# Phenom II X4 at 6.30 GHz, Runs 3DMark-Stable



## btarunr (Jan 13, 2009)

AMD finally seems to have put a realistic assessment of its processors, with its claims of the Phenom II X4 having "massive headroom" with its overclocking potential being validated once again, this time by Team Finland, at a CES overclocking event. Team Finland was able to overclock a Phenom II X4 940 processor at its highest stable clock speed of 6.30 GHz using extreme cooling. Earlier attempts to overclock the chip beyond the 6 GHz mark only yielded in test-beds that were able to POST, boot and display the clock speed using CPU-Z. This attempt however, was a benchmark-stable overclocking feat. 

The bench consisted of a Phenom II X4 engineering sample, DFI LANParty Dark 790FXB-M2RS, OCZ DDR2-1066 memory, two Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics cards in CrossfireX and Windows XP. The CPU cooling employed was liquid helium, which dropped the temperature to -242 degrees Celsius. To achieve a clock speed of 6.30 GHz, the processor's vCore was set at 1.84V, its bus speed at 280 MHz and a multiplier of 22.5 was set. The HyperTransport frequency multiplier was set at 8. The Radeon HD 4870 X2 accelerators were set at 800 MHz (core) and 950 MHz (memory). The machine was put through 3DMark05, where it ended with a world-record score of 45,474. 



 

 



*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## btarunr (Jan 13, 2009)

The CPU clock speed as read by 3DMark and CPU-Z are at disparity, count the CPU-Z reading.


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## Jakl (Jan 13, 2009)

Yep... Yay for AMD! woot!!

thats unbelievable ... AMD has finally made some good CPU's. I wonder how much bigger improvements when the PII are on DDR3

1.84vcore aswell... Thats pretty good, werent the i7's around ~1.8v at only 6? 

*edit* erm 5.1ghz around 1.7v for the i7's


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## 1Kurgan1 (Jan 13, 2009)

Very nice, can't wait too get my Phenom II.


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## KBD (Jan 13, 2009)

go AMD


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## Jakl (Jan 13, 2009)

erm... what AMD used was 3DMark05... and the i7's OC users used Vantage for their 40k...

correct me if im wrong but isnt vantage score higher than mark05?


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## faky (Jan 13, 2009)

impressive!
wtf why didnt they take vantage


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## btarunr (Jan 13, 2009)

DjJakl said:


> erm... what AMD used was 3DMark05... and the i7's OC users used Vantage for their 40k...
> 
> correct me if im wrong but isnt vantage score higher than mark05?



This feat isn't related to the Core i7 feat. It is to show that Phenom II X4 is bench-stable at 6.30 GHz, though I would've liked to see more benchmarks being run.


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## Jakl (Jan 13, 2009)

btarunr said:


> This feat isn't related to the Core i7 feat. It is to show that Phenom II X4 is bench-stable at 6.30 GHz, though I would've liked to see more benchmarks being run.



Word 

Ive been an AMD fan for years, when AMD had their *downhill* performance on their cpu's past couple years, i was disappointment :shadedshu  but I am very happy to see that now AMD can push their CPU's up that far... 

AMD FTW! 

And yes, more tests we gotta see! I am looking forward what will be next


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## WarEagleAU (Jan 13, 2009)

Nice impressive score. Lets go to 05 and Vantage now. And kudos for using Liquid Helium


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## DrPepper (Jan 13, 2009)

Why didn't they push the 4870's a bit further.


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## johnnyfiive (Jan 13, 2009)

INSANE!, Awesome!!!


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## KBD (Jan 13, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> Why didn't they push the 4870's a bit further.



i assume to put less stress on the system. the power draw from 2 HD 4870X2 cards is quite big and its prolly even bigger when overclocked. I would think that they would've attained slightly better results with a single low end card. It actually be nice to see two different tests: the one they did with 2 HD 4870X2s going for the world record and one with  a lets say an HD 4670 which would possinly allow them to lessen the power draw and push the Phenom further.


