Features
Comments
Print
Email
AMD Strikes Back with Phenom II -- Full Analysis and First Benchmarks!
Posted 01/08/09 at 11:00:00 AM | by Gordon Mah Ung
The production of a sequel typically implies that the original creation is worth revisiting. However, considering that the original Phenom was the hardware version of Ishtar, many enthusiasts didn’t think Phenom deserved to be revisited.
AMD certainly thinks it does—and it hopes Phenom II is Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn to Phenom’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And why shouldn’t AMD be able to pull off a reversal of fortune? Phenom II isn’t just Phenom joined by a Roman numeral—it’s a die shrink with a boatload of additional cache and an improved core. In short, AMD hopes to erase memories of the original Phenom and put smiles on the faces of disappointed overclockers with its reimagined Phenom II chip.
Come with us as we review, critique, and dissect Phenom II and find out how it stacks up against a stack of Intel CPUs.
Phenom Reimagined
AMD’s trip back to the drawing board
The Phenom launch certainly didn’t go as AMD had planned. Rather than christening a new line that would change the company’s fortunes, AMD CEO Hector Ruiz broke a bottle of champagne over the bow of a ship that promptly sank under the waves—but only after smashing into a nearby pier with a bait shop and a busload of tourists on it: Phenom was a year late and had a performance-crippling TLB bug, yield issues, and a performance gap with Intel’s older generation of CPUs.
Fast-forward a year and the picture looks far different for the underdog chipmaker. Phenom II is actually ahead of schedule. And doubts about overclocking were quashed months ago when the company invited elite overclockers to its headquarters to get medieval on the new chip with liquid nitrogen and other exotic toys. The result? Overclocking feats beyond 5GHz.
Not to belabor the sequel talk, but it’s clear that AMD doesn’t intend for its pair of new Phenom II chips to be cheesy follow-up. These CPUs are intended to erase all doubts that the original chip created and help quell uneasiness about the company’s ability to make good parts.
The Dynamic Duo
The Phenom II family consists of two CPUs: the 2.8GHz Phenom II X4 920 and the 3GHz Phenom X4 940 Black Edition. Both use the company’s new 45nm process and can be paired with the majority of Socket AM2+ boards (and even some AM2 boards.) Both CPUs are native quad-core designs with all four execution cores residing on a monolithic die. AMD will continue its practice of repackaging defective quad-core dies as tri-cores (denoted with X3 rather than X4).
New under the Hood
For the most part, Phenom II isn’t a radical departure from Phenom. It has the same basic core and still features an integrated memory controller and HyperTransport connections for chip-to-chip connections. The update does include a few substantial changes, however. The biggest is the move to a 45nm process, which significantly shrinks the size of the chip and results in better yields; additionally, the 45nm-based Phenom II has 758 million transistors but is only 258mm2. The original 65nm Phenom has 450 million transistors and measures 285mm2.
By shrinking the die, AMD is able to use some of the freed up real estate for more cache. While the L1 and L2 remain unchanged, the L3 goes from 2MB in Phenom to 6MB in Phenom II. This larger cache is also slightly faster than the 65nm Phenom’s.
In other good news for enthusiasts, the new chip includes both a DDR2 and a DDR3 integrated memory controller. The bad news is that the first two Phenom II chips will support only DDR2; both DDR2 and DDR3 will be supported with its AM3 revision of Phenom II, which will be released in the next few months.
So why release a version of Phenom II that is limited to DDR2? AMD didn’t want to wait the additional months it would have taken to validate the CPUs for both newer DDR3 boards and DDR2 boards. The company felt that to have a Phenom II that runs at decent clock speeds, overclocks like crazy, and drops into existing boards is just a better way to prove its back on track.
More importantly, AMD doesn’t think people are that hot for DDR3 right now due to its premium price. To some extent, AMD is right: Two 2GB modules of DDR2/800 will set you back just $28, while a pair of 2GB DDR3/1333 modules costs about $100. However, true sticker shock sets in at the highest speeds: 4GB of DDR3/1600 costs about $300 and 4GB of DDR3/2000 will set you back about $400.
