# Phenom X4, X3 45nm Lineup for H1 2009 Explained



## btarunr (Sep 22, 2008)

AMD would be releasing its first desktop processors based on the 45nm silicon fabrication process, based on the newer Deneb core. The company is said to have made several tweaks to the original K10 design and equipped the core with 300% the amount of L3 cache as its 65nm Agena parts. The only thing got us wondering was what would be its nomenclature like? Well, be surprised to know that after Phenom X4 9000 series, the company plans to continue the numbering with a 5-digit model number scheme with x1000 unit deviations between models. A rather confusing naming scheme, as suggested by the chart provided, seems to have been adopted.

It is now clear, that there will be two distinct kinds of Phenom X4 45nm chips: those which continue support for DDR2 memory on the existing AM2/AM2+ sockets, and those which are exclusive to the AM3 socket and feature support for DDR3 memory, DDR3 1333MHz at that. The processors would feature dual 64-bit memory controllers, which could be ganged for a single 128-bit wide memory interface, or un-ganged to step up multi-tasking efficiency. 






The first two Phenom parts out are, Phenom X4 20350, clocked at 2.80 GHz, and a higher model, Phenom X4 20550, clocked at 3.00 GHz. Both these parts are DDR2 compatible which extends the life of current AM2/AM2+ platform. Both have rated TDP of 125W. This is an improvement over the 65nm parts, which had a third of the amount of L3 cache and the 2.60 part being rated at 140W. 

Next up, is a fleet of AM3 socket processors that use DDR3-1333 as the memory standard. Their nomenclature starts from the 16xxx range, extending up to 20xxx depending on the clock speed. It can be seen that the parts with a full 8 MB cache (4x 512 KB L2 + 6 MB L3) feature a 20xxx number, while those based on the Propus core which lack L3 caches, feature a total of 2 MB cache (4x 512 KB), have 16xxx series number depending on their clock speeds. Interestingly, there's a part with 3 MB cache featured. We're not sure how the math works out. Finally, 45nm Phenom X3 parts are listed, with their two kinds of cores depending on the presence of L3 caches. They use 14xxx for those with the L3 cache (Heka core), and 12xxx for those without them (Rana core). As you can see, the model numbers are now a complete deviation from the PRN system AMD used only an year ago with its Athlon 64 X2 chips. Also mentioned are their tentative release dates. AM2+ Deneb chips are just around the corner.

*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## servermonkey (Sep 22, 2008)

i wonder if there is a black edition in the line up


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## Error 404 (Sep 22, 2008)

Wow, looks like AMD are finally getting their shit together.
3 GHz quad? Nice. I might consider an AMD+ATI Quad Core rig once I get some money and spare time.


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 22, 2008)

3ghz quad for the win!  I cannot wait to see what they have to offer when benchies come out.


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## btarunr (Sep 22, 2008)

servermonkey said:


> i wonder if there is a black edition in the line up



AMD could close the AM2 / AM2+ chapter with a Deneb 20x00 Black Edition. Regarding DDR3 chips with unlocked multipliers, all indications are that Deneb FX (Phenom FX) offers that.


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## Mussels (Sep 22, 2008)

god the naming lineup looks like ass. fire the guy who invents these numbers.


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## WarEagleAU (Sep 22, 2008)

I agree the whole damn thing is confusing. And it seems they kind of went away from the backwards compatibility of AM2/AM2+ and AM3. good to see some preliminaries on them, but the naming scheme needs to change.


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## magibeg (Sep 22, 2008)

I wonder what tweaks they've done to these chips outside of dumping a bunch of cache on them. (not sure how much benefit all the extra cache will be anyway, but i suppose they wouldn't put it on if they didn't think it would help)


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## mdm-adph (Sep 22, 2008)

Screw this -- I'm still waiting on my 45W dual-core Phenom.  I'm not moving to quad-core for another couple of years.


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## jbunch07 (Sep 22, 2008)

Oh yes! that's what im talking about, Im so picking me up that 3ghz quad!


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## Steevo (Sep 22, 2008)

It has seemed to me that the memory controller is the reason why most Phenoms to date overclock poorly, and the lack of cache hinders performance in multi-tasking and or very linear tasks.


Perhaps they beefed up the controller and withthe upped cache these should perform really well.


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## dani31 (Sep 22, 2008)

AFAIK the AM3 processors will be paired at launch with RD790/SB750 rebranded combo,
with RD890/SB800 to follow in Q2, with availability by the time Intel goes 32 nm.

