down on Vista piracy, give well deserved kudos to Apple, and more!

Fast Forward: AMD's Odd Phenom What's so weird about

Finally . . . Phenom! After months of trash talking and delays, AMD's new CPU takes the field at last.

Numbers don’t lie (that much) Does it even matter if the CPU is fast ? You bet your shiny metal ass

AMD on the Rise, but is the Company Poised to Fall? Now the 8th largest chip supplier worldwide, Paul Lilly says AMD's growth will be for naught if Barcelona doesn't win back the performance crown, and the customers that come with it

Intel's Barcelona Killer? Gordon Mah Ung goes hands-on with Intel's next-gen CPU, codenamed Penryn. Will this CPU continue Intel's domination of AMD?

Comments

login or register to post comments

Kind of sad...

Submitted by Link2Ib on Thu, 2008-03-27 00:22.

I remember back in the Athlon 64/P4 days when you guys had these shootouts it would be something like 14 for AMD, 11 for Intel, usually AMD just slightly ahead and always leapfrogging going on, and the same thing with ATI and nVidia. Now, we don't get that kind of excitement anymore. That said, this looks like a worthy upgrade for me (from an x2 5000+), but I'd prefer a 2.6ghz version so I'm not losing any performance in single threaded apps. But of course realistically the performance delta for 100mhz isn't going to be enough to really care about, and some of that would be negated by the increased L2 cache and whatnot. So hopefully this drops below $200 by Septemberish or something.

Well, at least the AMD proc

Submitted by zine team279 on Thu, 2008-03-27 00:56.

Well, at least the AMD proc isn't getting its face pushed in (as much).

And its cheaper, which might help it hold down some of its marketshare.

Hang in there, AMD.

amd keeps intel honest

Submitted by rmmst49 on Thu, 2008-03-27 02:43.

amd staying competitive forces intel to innovate to stay ahead, as opposed to nvidia, who have totally ruled graphics cards for what, almost two years, and already they've fallen into the madden nfl, "if people are still buying it, why make it any better?" mode. Hopefully amd can provide some real competition of the graphics card front as well, ASAP.

Plus, if your not looking for top end parts you can get a really decent machine cheaply. I just upgraded an old intel p4 machine with a 780g,4400+ with two gigs of ram and a 500gb hard drive for $250. With Shipping.

Awesome.

AMD 9850 $60 less than Intel Q9300

Submitted by truthseeker on Thu, 2008-03-27 06:56.

You need to factor in two things here:

1/ The AMD part is $60 cheaper than Intel.
2/ If you pair the lower end Phenoms with integrated chipsets (780G)and compare those with Intel and their integrated chipsets (G35), Intel is HORRIBLE on video and games.

So what's the use of having a fast processor if it cant play decent games or do HD video?

These videos explain everything:
BluRay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V741rSx3-5U
Games: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd0Of4PnpQk

Simple. You don't expect

Submitted by bholstege on Thu, 2008-03-27 08:17.

Simple. You don't expect people using AMD's highest end part to use integrated graphics. In addition, no integrated graphics can play games at hi def resolutions, which I assume you would be using, since you mentioned high def decoding.

This is a CPU review, not a motherboard review. And for non accelerated Hi Def, Intel wins.

Respect for AMD

Submitted by Shalbatana on Thu, 2008-03-27 08:12.

It's a decent showing, as stated above, and priced percisely according to it's performance ratio.

What it does more than anything is show that AMD can still make a respectable chip, and that they're on course (even if behind) for better chips to come.

What they need now is a strategy similar to what they did with ATI, temporarily changing their market strategy and profile before Intel pushes them out of the lower markets as well.

Despite ATI being behind, they too have been making a strong showing as of late. I wouldn't be suprised if there's something around the corner that will majorly impress.

There's no time like the future.

Rebate check spent

Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Thu, 2008-03-27 10:12.

Well I'm spending that tax rebate check on a Penryn quad with DDR3 in 790I board. I'll be doing my part to help the economy with my rebate check with upgrades galore come this May..

Re: Rebate check spent

Submitted by Biggins on Thu, 2008-03-27 11:04.

Yeah, you are helping Taiwan's economy.

"For the most part, the

Submitted by Beefy22 on Thu, 2008-03-27 10:31.

"For the most part, the Q9300 owned the night. It generally outpaced the old Q6600 quad core and the new Phenom quad core in most of our tests. In a clock-for-clock test, we would declare the Q9300 the winner with the Q6600 as the runner up."

How did you come to this conclusion???

Q6600 -> 2400mhz = 266FSB(1066QDR) x 9
Q9300 -> 2500mhz = 333FSB(1333QDR) x 7.5

The Q9300 has both a higher operating frequency and FSB.

It would have been interesting if you lowered the multi on the q6600 to x8 and increased fsb to 312-313. That would have provided a more accurate "clock vs clock" comparison.

Whoops...

Submitted by gordonung on Thu, 2008-03-27 10:49.

You're right. Brain fart. Updated copy to reflect what I actually should have said. I've also corrected the amount of L2 in the Phenom as well. It is 2MB, not 4MB.

Aww...

Submitted by Link2Ib on Thu, 2008-03-27 11:33.