We would have preferred it if AMD had introduced one CPU that would work with both types of memory, but we understand that due to its position in the market, it simply doesn’t have the luxury of waiting three months to get Phenom II to work with both new DDR3 boards and the older DDR2 infrastructure.
But all you really want to know is whether Phenom II will work with your board, right? Minus the missteps with the original Socket 940 and Socket 754 nonsense (well, and QuadFX), AMD has worked hard to ensure that CPU swapouts won’t cause havoc. Phenom II will work in almost every board that supports the original Phenom CPU, with the only caveat being boards not designed to handle CPUs hotter than 95 watts. Since both Phenom II CPUs are 125 TDP chips, they likely will not work with those boards.
Cooler than Ever
While new manufacturing doesn’t always lead to more efficient parts, this die shrink certainly seems to have helped AMD with thermals. For example, the 65nm-based 2.6GHz Phenom X4 9950 BE had a thermal design power rating of 140 watts, while the 45nm-based 3GHz Phenom II X4 940 has a TDP of 125 watts.
AMD also seems to have finally shed the “cold bug” that frustrated extreme overclockers. The original Phenom would overclock to a certain level on air, but when extreme cooling techniques were applied, it wouldn’t overclock any further. While cold temperatures aren’t a cure-all, most CPUs offer additional headroom at -150 F. But the original Phenom simply hit a wall and no amount of cooling would allow for additional overclocking. AMD set out to prove it fixed this issue in Phenom II by hosting private demos for a group of extremes overclockers. Apparently, no one left the demo unhappy.
Platform Shmatform
Every PC is essentially a CPU, a chipset, a GPU, and storage, so you may be confused when you hear the word “platform” thrown around like it’s some new type of technology. It’s not. It’s an artificial way Intel and AMD brand a set of components. For Intel, Centrino is simply the combination of the CPU, chipset, and a Wi-Fi chip. Laptops sold without those three key Intel ingredients are not allowed to use the Centrino sticker. Since Intel advertises the hell out of Centrino, not Core 2 Duo Mobile, most OEMs feel compelled to buy all three parts from Intel.
AMD is not being as Machiavellian with its platform (at least not today), but it is doing some branding around a Dragon theme. Dragon is a combination of the Phenom II, an ATI 790GX or ATI 790FX chipset, and a 4000-series Radeon HD GPU. Does this mean that you can’t use a GeForce GTX 295 with Phenom II? No. Everything is as it was before—you can probably even use the Phenom II 940 in some older AM2 boards with the original Nvidia 590 SLI chipset.
So why bother to push all this platform hooey? Today, it’s just a marketing gimmick, but tomorrow it may be far more meaningful. With the functionality of the chipset, CPU, and GPU morphing together, this collection of hardware may indeed be a platform that you buy in a few years. That’s one thing AMD likes to toot its horn about: Intel has CPUs and chipsets and Nvidia has GPUs and chipsets, but only AMD has all three ingredients.
Price Matters
CPU companies like to use mysterious model numbers that don’t tell you a damn thing about how their chips actually perform. One quick and dirty way to see what the company thinks of a particular chip is to look at its price. AMD’s pricing of Phenom II reveals where the company thinks the CPU will compete. For example, the current king of the hill, the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition, is priced at $999. AMD has priced the Phenom II X4 940 at $275, so you can see where the company expects the CPU to fall—it’s clearly not intended to take on Intel at the high end. AMD, however, thinks there’s plenty of room to compete in the midrange against Intel’s large stable of Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad parts.
We put the top-end Phenom II X4 940 against Intel’s top-end Core i7 part, the still-shipping top-end Core 2 Extreme Edition part, as well as a lineup of budget Intel and AMD CPUs. The upshot is that AMD fans can take Phenom II as a sign that the company has some magic left. While Phenom was Detroit Lions bad, Phenom II is maybe Oakland Raiders or Green Bay Packers bad. Yeah, it was an ugly season, but you can tell the team is on the right track.