I need a new gaming rig for the autumn games (Crysis, Stalker and the like) so I'm not gonna wait. I'll build a 9950 + DFI RD790/SB750 board + HD 4870 rig today and worry less about future performance benchmark cause this is a never ending story.


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## btarunr (Sep 22, 2008)

I remade the chart myself. Is it better now? Those letters "xyz / abc" are variables, AMD is yet to place a number there, just to show the numbering series.


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## jbunch07 (Sep 22, 2008)

btarunr said:


> I remade the chart myself. Is it better now? Those letters "xyz / abc" are variables, AMD is yet to place a number there, just to show the numbering series.



that makes things a little easier to read, thanks.


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## Para_Franck (Sep 22, 2008)

OOOO yes, I will be trading my good old 5600+ for a 20350 model. I neverregretted my old X2, she still runs pretty sweet (3,3Ghz) But those quads with more cache and smaller fabrication process really look better, so It will be time to change soon. 

It is now time to start saving money, I sure would like a pair of 4850 to go with that! (now running a 3850)


Ooooo sweet upgrades, you are costing me all my loose change!
Should I consider Vista and DX10?


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## jbunch07 (Sep 22, 2008)

Para_Franck said:


> OOOO yes, I will be trading my good old 5600+ for a 20350 model. I neverregretted my old X2, she still runs pretty sweet (3,3Ghz) But those quads with more cache and smaller fabrication process really look better, so It will be time to change soon.
> 
> It is now time to start saving money, I sure would like a pair of 4850 to go with that! (now running a 3850)
> 
> ...



I would def recomend vista and DX10


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## magibeg (Sep 22, 2008)

Vista and DX10 is definitely a wise choice. Definitely don't regret getting it for my system.


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## smd20z (Sep 22, 2008)

I thought the power values would have been lower due to migration of 45nm...Ah I think Core i7 is bringing another can of whoop @$$ from Intel, but we need competition!!!


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## johnnyfiive (Sep 22, 2008)

I've been saving for the Deneb, Q4.. please come out in Q4.


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## WarEagleAU (Sep 22, 2008)

Yeah Bta, it's alot easier to read now. Something I didnt post earlier is, I was hoping with the transition to 45nm that power would be a tad bit lower. I was thinking they would top out at 95W and be as low as 65W perhaps.

Also, nice to see the core speed go up. Hopefully, they will OC alot better and the extra cache should help with other applications.

I also noticed that AMD transition to 45nm alot quicker than they did to 65nm. Not exactly on the heels of Intel but damn near close to them, which is good. If Intel is heading to 32nm soon (which would be odd to go there so quick with the release of 45nm pieces ) I expect AMD to follow in about 6-9 months.

I hope the prices stay within reason as well.


Oh, are there 790FX boards out now that have the SB750 on it?


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## btarunr (Sep 22, 2008)

65nm Agena : 2.60 GHz (X4 9950) = 140W
45nm Deneb : 2.60 GHz (X4 20x00, + 4 MB more L3 cache) = 95W.

Not bad


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## jbunch07 (Sep 22, 2008)

WarEagleAU said:


> Yeah Bta, it's alot easier to read now. Something I didnt post earlier is, I was hoping with the transition to 45nm that power would be a tad bit lower. I was thinking they would top out at 95W and be as low as 65W perhaps.
> 
> Also, nice to see the core speed go up. Hopefully, they will OC alot better and the extra cache should help with other applications.
> 
> ...



yes, 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186149
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131339


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## smd20z (Sep 22, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> yes,
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186149
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131339



Great to see the SB750 out so quickly - although I'd rather go with DFI/ASUS/GIG over foxconn any day. Thanks for the post.


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## jbunch07 (Sep 22, 2008)

smd20z said:


> Great to see the SB750 out so quickly - although I'd rather go with DFI/ASUS/GIG over foxconn any day. Thanks for the post.



second board is ASUS


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## pjladyfox (Sep 22, 2008)

btarunr said:


> 65nm Agena : 2.60 GHz (X4 9950) = 140W
> 45nm Deneb : 2.60 GHz (X4 20x00, + 4 MB more L3 cache) = 95W.
> 
> Not bad



Not bad is right. While, granted, I wish the power savings were a bit more say somewhere in the 65W range this really is not that terrible when you look at the differences.

Hopefully the Phenom X4 20550 will be reasonably priced when it comes out since that would be a nice healthy jump in performance over my 9850 at 2.5GHz. I'm just wondering how well it will be able to compete against the Core i7 since I'd really like to see AMD get back into the performance game.