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## cdawall (Jan 13, 2009)

get a nvidia mobo and run with GTX295's 

crosshair II formula or foxconn destroyer would be good


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## btarunr (Jan 13, 2009)

cdawall said:


> get a nvidia mobo and run with GTX295's
> 
> crosshair II formula or foxconn destroyer would be good



Neither support ACC required by AM2+ Denebs to reach those speeds.


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## KBD (Jan 13, 2009)

btarunr said:


> Neither support ACC required by AM2+ Denebs to reach those speeds.



Interesting, i thought they did have ACC just like ATI chipset boards. Hopefully nvidia will fix this in the next revision.


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## Jakl (Jan 13, 2009)

btarunr said:


> Neither support ACC required by AM2+ Denebs to reach those speeds.



Did not know that... Interesting... Hopefully nVidia will fix that later on


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## raptori (Jan 13, 2009)

they didn't test the CPU or what? ..... if they didn't then it's a big joke.... they didn't stress the CPU!!!!!! ....  and why 3dmark2005







stable stable


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## Jakl (Jan 13, 2009)

raptori said:


> they didn't test the CPU or what? ..... if they didn't then it's a big joke.... they didn't stress the CPU!!!!!! ....  and why 3dmark2005
> 
> stable stable



could if be possible that mark05 doesnt know the new AMD PII due to it hasnt been updated?


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## RadeonX2 (Jan 13, 2009)

ya and the resolution they used, 1024x768


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## mrw1986 (Jan 13, 2009)

So all this does is prove that i7 is better:

http://www.techpowerup.com/81798/In...e_3DMark_Vantage_40k_Performance_Barrier.html


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## raptori (Jan 13, 2009)

DjJakl said:


> could if be possible that mark05 doesnt know the new AMD PII due to it hasnt been updated?



what did they select??? the CPU test??? see this





only two tests they had selected...


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## Tatty_One (Jan 13, 2009)

mrw1986 said:


> So all this does is prove that i7 is better:
> 
> http://www.techpowerup.com/81798/In...e_3DMark_Vantage_40k_Performance_Barrier.html



Yep definatly but I suppose it somewhat depends really which "better" you mean, I think it's pretty much general knowledge already that the P2 across the board cannot match an i7 or even a high end Yorkfield but in some things it can match the competition, with at least decent overclocking options with this chip, what you actually have is a decent performing AMD platform that can at least compete in some area's, the platform price for this will be good seeing as some decent supporting motherboards whether it be AM2+ or shortly AM3 will be as little as half the price of top end x58 boards.....all in all AMD is at least back in the real "bang for buck" game and thats a start many of us have been waiting for.


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## moto666 (Jan 13, 2009)

With the right price and so much overclocking headroom it will bee a definitely HUGE MARKET HIT!!! 
Same as the HD4000 Series!


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## frankie827 (Jan 13, 2009)

i really want to 3dmark 06 and vantage benches of PII and i7 compared


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## swaaye (Jan 13, 2009)

Heh. At that low of a temp, it's not all that surprising. Semiconductors get interesting when you drop them to crazy low temps.

It doesn't mean jack about what air cooling will get you though.


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## mdm-adph (Jan 13, 2009)

Please, please, fanboys -- sit down.  Yes, everyone still knows the i7 is faster.  Enough frothing at the mouth.

All this means is that now AMD chips are once again pretty damn decent.  The fact that they were able to run anything for a length of time at that extreme overclocked speed is amazing.


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## $ReaPeR$ (Jan 13, 2009)

totally agree with you mdm. although i would like to see some real world testing - games etc. - anyway this is really great news for AMD and i am seriously thinking about trying their cpus and platforms.


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## R_1 (Jan 13, 2009)

+1. Welcome back Amd  .


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## KBD (Jan 13, 2009)

$ReaPeR$ said:


> totally agree with you mdm. although i would like to see some real world testing - games etc. - anyway this is really great news for AMD and i am seriously thinking about trying their cpus and platforms.



i think all these tests have been done already. there is been a whole avalanche of Phenom 2 reviews several days ago. Unless, of course, you mean tests at 6.3Ghz on liquid helium. But those wouldnt mean jack to most people. Still it would've be nice of them to run Vantage.