Our Testing Method
For our Phenom II showdown, we used a 3GHz Phenom II X4 940 BE on an MSI DKA790GX board. AMD partisans pitched a fit when we conducted our Core i7 tests with the AMD Phenom X4 9950 BE using “just” DDR2/800 RAM—they believed it was a travesty that we didn’t run DDR2/1066. Truth is, the performance difference between DDR2/800 to DDR2/1066 is minimal. In fact, after we published our Core i7 tests we spoke with AMD representatives, who agreed that the small difference in memory bandwidth had virtually no impact on the beatdown Core i7 gave Phenom.
To keep the peanut gallery happy, we tested the Phenom II X4 940 BE with 4GB of DDR2/1066. For comparison, we used a 3.2GHz Core i7-965 Extreme Edition and a 3.2GHz Core 2 Extreme Edition QX9770. We downclocked these parts to simulate the performance of a 2.66GHz Core i7-920 and a 2.83GHz Core 2 Quad Q9550, respectively. We also included the 2.6GHz Phenom 9950 X4 BE in our tests.
For all the test runs, we used the same GeForce 8800 GTX card and Western Digital Raptor 150 hard drive. The Core 2, Phenom and Phenom II rigs featured 4GB of RAM, while the Core i7 machines had just 3GB of RAM. All tests were conducted using the 64-bit version of Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium.
Our benchmarks reflect various levels of multithread rendering, video editing, encoding, and 3D rendering. Nvidia likes to say that quad-core CPUs are unimportant, but we’re finding a very strong and fast move by application vendors to support quad core where it’s needed. We didn’t feature any dual cores in our tests because they simply can’t compete against these opponents. However, the majority of today’s games exploit two cores at best, so to eliminate graphics as a bottleneck, we ran all of the games at very low resolutions, with all the eye candy turned off. We also ran a set of synthetic memory and scientific and application workload tests to get a balanced picture of how well these quad-cores perform.
Analysis
If you’re an AMD fanboy expecting Phenom II to put its bootprint on the hind end of Core i7—any Core i7—prepare to be disappointed. The slowest 2.66GHz Core i7 920 beat the Phenom II by double digits in most of our tests. We saw differences from 11 percent to 27 percent in encoding, and in our WinRar test, the Core i7-920 was 35 percent faster. It wasn’t all bad news for Phenom II though. The chip won the ScienceMark 2.0, Quake 4, and PC Mark Vantage tests and eked out a win in the Valve map compilation test. However, we’re still calling this competition for the i7 920. Of course, the 920’s big brother, the 965 Extreme Edition, completely walked away from the Phenom II. AMD, however, isn’t concerned that its $275 chip can’t beat a $999 one—the company isn’t competing at the top end of the market. And even though the 920 is about $300, the price of a new i7 motherboard ($250) and three pieces of required DDR3 ($150) nullifies any performance benefit the i7 has, AMD claims.
AMD is far more interested in how Phenom II does against a Core 2 Quad. The Phenom II actually outscored the Core 2 Quad in our MainConcept encoding test, our ProShow Producer slideshow creation test, and Quake 4, and it just about broke even in our WinRar file compression test. The Core 2 Quad hit back in both 3DMark tests, Premiere Pro CS3, Photoshop CS3, and both of our Valve multithreading tests. Although the Phenom has a 167MHz advantage, we’d have to call this one a tie.
This again comes down to perspective. Intel fanboys can say, “Been there, done that” since AMD’s best CPU just barely pulls even with a chip family Intel introduced more than a year ago. But from AMD’s perspective, the Phenom II is a big deal. With a down economy, the company believes that people will be looking for performance on a budget, and if Phenom II supplies that without the need for a pricey new motherboard, it’s won half the battle.
Comments Print Email New Benchmarks?
Submitted by shadowstar on Sat, 2009-04-04 21:43
Now that the new Phenom supports DDR3 will you be running new benchmarks showing how they compare with Intel? I am curious since I am planning on building a computer with one of the new Phenom cpus.
Amen twodotwhatever!