However, I must admit I am a bit disappointed that they seem to be ditching the AM2+ and DDR2 since I'm still really not sold on DDR3 especially considering the prices are still higher and I'm not going to be paying double for the same performance just for a new socket.


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## btarunr (Sep 22, 2008)

pjladyfox said:


> However, I must admit I am a bit disappointed that they seem to be ditching the AM2+ and DDR2 since I'm still really not sold on DDR3 especially considering the prices are still higher and I'm not going to be paying double for the same performance just for a new socket.



That's why they didn't give the AM3 lineup a clock-speed advantage over its AM2+ counterparts. The fastest AM2+ Deneb is 3.00 GHz, same with AM3. Depending on the memory of your choice, pick your chip.


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## newtekie1 (Sep 22, 2008)

It seems to me that AMD is taking a page from Intel's book and taking an underperforming architecture and pairing it with an insane amount of Cache to try and up the performance to competitive levels.  Everyday, I think more and more that K10 is the netburst of the current processor world.


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## KBD (Sep 22, 2008)

I dont know, i think this is an improvement from the earlier roadmap. Looks like we wont be getting a 4 gig Deneb FX, but speaking of FX, why isn't it up on that chart? Any thoughts on when it could be released and at what clock speed? I think it will be at 3.2Ghz and may there will be Black Editions of the other chips later down the road. That would correspond to AMD's earlier policy: release locked multi chips first and then Black Edition later.


As far as AM2+/AM3 deal, its nice of AMD to continue supporting the old socket, not everyone wants to move to DDR3 yet, i think it needs to mature more and drop in price. But i was still hoping to see official support for at least DDR3-1600, but i supppose the RAM could be overclocked to that frequency. One nice thing about is that beats Intel Nehalem DDR3-1066 boards.


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## mdm-adph (Sep 22, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> It seems to me that AMD is taking a page from Intel's book and taking an underperforming architecture and pairing it with an insane amount of Cache to try and up the performance to competitive levels.  Everyday, I think more and more that K10 is the netburst of the current processor world.



Newtekie's world:

8M Cache on an Core 2 Chip:  "Great chips -- that much added cache makes for great performance."

8M Cache on a Phenom:  "Poor chips -- added cache is obviously a poor attempt to improve performance."



I agree with you that K10 is looking like the Pentium 4 of the current processor world, but it's got nothing to do with their choice of cache sizes.  (It's got much more to do with the heat/performance ratio.)


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## Abu Assar (Sep 22, 2008)

those who said that AMD dropped the support for AM2+ can notice that AMD didn't release any deneb AM2+ cpu that has an equivalent agena .

i.e agena core maxed at 2.6 , so deneb will start from 2.8 going through 3.0GHz and maybe in 2009/H2 they will introduce 3.2 for AM2+ and AM3 simultaneously , this or they will pull a 939 again.

and about the naming scheme , once we get used to it ; it will make much more sense , as you can divide it into 2 sections (1) 20 (2) 550 , and there is much more for future product to fill the grid : 20xxx , 30xxx , 40xxx and so on !

looks like ATi team gave them this idea as it is similar to Radeon HD 2000 , HD 3000 , HD 4000 ...


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## KBD (Sep 22, 2008)

mdm-adph said:


> Newtekie's world:
> 
> I agree with you that K10 is looking like the Pentium 4 of the current processor world, but it's got nothing to do with their choice of cache sizes.  (It's got much more to do with the heat/performance ratio.)



I think both you and newtekie hit the nail on the head, the heat/performance ratio and intro of large cache sizes reminds the revised K10 of netburst. But if i'm not mistaken Intel was alsopushing the frequency of P4s to insane levels, i guess thats where the similarity ends.


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## PCpraiser100 (Sep 22, 2008)

3Ghz Phenom? TWO 64-bit controllers? I want one.


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## btarunr (Sep 22, 2008)

PCpraiser100 said:


> 3Ghz Phenom? TWO 64-bit controllers? I want one.



 it's the same with today's Phenom X4 as well. K10 dice have two memory controllers, each of 64-bit data width to connect to a memory channel (unlike a single 128-bit controller on K8). When you say "Ganged Mode", you're making the two controllers on a K10 work combined for a single 128-bit wide path (same as "dual-channel") but when you ungang them, you have two 64-bit wide paths (supposed to help multi-threaded apps). Don't confuse this to "single-channel" memory, as there, you'd have only a single 64-bit wide path. For Unganged mode, you'd still need your two modules in the correct slots on the motherboard, so each controller could access its module.