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## juan adames (Jan 13, 2009)

Nice numbers.  does anyone know the launch date for this cpu.


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## cdawall (Jan 13, 2009)

btarunr said:


> Neither support ACC required by AM2+ Denebs to reach those speeds.



nor does SB600 and 700 but they have still pushed those chips. i thought ACC was built into P2

 in fact they have gotten 3.7ghz on stock volts using a foxconn destroyer....

http://www.xtremesystems.org/Forums/showthread.php?t=214279

and they pushed it higher than they could using a foxconn 790GX mobo

http://www.xtremesystems.org/Forums/showthread.php?t=213690

unluckily the tester in this did not use DICE or LN2 on the 780a only the 790GX 



780a has shown to be a better overclocker than 790FX in many cases. this was very true with B2 chips like the 9600BE being pushed to 3.6ghz something no 790 board could imagine


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## OzzmanFloyd120 (Jan 13, 2009)

Impressive!
Let's hope that all of the PII chips can OC like that.


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## chris89 (Jan 13, 2009)

All i can is. WOW.

And all for a £240 chip compared to DDR 3 Ram, X58 Mobo, and a god expensive I7.

Well Done AMD.


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## Tatty_One (Jan 13, 2009)

chris89 said:


> All i can is. WOW.
> 
> And all for a £240 chip compared to DDR 3 Ram, X58 Mobo, and a god expensive I7.
> 
> Well Done AMD.



But I beleive socket AM3 will support DDR3?


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## KBD (Jan 13, 2009)

cdawall said:


> nor does SB600 and 700 but they have still pushed those chips. i thought ACC was built into P2
> 
> in fact they have gotten 3.7ghz on stock volts using a foxconn destroyer....
> 
> ...




cool, i always preferred nforce over ATI 

And i think you have a good point, ACC is already built into the Phenom 2 so it shouldnt matter.


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## Polarman (Jan 13, 2009)

Not for everyday use but still very impressive.


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## Rebo&Zooty (Jan 13, 2009)

cdawall said:


> nor does SB600 and 700 but they have still pushed those chips. i thought ACC was built into P2
> 
> in fact they have gotten 3.7ghz on stock volts using a foxconn destroyer....
> 
> ...



will still take my ta770 a2+ over the nvidia equivlant, i have managed 330fsb on this 6000+ b4 it stalled out(couldnt take more fsb)  thats pretty decent, i havent gotten ahold of  phenom yet, dont want a b2 since i run 64bit server 2008 and that damn tlb patch would ruin perf/clocking :/


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## cdawall (Jan 13, 2009)

Rebo&Zooty said:


> will still take my ta770 a2+ over the nvidia equivlant, i have managed 330fsb on this 6000+ b4 it stalled out(couldnt take more fsb)  thats pretty decent, i havent gotten ahold of  phenom yet, dont want a b2 since i run 64bit server 2008 and that damn tlb patch would ruin perf/clocking :/



the NV equivalent would be 750a which easily pushes over 300mhz bus speed.


not to mention 780a which pushes over 400


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## moto666 (Jan 13, 2009)

Yep if You want Core i7 You must buy motherboard + RAM DDR3, so if You got AMD AM2+ then just buy PII and a good cooler and I'm sure with a 3GHz chip You Easily get 4GHz on Air maybe 5GHz with water cooling! And For the best performance/money ratio I think we have a good come out to AMD PII, of course if your dad is Rockefeller or one of his palls You can make a faster system with Core i7! But 4GHz 4Core System PhenomII is not bad for a little money!