Submitted by MyMojo on Sun, 2009-01-18 18:42
Great info, and I totally agree.
If humans evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
Phenom II
Submitted by twodotwhatever on Wed, 2009-01-14 23:39
3 weeks ago I put together a Phenom 8750 and a TA770 A2+ with a 8800GT. So the 8750 runs at 2.9. Did 3dmark06 and got the same score as a 8400 Wolfie with the same 8800GT....online result. The 8750 runs at less than 40 degrees no matter what with a Opteron 185 cooler and the fan at 90%
Have waited for January to see what AMD was going to do. Am buying a Phenom II 940 and 2 4870's for a Biostar 790GXM-A board and will try to run the cpu at 3.6 on air. It should be enough for anything out there now or in the near term.
In other reviews with a OC'd 940 Phenom, game performace was on a par with the Intel 9770 or the I7 920, and that's what matters to me, since I don't rip movies or MP3's, but the main factor in all this is price. I don't need a $549-$700 cpu, or a new motherboard for $299.
I'm not saying the new Phenoms are the best, just that it makes alot more sense to me to not have to throw out existing hardware and start over. I realize you can OC Intels chips into oblivion so the whole overclocking deal a non issue but it's nice to just set the multiplier in the bios.
Submitted by MyMojo on Tue, 2009-01-13 20:05
Hey jihnn! I like to get second opinions too. I WILL be buying a new Phenom II, but waiting for the 945. It's reported to be DDR3 compatible. Check out the stats from Overclockers Club. http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/phenomii940/ In my opinion, it's well worth the cost savings compared to Intel. My prediction? If AMD sells it's 945 for around $275 too, I think your going to see Intel take a big step back on their i7 prices!
If humans evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
Submitted by dc10ten on Wed, 2009-01-14 15:51
already happening.
you all cursing AMD should reconsider
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/intel_cut_chip_prices_soon
bar graphs and charts oh my, bar graphs and charts oh my
Submitted by jihnn on Tue, 2009-01-13 08:29
i have been checking the benchmarks for the new amd and the i7 versus the older intell cpu's
in the real world how much diff. do you really experience. geeze i really want to buy amd, however when i look at the benchmark charts they arn't even close to an i7
i don't need fanboy help but would like some good imput
I say buy what you can
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Tue, 2009-01-13 15:49
I say buy what you can afford. I have a C2D E8400 based system I built last year and I don't need to upgrade. But I want to and if I had the cash I would build an I7 box. If you don't have much cash I say build the I7 920system. Shop around on the motherboards. I used the 750i SLI based motherboard for my C2D because it was about $150bucks and offers full dual X16 SLI like the more expensive boards but for half the cost. You just have to decide on what you can skimp on. I've always been poor and have always had to carefully balance performance verses price. It's difficult buy I think it's alot of fun building on a tight budget. Have fun and shop around. It takes lots of research to get the right hardware that does what more expensive hardware does.
I bet you can build a CoreI7 Quad based system with at least 4gigs of ram for a $1000 dollars or less and not skimp on much.
Submitted by jihnn on Tue, 2009-01-13 08:08
i like amd and want to buy their products. when it makes sense i do buy amd gear.
a week ago my amd rigs mb stoped working, it is now hanging from the ceiling along with all the other much loved puter stuff that has died over the years.
now do i buy amd and have a puter that might be relevent for .... don't know maybe 2 or 3 years and save about $300 or do i go intell and and have a better upgrade path.
i don't build a puter just to have the newest and fastest, i build them because it is fun.
i play online games, do just a little photo editing and burn some not many cd's i don't need an i7 but maybe i need all the memory that is supported by their mb's.
i'm playing warhammer now and they have got pvp right..... it takes skill and teamwork to win..errr sorry off subject
anyway the way online games seem to be going it is taking more and more memory to play them to get the smoothest gameplay
will the amd platform be adequite or do i need to feed the intel machine
Screw youself Keith E. Whisman
Submitted by DrMD on Mon, 2009-01-12 06:03
Apparently biatch you got me wrong you ain't the end all on this forum. Don't like it stop reading, then start your own magazine for your like-minded self-realized superiority complexed idiots.Maximum PC is like saying Maximum Automobile, if it's got 4 wheels but if you say Maximum Ferrari well then I know going in what it's about.I've been a subscriber since the 1st BOOT and if you only want Maximum subscribers with your opinions start your own snob rag.Otherwise bend over loser.