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## WarEagleAU (Sep 22, 2008)

True, but all the phenoms from 9950 to 9750 is supposed to be 125W now, I thought they changed those.


And thanks, I checked newegg.com after I posted that. Foxconns looks awesome.


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## mdm-adph (Sep 22, 2008)

KBD said:


> I think both you and newtekie hit the nail on the head, the heat/performance ratio and intro of large cache sizes reminds the revised K10 of netburst. But if i'm not mistaken Intel was alsopushing the frequency of P4s to insane levels, i guess thats where the similarity ends.



Ah -- thus, until the FX series Phenoms come out, the "netburst" analogy doesn't fully apply.  (Hopefully, it won't then either, if the performance is there and the chips don't catch on fire due to the heat.)


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## soldier242 (Sep 22, 2008)

hmmm and i thought that they'd pack a ddr2 and a ddr3 controller on one chip >_>, guess i didn't read good back then


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## Polarman (Sep 22, 2008)

I look forward in seeing some benchies comparing AM2+ and AM3 using the same speed CPU.


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## soldier242 (Sep 22, 2008)

Polarman said:


> I look forward in seeing some benchies comparing AM2+ and AM3 using the same speed CPU.



yup that would be pretty nice indeed


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## Abu Assar (Sep 22, 2008)

soldier242 said:


> yup that would be pretty nice indeed


\

or deneb and agena using the same clock speed


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## WarEagleAU (Sep 23, 2008)

They said something about them being interchangeable and also about them being backwards compatible. I wasnt entirely sure how they were gonna do DDR2 and DDR3 IMC on one chip though. Looks like they axed that plan.


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## flashstar (Sep 23, 2008)

When Intel went to 90nm on the Prescott architecture they saw virtually no temperature drops. AMD is seeing a very healthy temperature decrease with its 45 nm cpu's. 140w to 95w for the same speed and a much greater L3 cache.


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## Hayder_Master (Sep 23, 2008)

so what about phenom fx im still like it cuz 4.0ghz core clock , any news


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## soldier242 (Sep 23, 2008)

WarEagleAU said:


> They said something about them being interchangeable and also about them being backwards compatible. I wasnt entirely sure how they were gonna do DDR2 and DDR3 IMC on one chip though. Looks like they axed that plan.



so am i getting it right that you just need one new board to house a DDR3 or a DDR2 phenom?


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## ChromeDome (Sep 23, 2008)

i'm a little confused also. are these going to work with "old" AM2 boards as well as AM2+? the AM2 board in my specs, for instance?


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## jbunch07 (Sep 23, 2008)

PsychoTronn said:


> i'm a little confused also. are these going to work with "old" AM2 boards as well as AM2+?



I believe its am2+ only.


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## ChromeDome (Sep 23, 2008)

ah...i see. another quick read would bear that out

man some of us got left in the dust by AMD with our mobos. upgrade, upgrade, upgrade....

it never ends


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## jbunch07 (Sep 23, 2008)

PsychoTronn said:


> ah...i see. another quick read would bear that out
> 
> man some of us got left in the dust by AMD with our mobos. upgrade, upgrade, upgrade....
> 
> it never ends



tell me about it. I've been through 3 motherboards in the past 9 months!


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## newtekie1 (Sep 23, 2008)

mdm-adph said:


> Newtekie's world:
> 
> 8M Cache on an Core 2 Chip:  "Great chips -- that much added cache makes for great performance."
> 
> ...



Where did I say the added cache on a Core 2 Chip was great for performance?  And the 8MB on the Core 2 chips have always been there, when Intel went to 45nm they added another 4MB, and it didn't really help performance any.  Intel added cache because they could, AMD is adding cache to try and improve performance in a flop architecture.

mdm-adph's world: "[Phenom] performs on par with equal-clocked conroe parts"

Your unconditional love for AMD has blinded you to the facts.



KBD said:


> I think both you and newtekie hit the nail on the head, the heat/performance ratio and intro of large cache sizes reminds the revised K10 of netburst. But if i'm not mistaken Intel was alsopushing the frequency of P4s to insane levels, i guess thats where the similarity ends.



The Phenom's won't clock to the insane levels that the P4's could, but in terms of what we had now from the Phenom line-up the 3GHz stock clock is an insane level.  But pushing clock speeds isn't really important.  It is really what the processor companies want to do.