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## Rebo&Zooty (Jan 13, 2009)

cdawall said:


> the NV equivalent would be 750a which easily pushes over 300mhz bus speed.
> 
> 
> not to mention 780a which pushes over 400



its not the board thats holding me back, its the cpu, k8's enlarge dont like u to psu the buss to high, I have seen some stepings that wont take anything above 270 no matter how much u up the volts.

i had enought nvidia for now, the last 3 boards i owned for am2 where nvidia 550, 570 and 590, the last 2 where asus boards with SHIT bios (missing/non-functional memory options needed for proper ram clocking) 
the 550 board lasted me the longist but the chipset also ran alot hotter even with active cooling then this 770 board.

im sure the board could take higher buss, but the chip cant, and im not gonna push insain volts thru a chip just to get a few more mhz, its 100% stable at 3.3 1.39 volts, any higher and 1.66 volts isnt even enough to get 3.4 stable (maby if i had water or an xp120 and high flow fan)

6000+@3.3 with 6gb ram is pretty decent if you ask me, specly at the volts im using, i may even beable to lower the volts(gonna try later tonight i think since its 14hrs prime stable as it is  )


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## Rebo&Zooty (Jan 13, 2009)

moto666 said:


> Yep if You want Core i7 You must buy motherboard + RAM DDR3, so if You got AMD AM2+ then just buy PII and a good cooler and I'm sure with a 3GHz chip You Easily get 4GHz on Air maybe 5GHz with water cooling! And For the best performance/money ratio I think we have a good come out to AMD PII, of course if your dad is Rockefeller or one of his palls You can make a faster system with Core i7! But 4GHz 4Core System PhenomII is not bad for a little money!



intresting part i found was that for the price of the i7 board/cpu/ram you could get the amd cpu/board/8gb gskill PI ram AND a techwater cooler(xoxide has one for 137bucks) and still be cheaper then the i7!!!  with that cooler 4gz or better shouldnt be to hard


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## cdawall (Jan 13, 2009)

Rebo&Zooty said:


> its not the board thats holding me back, its the cpu, k8's enlarge dont like u to psu the buss to high, I have seen some stepings that wont take anything above 270 no matter how much u up the volts.
> 
> i had enought nvidia for now, the last 3 boards i owned for am2 where nvidia 550, 570 and 590, the last 2 where asus boards with SHIT bios (missing/non-functional memory options needed for proper ram clocking)
> the 550 board lasted me the longist but the chipset also ran alot hotter even with active cooling then this 770 board.
> ...



thats put wrong windsor's dont like high bus speeds manila, sparta, orleans, brisbane all love high bus speeds.


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## Rebo&Zooty (Jan 13, 2009)

duno, my g2 brisbain wont go past 3.2 and 315 buss, and i have seen plenty of 65nm amd chips that dont, now if you push insain volts into them, yeah u can do it, but Im not gonna do that to my chips, you may be willing to push 1.85v or so into a g2 but.....well i just wont torture my cpu's like that, I prefer them to last, from what I can see, you change stuff so offten it dosnt really matter


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## cdawall (Jan 13, 2009)

Rebo&Zooty said:


> duno, my g2 brisbain wont go past 3.2 and 315 buss, and i have seen plenty of 65nm amd chips that dont, now if you push insain volts into them, yeah u can do it, but Im not gonna do that to my chips, you may be willing to push 1.85v or so into a g2 but.....well i just wont torture my cpu's like that, I prefer them to last, from what I can see, you change stuff so offten it dosnt really matter



hehe this is true in the last 4 months i have had all of these and i have a sempron 3000+ on my desk A64 3500+ in my PC and 7750 making its way back from RMA.

intel 










AMD's from the past


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## Rebo&Zooty (Jan 13, 2009)

eww celeron.........


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## cdawall (Jan 13, 2009)

Rebo&Zooty said:


> eww celeron.........



look at the clock and that celly and its a very good chip smokes your AX2 as a matter of fact


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## chris89 (Jan 13, 2009)

Tatty_One said:


> But I beleive socket AM3 will support DDR3?



Yes it will, But not expensive Tri-channel.


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## 1Kurgan1 (Jan 13, 2009)

DjJakl said:


> Did not know that... Interesting... Hopefully nVidia will fix that later on



Wrong, the mobo they were using is the M2RS which is a SB600 board and doesn't have ACC. I know because I sold mine to get the M2RSH which is the version with the SB750. 

But neither of that matters because the Denebs I guess have ACC built into the processor. From what I have actually seen the SB600 boards actually OC a bit better.