Submitted by srogers2750 on Sun, 2009-01-11 20:48
I had 2 old Cyrix chips, up till last year when I finally threw them out.
I still have a working Via C3 800 socket 370. As long as you werent gameing, Cyrix was ok, HOT! though, way hotter than the K6-2's
Kinda disapointed Via doesnt make CPU's anymore, they were awesome for building cheap, web browsing pc's.
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Mon, 2009-01-12 00:37
Awesome memory. I remember their 6x86 PR processors the PR stands for Performance Rating. A PR 133 might have run at 90mhz... Crazy times. I rember when IBM bought them up.
Submitted by jr1475 on Sun, 2009-01-11 15:39
I have remained loyal to AMD ever since Cyrix went out of business. I work for a major telco and once installed data circuits in Cyrix's Richardson, Texas office. They had a good thing going but stepped down after about 200mhz. Then there was AMD. Affordable, reliable and always a huge return on the bang for buck factor.
Fast forward to the present. No, AMD isn't kicking Intel's butt, simply and subtly making their move just like the memorable day the ATI 4870 Video card hit the shelves of the stores guys like me watch and wait and then pounce on the best as soon as it becomes available. GDDR5. Smaller die. Great performance. Most importantly, affordable. The fact that I will be able to drop this new Phenom II x 4 into my present rig and take off without missing a beat is quite a nice thing.
Sure, AMD did what it had to do to survive in the present economic environment, but having personally served in the military and walked the streets of more than a couple of the UAE, Dubai investors are fine with me as long as the core people who make this stuff work are able to call the shots. AMD must exist because there is no Goliath without David. Way to go, AMD! Your success will not please everyone. Just plain old guys like me. Oh, and Wall Street might want to take a look. Kudos, Man.
James R. Rea
Submitted by Pixelated on Sun, 2009-01-11 13:05
"It wasn’t all bad news for Phenom II though. The chip won the
ScienceMark 2.0, Quake 4, and PC Mark Vantage tests and eked out a win
in the Valve map compilation test".
Well thank god for that, I was just considering buying a new AMD based PC so I could run 5 year old games and synthetic benchmarks. None of that real world stuff matters to me. Thanks AMD!
Submitted by DrMD on Sun, 2009-01-11 04:38
When you become my Maximum Dad then you can tell me what to type on my pc, maybe you like bending over stupily priced crap but I won't and I'll type whatever comment I feel like.Besides your so-called bible actually prints articles on all dollar versions of pcs even gasp dare I say budget pcs so Keith mind your own business and if you have actual comment about the Phenomll then type that and don't worry about being my editor.
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Sun, 2009-01-11 20:35
Go Screw off DrMD. Quit being a cyber bitch.
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Sun, 2009-01-11 02:04
DrMD this is MaximumPC.. That means performance Price be damned so you should expect mostly high performance minded folks here. It does no good to argue here about prices. There is a publication that is price oriented and that is Computer Shopper. So just be a little easier on us because we belong here. I would understand people arguing about prices at Computer Shopper but not here. It's not about cost here.
If AMD were to build a stupid fast CPU then just like in the past MaximumPC would be giving AMD awards and everyone here would be talking trash about Intel.
I was only wondering why Intel still sells a proc for a grand. Doesn't seem right seeing as there are no competing processors that cost as much.
So damn it everyone love one another. Group hug everyone and lets get back to playing with Windows 7 official Beta and Left4Dead.
Submitted by DrMD on Sat, 2009-01-10 10:07
End yourself and your maximum bs my comments were not a phone call to you so for you to tack on my comments just shows you for the troll you are.So just comment on what you think not what I think or can you even think beyond what someone else types, you are just the typical sheep going over the maximum cliff, happy landing on a pile of BS!