You had me drooling over that 4MB L2, damnit ;). Still sounds like a nice upgrade for me though.

I'll wait to judge

Submitted by bnrd120 on Thu, 2008-03-27 14:49.

i cant really call this a fair match the amd and intel were set on two different mem. configs. 1066 to 1333. Thats like 667 to 333 or regular gas to premium and then calling them even, and evan with the slower ram the amd was still not that bad only laging at the most 1:40 sec. on the slower config. Which makes me wonder how would they compete on the same config.

The amd is designed to work directly with the ram and to not give the two the same makes the experiment inconclusive.

I'll wait tell i find a fair compairson before i judge

nrdz-

I read your post... and now

Submitted by Beefy22 on Thu, 2008-03-27 15:49.

I read your post... and now my head hurts :P.

AMD roadmaps have shown that DDR3 support will only be available for both 45nm CPUs and AM3 platforms. The lack of DDR3 support on AM2+ platforms is no ones fault, other than AMD. Thus their inability to compete with DDR3 platforms is moot, though I think you would find little difference if say a DFI LT X48-T2R(DDR2) were used in place of the 790i board. Perhaps the performance ∆ would actually grow larger in that scenario?

AMD architecture doesnt need DDR3 now

Submitted by truthseeker on Fri, 2008-03-28 09:23.

AMD's integrated memory controller reduces latency and gets more out DDR2 than Intel's FSB architeture. Intel's FSB REQUIRES DDR3 to get the perormance out of their CPUs. DDR3 on Intel adds tremendous cost and therefore you are better off buying an AMD configuation.

Take the extra $200 you would waste on Intel/DDR3 and buy an AMD config with a better graphics card or a better disk array.

Not quite... I assume you're

Submitted by Beefy22 on Fri, 2008-03-28 10:28.

Not quite... I assume you're alluding to FSB saturation and/or bottleneck due to the "slow" speeds of DDR2? Which is complete garbage, DDR2 1066 is every bit as fast as DDR3 1333, proof -> http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/ddr3_6.html#sect0.

Hypothetical Intel build:

Q6600 for $190 @ Frys B&M(was actually $180 for a brief stint online @ frys)
Patriot Viper 2x2GB DDR2 1066 kit for $98 after $20MIR at newegg
DFI DK P35-T2RS for $140 @ newegg

A comparable AMD build would at least cost the same if not more. Not only that, but getting a Q6600 to 3.6 ghz with a TRUE(thermalright ultra 120 Extreme) should be a breeze. Performance/$ and even more so Performance/watt(X4 vs C2Q) are both in Intels favor... Back in the K9/netburst days I was AMD all the way. Hypothetically, if VIA's upcoming Isaiah and S3's 430GT offered superior performance I'd be all over that no doubt(actually if they offer superior Perf/watt I still might buy em). Undying fanboyism = inferior hardware.

Overclocking?

Submitted by schinkinatror on Thu, 2008-03-27 15:19.

My question is how well will it overclock. What really put the Q6600 above the rest was the ability to overclock like a champ. If the new core wants to suceed it'll need some headroom.

Yeah...

Submitted by gordonung on Thu, 2008-03-27 18:03.

Unfortunately, there just wasn't enough time to do the overclocking testing on the Phenom but others are seeing 3GHz which is about what you can hit with a Q6600 without even trying very hard. So Phenom overclocks pretty well. Unfortunately, so does Q9300. I saw ours at 3.5GHz on stock air under stress testing so there's room.

Your EIC's take on the Q600 vs the Q9300

Submitted by Vondarkmoor on Fri, 2008-03-28 16:49.

Gordon, You need to go upside Will's head. I just heard that fool answer a question on the latest podcast about what is the current quad core sweet spot and his answer was the Q6600??!!. this was right after acknowledging the results of your q9300 testing. What's up with that? (disclaimer, do not really go upside wills head, that missive was for entertainment purposes only)

It's CHEAPER!!!

Submitted by sp3ci4lk on Sat, 2008-03-29 11:03.

WHO CARES!!!???

Look at the power consumption! Check out some of the other reviews that look at idle and load power. It's bad enough at idle (over 25 watts more than a comparable Core 2 Quad), but look at the load numbers.

It would cost you more to game on this thing over time, and you still wouldn't have the performance.

AMD Fanboys are Idiots.

QC 9850

Submitted by wolffrp on Sat, 2008-03-29 13:53.

Not having used an AMD 790 chipset motherboard in your benchmarks, which is purported to significantly increase the performance of Phenom systems, you will never convince AMD fan boys that your results are fair or even real. Next time you bench AMD Phenoms use the AMD 790 chipset!

AMD fans

Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Mon, 2008-03-31 00:43.

AMD fan boys are not idiots they are just Demacrats. I don't hate Dems I just don't understand them. They open defy the obvious and invent their own truth that they barely believe themselves..

Hey guys you knew this had to turn political sooner or later.

DDR3 technically outperforms DDR2 by being able to do quad operations per cycle while DDR2 can only do two. Since AMD is stuck with DDR2 it's performance eventually will be at least half as much as an Intel part with DDR3 ram.

- Advertisement -