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## Rebo&Zooty (Jan 13, 2009)

cdawall said:


> look at the clock and that celly and its a very good chip smokes your AX2 as a matter of fact



duno about that m8, the clock cant make up for the uber low cache, and the pentium dual cores have setup and helped overclock where faster in benches but where not even close to as smooth in real world use compared to an amd x2, corse if all u care about is spi and other benchmarks intels the only way to go.


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## cdawall (Jan 13, 2009)

Rebo&Zooty said:


> duno about that m8, the clock cant make up for the uber low cache, and the pentium dual cores have setup and helped overclock where faster in benches but where not even close to as smooth in real world use compared to an amd x2, corse if all u care about is spi and other benchmarks intels the only way to go.



considering i have used a 7750BE, 6400BE, 5000BE, e1200, e4300 and several other chips the e1200 easily ran as good as the AX2's in everything. of course my fav chip to use this far was a phenom 9500+ and there was no comparing that to any dual core


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## Jakl (Jan 13, 2009)

cdawall said:


> considering i have used a 7750BE, 6400BE, 5000BE, e1200, e4300 and several other chips the e1200 easily ran as good as the AX2's in everything. of course my fav chip to use this far was a phenom 9500+ and there was no comparing that to any dual core



yo fellas, stay on topic...


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## ghost101 (Jan 13, 2009)

mrw1986 said:


> So all this does is prove that i7 is better:
> 
> http://www.techpowerup.com/81798/In...e_3DMark_Vantage_40k_Performance_Barrier.html



While the i7 is faster, this doesn't prove it though.

They are using very different gpus and 3dmark05 would be massively cpu limited hitting the overall 3dmark score. What would have been a proper indication is the cpu score on 3dmark05 vs a 3dmark05 i7 cpu score.


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## PCpraiser100 (Jan 13, 2009)

i7 is better just because of the QPI. The Phenom has nearly 1/2 the bandwidth (1800-2000MHz HT FSB) if these processors were put on full load. If AMD upgraded the HyperTransport with the future 3.1, which is what many enthusiasts are right now yelling in AMD's ear for, AMD should be fairly close to the performance of the i7 on full load clock-for-clock.


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## Tatty_One (Jan 14, 2009)

chris89 said:


> Yes it will, But not expensive Tri-channel.



You dont have to put tri channel in an i7, it is quite happy taking dual channel.


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## cdawall (Jan 14, 2009)

PCpraiser100 said:


> i7 is better just because of the QPI. The Phenom has nearly 1/2 the bandwidth (1800-2000MHz HT FSB) if these processors were put on full load. If AMD upgraded the HyperTransport with the future 3.1, which is what many enthusiasts are right now yelling in AMD's ear for, AMD should be fairly close to the performance of the i7 on full load clock-for-clock.



that 1800-2000 is double pumped for 3.6-4gb/s


and even at full load you will not max out the QPI or HT on these chips this was easily proven several times when it was turned down and caused NO EFFECT


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## PaulieG (Jan 14, 2009)

I really hope we don't go back into the i7 is just better conversation, or I may just stick a red hot poker in my eye. This is well established. i7 is just faster, and a whole bunch more expensive (when comparing good boards to good boards). Let's really try hard to stay on topic here.


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## Rebo&Zooty (Jan 14, 2009)

Paulieg, the IFB's and ppl who dont care about price will alwase be "i7 is the best, c2q is 2nd best, amd sucks" thats what u see over at Hard for example.


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## PCpraiser100 (Jan 14, 2009)

Rebo&Zooty said:


> Paulieg, the IFB's and ppl who dont care about price will alwase be "i7 is the best, c2q is 2nd best, amd sucks" thats what u see over at Hard for example.



AMD sucks? You should stop over-exaggerating your replies more often.

True that AMD can no longer compete with Intel's arsenal right now, but AMD doesn't really care about the word "competition" anymore, they just care about what the consumers need most, not enthusiasts. Sure, AMD kinda over-hyped us a bit when Phenom came out with nil overclocking, but so did Intel who decides to force people to upgrade their way to CPUs, mobo by mobo, which is insanely inconvenient for new builders who don't wanna keep on building. Sure, Intel rocks most of the time now that they've set the gap, but AMD is still good enough for gaming and multi-tasking as well as not screwing us over with incompatibility issues and overpriced processors with unlocked multipliers .