Submitted by Driftweed on Sat, 2009-01-10 09:30
Irrelevant? And with that comment sir, you show you truly can break the laws of physics by sucking and blowing at the same time.
2003 build: Intel p4 2.8ghz, 1 gb memory, just tossed in a radeon 9300 AGP vid card last year. Still relevant to this day. Handles it's fair share of workload to this day.
2006 build: Core 2 duo e6400, 1gb memory, and an nvidian card. Irrelevant for all the reasons you state Amd is best. This is the year I nearly went with AMD. Once again thanks to looking at the speed king, A minor upgrade and it could probably give AMD newest a run for the money at the same price. 3 years later.
Both builds you now deem irrelevant for the very same reason you deem AMD relevant today? How odd.
2009 build: Looking like another intel machine. Why does speed matter again? Time will tell indeed. As i said before I get a whole system every 3 yrs. However, every year I plop $500 in upgrades, whether it be vid card cpu monitor memory hard drive whatever.
If you want to debate relevancy of processors over time (intel vs. AMD) take it to the forums. I simply made a comment about how it used to be a close call between the two companies for speed king. I follow the speed king's for my money.
Please don't attack those of us who are NOT looking for then next best processor for their e-machines. Not everyone is in the same boat as you.
I follow Maximum Pc's logo: minimum BS. And because of those ingorant remarks to prove your fandom you just rose the depth of BS to knee-high, so I'll end it since you cannot.
Submitted by DrMD on Fri, 2009-01-09 15:15
The only pieces of that Intel/Windows crap that will be relevant in 3yrs is maybe the case, mouse, and keyboard go sell your pipedreams to someone just hatched.In that amount of time it's not going to make 3seconds worth of difference and you'll still be watching that stupid hourglass for hours.
Huh?
Submitted by GreenTurtle on Fri, 2009-01-16 06:25
?
Submitted by Driftweed on Fri, 2009-01-09 12:43
Yeah UNLESS your someone like me who buys a 3-5 yr system. THEN it matters who fastest at the time. And when i go to replace my system I ask myself: do you want to nickel and dime yourself on an annual "budget" or just go all out with something that is gonna remain relevant for the next 2 yrs? Sticking with AMD is more like a subscription:
You pay less, get less and have to do it more often just to keep up on a very regular basis. OR you can simply budget out $2500 get a nice Intel system and be good to go for much longer with less investment over the long-haul.
All you guys still showing love to AMD need to think about that particular set-up. Imagine if you built a system 2 yrs ago with top of the line CPU, GPU, and memory, and motherboard. Now imagine if it was an intel dual core versus an AMD dual core. Who's gonna be the first one buying the chip?
For extreme gamers? nah, I just want my dvd movies burned sometime today. And if a new game comes out I just mite want to play it instead of watching a slideshow. (I know, I know, that's the graphics card. But the CPU IS relevant as well).
Ultimately it boils down to that little hourglass symbol you see when you open a window or how fast the bar fills up when your installing a new program. If you like that little hourglass, AMD is for you.
Maybe, just to show everyone the speed difference MaxPC can do real world everyday computing on video and show everyone why speed matters.
Submitted by DrMD on Fri, 2009-01-09 09:58
I find it ridiculous to spend that kind of money on Intel for what,more than half of the so-called buyers are frickin dreamers with hardly two nickles to rub together, the rest if placed in front of a PC without knowing the proc wouldn't have a damn clue how fast their crap was getting done and doing what, some PITA game, IRC, email, basically nothing they're doing even needs that computing power other than to continue to power their overblown sense of themselves as having "IT".AMD is the obivious choice for all but a very few but these idiots have more money than brains.So go stare at your benchmarks and continue to troll the web.
Submitted by ixianradeon on Fri, 2009-01-09 09:56
I belive the benchmark in the 6th row down is a typeo I think it should be 9,791 instead of 99,971 in the Cinebench 10 32-bit
Got money to burn? go for a
Submitted by pcwizmtl on Fri, 2009-01-09 08:02
Got money to burn? go for a crazy Intel Setup
Got money to save but want to have mid-range performance? Go AMD.
