Thursday, January 8th 2009
Phenom II X4 Reviewed
With the official launch of the AMD Dragon platform, AMD lifed whatever NDA restrictions it had over the media to publish reviews of its Phenom II X4 processor, letting proper and final reviews make to the internet. Several tech-enthusiast websites have taken the opportunity. Reviewers put the Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition to test.
The Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition is AMD's flagship desktop CPU. With four processing cores clocked at 3.00 GHz, it embeds 2 MB L2 and 6 MB of L3 cache. Based on the AM2+ socket, it supports the DDR2-1066 standard. This processor is especially overclocker friendly with its unlocked FSB multiplier and the overall positive response from the reviewers on its overclocking headroom. Here are some of the reviews at:
bit-tech | Elite Bastards | ExtremeTech | [H] Enthusiast | Hexus | HotHardware | NeoSeeker | TechReport | TweakTown | The Guru of 3D | Tom's Hardware
The Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition is AMD's flagship desktop CPU. With four processing cores clocked at 3.00 GHz, it embeds 2 MB L2 and 6 MB of L3 cache. Based on the AM2+ socket, it supports the DDR2-1066 standard. This processor is especially overclocker friendly with its unlocked FSB multiplier and the overall positive response from the reviewers on its overclocking headroom. Here are some of the reviews at:
bit-tech | Elite Bastards | ExtremeTech | [H] Enthusiast | Hexus | HotHardware | NeoSeeker | TechReport | TweakTown | The Guru of 3D | Tom's Hardware
65 Comments on Phenom II X4 Reviewed
I want to say let's see what AMD can bring to the table next, but this is a launch.
They're a generation behind in processors now, which is too bad. ATI really was a great acquisition for them it seems.
I have always favored AMD up to when Intel made the C2D.....Then I was very upset with my FX57:o because I was a looser to C2D in just about every thing...OCing and benching were no longer competitive against the Magic C2D that were a fraction of the price...I paid friggin $1057 for that FX57:o:o:o:banghead:
So what does any logical overclocker and Bencher do? Well I made the switch to Intel and just recently too...I still hope that AMD regains the crown one day but till then I will stick with Intel:rockout:
QX9770 $1400
vs
chips that are gonna retail for under 300bucks each........
why not drag race a geo metro vs a tricked out GTO or something?
I lost all respect for Hard long ago when i watched mass bannings over reports of problems with the 8800gt's(that later where confirmed)
they are below toms on my list of sites i trust, and toms is just about the level of reading tp somebody already made use of( since tom sold it, its trash)
also the hard review 2gb ram on phenom2, 4 on qx9770, and 6 on the i7, yeah that dosnt have any effect.
they also dont test gaged and ungaged...........typical hard bullshit if you ask me
I was hoping for something better from AMD...the wait continues...
Dont get me wrong, im not saying the p2 is the best chip but in its price range, its not as bad as their review shows, the other reviews are more even from what i can see, they kept the playing field more level.
hope to see somebody here and at pcper do a good review of the p2 chips showing how running memory gaged and ungaged can effect results, as well as how other perf tweaks can effect perf, i trust TPU and PcPer(ryan is a good guy) more then i will ever trust the likes of kyle over at [H], hes a disshonest asskiss who uses his site and possition to get free hardware and get into beta testing hardware for companys like nvidia, if scewing the results of a few benches this way or that can keep him in the big boys(intel/nvidia's) good graces and keep the hardware flowing, damn strait hes gonna do it.
hell hes banned company reps for not telling him who they where b4 they started posting, I have had 2 reps from popular videocard makers tell me they got banned for not devulging who they where b4 they started posting(both posted to try and help with user issues with their products, aka to offer good support) one of them had him offer to unbann if he was willing to give H a couple free cards for benching....ROFL......lovely.
sorry cant post the company or rep names in public, promised not to, dont want to get them in trouble, connections go a long way when ur rmaing cards for urself or helping friends/clients get RMA's taken care of :)
Hopefully the 790GX motherboards will be considerably cheaper than X58 though.
PCPer and The Tech Report are two of my favourite sites, I love their podcasts.
I did see a response from Kyle Bennett:
Yes, they have different amounts of RAM. NONE of our test are dependent on RAM volumes and never come close to getting into a cacheing situation. I thought about ramping the Phenom II up to 4GB, but it would have likely made it a bit slower in the scoring. I used 4GB in the C2 system because that is the same stick we have standardized testing on all the i7 systems. The Corsair 1600 DDR3. Had we gone with 2GB in the Core 2 we would have likely gotten a bit faster scores, at least that has been my experience.
The one thing that concerned me, that I bought up in the review, but did not go into detail on, is the ability or lack there of, of the Phenom II and 1066 DDR2 speeds. I have not had any trouble with K8 or Phenom and 1066 memory. I could not get the Phenom II systems to do . Not sure if it was Phenom II or the board, but I have done 1066 on that board before with the same RAM and Phenom.
again kyle makes up excuses to explain why he did stuff to hamper the compeditor that didnt pay him....
i would expect some results out of pcper soon as well as rebels haven forums, alot of 790gx board owners over there are gonna have these chips as soon as their grubby hands can get ahold of them ;)
for anybody with am2 or am2+ the upgrades easyer.
am2, replace board(if it dosnt have a bios update) and cpu, a cheap prospect compared to intel even for a kickass clocking bord.
am2+, bios update most times, if not avalable replace board same as above.
tho i have seen a few reports of boards that DONT have bios updates just seeing the phenom2's as phenom's..........so you may not need an updated bios to run a p2 in a current am2 board(good job amd!!!)
I think the main point here is that the games tested in the [H] don't need that much ram.
My ram is running at 5-4-4-18 1088MHz. I have found that Crysis responds better to higher MHz than tight timings. I have tested this theory with the same ram at 733MHz 3-3-3-5. However this was on a 680i platform.
(almost none mentioned it)
amd chips like lower latancys, IF you can up the clocks and keep latancys down, your gonna get the best from both, but if the ram just cant take the clocks but can deal with decent clocks at good latancys amd will be FINE.
also the phenom chips have gaged and ungaged mode, as well as other memory tweaks that effect diffrent games/apps diffrently, seen results where some apps run drastickly better in one mode then the other, in one case it was 2 games they said it may acctualy be worth rebooting and changing that setting to gain the perf.
just a question, was your test on vista or xp? and was it x64?
just wana know, I feel that kyle's excuses are just that, excuses, a true 1:1 bench would try and balance EVERYTHING, and he dosnt even pretend to bother.
for example he states that any intel quad will do 3.2( i have seen a few that we couldnt quite get to full 3.2) and also seen weird results from memory deviders when overclocking causing WEIRD perf effects, some cases droping fsb a small ammount and chainging the devider gives better perf then higher cpu clock with slitly lower ram clock OR in a WEIRD instance, lower ram clock (about 40mhz) was faster........cant explain it but its best to bench like priced platforms if you ask me.
After all my current build is going to be AMD............whenever I finish :laugh:
after a little weaking i got it to 3.2 stable for him, he still dosnt understand how, he could overclock p4/p-d but that was about it hehe.
some systmes act very odd with overclocking, chipsets/bios, can be VERY weird things that happen :)
something i found with g2 chips, i gotta up the fsb 2 at a time or it falls into recovery mode, with the f3 or f2 chips 1mhz works fine :)
Yeah, well my GTI isn't as fast as a Ferrari, but it's a damn good deal. :D
That being said, that cheapest Core i7 processor is a damn fine chip -- it's too bad the cost of their motherboards and DDR3 make it so prohibitive to buy.