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## btarunr (Jan 14, 2009)

Did you read what Paulie just said? Back to topic.


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## PCpraiser100 (Jan 14, 2009)

btarunr said:


> Did you read what Paulie just said? Back to topic.



Sure thing, anyway I am pretty excited that Phenom now has insane overclocking capabilities. Especially if it can run 3DMark pretty stable. However if this 125W Phenom can hit that high, does anyone think it can crack 7GHz?

That's a lucky number!


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## 1Kurgan1 (Jan 14, 2009)

It really shouldn't be considered a 125w model. Considering it only takes 93 watts at 100% load, where as a 9850 takes 135w.

I am just impressed though that they benchmarked over 6Ghz. People can always boot and get a CPU-Z higher than stable benching. And with AMD Overdrive I could easily see 7Ghz CPU-Z verify real quick then tone it back down. My bet is it will happen.


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## Hayder_Master (Jan 14, 2009)

nice score but it must good benches there like super pi


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## Tatty_One (Jan 14, 2009)

I would personally prefer to see some benches from say PC Mark, AMD has always been strong on floating point calculations and PC Mark is a more "rounded" bench, I actually think the P2 may do well in it.  Being a retired overclocker now, i really do wish that all CPU's and motherboards were locked so none of them could overclock, it can get a bit tiresome when people compare stock speed performance and then go off on a "but this one overclocks better than that one blah blah"  As I said earlier, from a total platform cost the p2 would simply be excellent performance for the $ from what I have seen and we should all be grateful it;s here, if only to squeeze Intel just a little!


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## eidairaman1 (Jan 14, 2009)

if it was possible, id take one of their opterons (Am2+/AM3) and unlock it to become a BE/FX and see how far i can push it vs the Desktop parts


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## OnBoard (Jan 14, 2009)

Totally missed this news here.. Go Finland!  Hope you all checked the source link, there are some funky helium mist filled pictures.

http://plaza.fi/muropaketti/3dmark05n-maailmanennatys-suomeen
I'll translate the picture texts just in case if you are interested:


Copper CPU bowl was first cooled by liquid nitrogen to -190C
After this the liquid nitrogen was removed and replaced with input hose from liquid helium container
Bottom of the bowl reached -242 degrees with liquid helium
Phenom II X4 -processor was working @ 6.3GHz in the tests
Team Finland from left to right: Sami ”macci” Mäkinen, Petri ”SF3D” Korhonen, Sampsa Kurri


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## wolf (Jan 14, 2009)

heheheh, yeah must be super duper stable, they know all this without running the cpu test hahahaah.


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## kyle2020 (Jan 14, 2009)

seems like a bit of a farce to me, im still not convinced that PII will beat i7


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## intel igent (Jan 14, 2009)

very nice! glad to see this


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## PaulieG (Jan 14, 2009)

kyle2020 said:


> seems like a bit of a farce to me, im still not convinced that PII will beat i7



Ughhh. Of course it won't. Please read my post above.


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## mdm-adph (Jan 14, 2009)

hayder.master said:


> nice score but it must good benches there like super pi



The WPrime benchmark is the way of the future.    Super-Pi is so... "single-core centric."


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## btarunr (Jan 14, 2009)

mdm-adph said:


> Super-Pi is so... "single-core centric."



Then use Hyper-Pi (multi-threaded SuperPi).


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## mdm-adph (Jan 14, 2009)

btarunr said:


> Then use Hyper-Pi (multi-threaded SuperPi).



Either that or WPrime, aye.


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## Tatty_One (Jan 14, 2009)

For total system performance which focuses on CPU speed, memory read and write latence plus HDD access times, the good old Sceincemark is still hard to beat, the downside is that it only uses 2 cores max I think.


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## Steevo (Jan 14, 2009)

kyle2020 said:


> seems like a bit of a farce to me, im still not convinced that PII will beat i7



burn it with fire.


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