I built a Quad Core AMD box with 4gb 800Mhz mem 2 4850's crossfire for about $800 CAN
That aint bad.
The equivalent for Intel cost close to $1300 CAN
Nuff Said
***Sigh***
Submitted by 3DARTWORK on Fri, 2009-01-09 05:13
I have been a AMD user for years. Out of all the workstations and servers I have, only 1 is intel. But, they have really been pushing me away. First with the falling behind in performance, then with buying ATI, as I use all nvidia products. Then with a good chunk of their stocks being bought by middle eastern interests. Now, with their pushing their own 3 way brand, and not letting computer builders, like me, chose what is best for MY needs or my customers needs.
For the first time, I am thinking about intel. AMD has been good in the past but they are making to many dicissions FOR people when it should be 100% the customers choice. And me being told that one day I might have to buy intel just to get the support of the video cards I need because AMD has its own brand is not right.
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Fri, 2009-01-09 02:08
This is the 3rd generation of CPU's that AMD has not even attempted to compete with Intel. So why does Intel still sell it's extreme edition CPU's for a thousand dollars and more? There is no competing AMD EE cpu. With the exteme cpu from Intel all your getting is an unlocked multiplier and maybe a couple hundred mhz faster than a non EE cpu. But that is not always true as Intel has in the past released an EE and a regular cpu that both had the same speed and features except for the unlocked multiplier on the EE and the EE was nearly $500 dollars more expensive. This is really getting stupid.
The whole reason for locking the multiplier was the prevent rebranding cheap CPU's from being sold as Faster expensive CPU's. It's starting to appear to me that perhaps that may have just been an excuse to come up with the EE CPU.
Well I have never bought an EE cpu and never will. It's an all out waste of money that is better spent on other hardware.
Submitted by Shalbatana on Thu, 2009-01-08 22:00
I would love to moniker myself with an "extreme gamer" label, but I am ALWAYS on an extremly tight budget, and can never afford anything remotely close to $1000 just for a cpu. Hell my entire computer must come in less than half of that usually.
So yeah... count me in. It's not earth shattering, but AMD is right, it works for people like me.
_______________________________
"There's no time like the future."
Hate to admit it.....
Submitted by ghot on Thu, 2009-01-08 20:38
...but I still see the top of the line I7 showing poorly on 3DMark06 overall...kinda makes ya wonder :)
Good news
Submitted by Redeye on Thu, 2009-01-08 19:41
This is good stuff. First off, competition is good for the consumer and secondly I own an AM2+ board, so I expect to drop and roll at some point in the near future. Good work AMD, keep up the momentum and make some comebacks like ATI has done with their latest GPUs.
Submitted by jvc08 on Thu, 2009-01-08 18:58
the new cpu might not be as fast as the new i7 but is close enough in my opinion. good news for people who prefer amd. its about time for amd.
It helps me, at any rate...
Submitted by Cache on Thu, 2009-01-08 09:30
With the new Phenom II's, Intel may lower a few prices here and there to keep things competitive on the mainstream market. Given that AMD is completely abandoning high-end chips, one has to wonder if their time on top a few years ago was just a fluke and not a genuine accomplishment. Although AMD still cannot cough up anything noteworthy for people who genuinely want powerful systems--we'll see if their production models are as overclock friendly as the hand-picked demo models from earlier.
Even if they aren't, it's not all a wash--someone has to be the KMart of computer chips.
Real World Test
Submitted by Bender2000 on Thu, 2009-01-08 07:17
Grab the interns and hand them a calculator and a screwdriver, time to bake up an $800 AMD box and throw it in the ring with last month's Intel $800 box. Equalize on case, HDD and RAM and we'll see if we can get better performance from the CPU/MoBo/GPU combo that can be budgeted. AMD isn't rying to topple the Core i7 but looking to get in with all those kids trying to squeeze the most out of the least, which the $800 PC was supposed to represent.
Submitted by Driftweed on Thu, 2009-01-08 02:09
You know, the benchmarks used to at least have AMD win a couple categories because they were more "efficient". And back then they used the hell out of it, and we all remember it. Amd was cheaper and slighlty slower than intel with the benchmarks almost split. Oftentimes with intel only "winning" by the margin of error. I never was a fanboy of either company, but seriously when your new model of chip isn't designed to make a modest attempt at being the speed king spmething wrong. But then again, shortly after AMD bought out ATI didn't we see ATI do the same thing? There first board's were only meant to compete with Nvidida's lower end parts. So who really know's. Maybe they're just taking baby steps like they did with ATI? If the gap in performance remains like this for much longer Intel's could eventually just say why bother getting faster?
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Thu, 2009-01-08 01:34
It's good to see AMD still around but I believe they should have scrapped Phenom altogether and built an all new power house CPU. People are just going to continue buying Intel parts because Intel will just lower the price on it's CPU's to make sure people don't see AMD CPU's as an alternative to Intel. So AMD is still doing it's job to keep CPU prices down through competition with Intel it's not going to survive unless they start thinking performance.
So I'm sticking with Intel hardware until AMD can do better than this. This isn't even trying.
Submitted by srogers2750 on Sun, 2009-01-11 20:24
I have been building computers since the socket 7 days. my first AMD was a K6-2 300, had it running with a 3dfx Voodoo 3 3500, later upgraded it to a k6-2 500, but man that setup out performed my P2-350 everytime... Last Intel Chip I have built with was a P3, and my wifes old dell was a P4 2.5ghz.... it was ok, was limited to AGP4X.....but My single core AMD Athlon 64 1.8 ghz killed that P4 rig.... was like night and day, course I was using a gigabyte mobo with agp 8x :)
Ever since..I have stuck with AMD, and I really dont care what intel puts out, because even when my interest perks up, I go to CompUSA and play with the computers. Most of the time the intel machines are either locked up, or are choppy, while the AMD machines just plain run smooth, so I lose interest in intel, all over again.
While I miss, 3dfx....AMD/ATI merger excites me! Soon I'll have matching parts for every pc I build.
Did it once with an AMD all SIS setup, with a SIS Sabre 400 vid card, ran that for 2 years no problems, stable as all heck.
I stand by AMD till this day, and as long as there around, I dont feel the need to build an Intel Machine.
Submitted by Cambi on Fri, 2009-01-09 08:01
I certainly wont lie, when building a bargain basement PC I do always choose AMD, they are absurdly cheap and provide ample power for most people that I build PCs for. However, for myself I refuse to compromise. I need extremely powerful PCs to do the work that I do and I like to spend a little more early so that my parts stay competitive later. This top of the line AMD processor can't even put up a decent fight against the cheapest Core i7 which is only dollars away -- I wouldn't even bother considering it. Overclocking the Core i7 to the AMD processor's speeds would only make the AMD look even more outclassed. Completely dissapointing. A competitve market drives down prices and promotes progress. Now Intel doesn't even need to care, they are top dog without a competitor.
RESOURCE CENTER
MOST COMMENTED ARTICLES
MOST RECENT COMMENTS
THIS MONTH's ISSUE 
FEATURE 21 Instant PC UpgradesBUYER'S GUIDE Budget videocards: which pass, which fail?HOW TOSupercharge Firefox & Maximize your SSDFEATURE3 trends that will save PC Gaming WHITE PAPERSurge supression
Technology News
Computer Cooling Fans
Computer Cases
PC Game Controllers
PC Games
Computer Hardware
Headphones
MP3 Players
Stream Video
Computer Mouse
Monitors
Motherboards
NAS Storage
Networking
Laptop Computers
DVD Burner
Digital Cameras
Portable Storage
Computer Accessories
Smartphone
Antivirus Software
Sound Cards
Speakers
Computer Systems
Thumb Drives
Video Cameras
Video Card Reviews
Water Cooling
Gadgets
- Keyboards
© 2009 Future US, Inc. All Rights Reserved.