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## Mussels (Sep 23, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> tell me about it. I've been through 3 motherboards in the past 9 months!



oh how i remember AMD fans telling me in past days, how AMD didnt require contsant motherboard updates but intel did with their constant FSB changes.

at least its easy to tell if your CPU is supported on intel nowdays, amd has wattages, steppings, DDR2/3.... its just getting worse and worse.


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## KBD (Sep 23, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> The Phenom's won't clock to the insane levels that the P4's could, but in terms of what we had now from the Phenom line-up the 3GHz stock clock is an insane level.  But pushing clock speeds isn't really important.  It is really what the processor companies want to do.



Actually i wasn't referring to overclocking, i was talking about how Intel released P4 & Celerons in the above 3 gig stock frequencies. If i'm not mistaken they did overclock well after Intel moved to 90nm, and AMD stopped overclocking well after putting on onboard IMC. 3GHz for AMD is not insane thats why i said the similarity with netburst ends there. But you are right, there are parallels with netburst that we discussed above.


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## mdm-adph (Sep 23, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> Where did I say the added cache on a Core 2 Chip was great for performance?  And the 8MB on the Core 2 chips have always been there, when Intel went to 45nm they added another 4MB, and it didn't really help performance any.  Intel added cache because they could, AMD is adding cache to try and improve performance in a flop architecture.
> 
> mdm-adph's world: "[Phenom] performs on par with equal-clocked conroe parts"
> 
> Your unconditional love for AMD has blinded you to the facts.



Oh, please -- I don't need a quote, I know you think it.  You're basically supporting what I said by admitting that Intel added needless cache when they went to 45nm -- perhaps because they feared the potential of the Phenom?  (Whether it was there or not, they were still adding cache when they perhaps didn't need to.)  If it's silly for AMD to do it, it's silly for Intel -- believing anything else is hypocritical.

And as the multitude of posters showed in that thread you linked, I still don't think I was wrong in stating that about the Phenom. 

And "unconditional love?"  When I basically agreed with you that the K10 might shape up to be the netburst of the current scene -- not to mention that I've been vocal about the colossal blunders AMD has made in the past (wasting time buying ATI, for one).  That's not what I'd call "unconditional love," unless you're talking about some freaky S&M shit.


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## newtekie1 (Sep 23, 2008)

No, you made a statement claiming I said something or believed something and I never said nore believe it.

It is not Hypocrytical to say AMD is doing it for different reasons than Intel.  AMD NEEDS to do it because their performance is sub-par, they are adding the cache to help improve performance.  Likely Intel is doing the same, adding cache is an easy way to help performance.  

The big difference is that Intel doesn't need to add it, and didn't add nearly as much as AMD.  AMD has doubled the cache on their processors, Intel added 50%.  And I wasn't totally accurate in saying that the added cache on Intel's processors didn't help any, it does help in a lot of multi-media area actually.

AMD is jacking up the amount of cache to try and make up for the sub-par performance of the K10/Phenom architecture, just like Intel did with Netburst.  Intel isn't doing the same with the Core 2 because their performance is Sub-Par.  I'm not saying either side didn't add cache, and I'm not saying either side didn't add cache to improve performance.  I'm saying that AMD is doing it to an insane level because it is their only option to improve performance at this point.

Oh, and there are no posts in that thread that back your statement up.  Unless you call a few posts showing the Phenom managing to equal or surpase the Core 2 at he same clocks in a total of 4 out of 35 tests.  Again, maybe if it was a little closer to 50/50 I would be more inclined to agree with your statement.

At this point, anyone that would make the statement that Phenom/K10 perform on par with Core 2 is either completely ignorant or a fanboy.  Which are you?

Edit: Of course you are more than welcome to post some benchs that actually back your statement up and prove me wrong, if you can.



KBD said:


> Actually i wasn't referring to overclocking, i was talking about how Intel released P4 & Celerons in the above 3 gig stock frequencies. If i'm not mistaken they did overclock well after Intel moved to 90nm, and AMD stopped overclocking well after putting on onboard IMC. 3GHz for AMD is not insane thats why i said the similarity with netburst ends there. But you are right, there are parallels with netburst that we discussed above.



You can't just look at clock speeds as a universal thing.  Clocking netburst processors over 3GHz wasn't insane, in fact the netburst architecture was designed with high clock speeds in mind.  You have to look at the clock speeds in context of the architecture.  Ever since the Athlon days, an insane clock on an AMD was way lower than an insane clock on a P4.  Over 3GHz on an Athlon XP was completely insane, but 3GHz is nothing on a P4.  It all has to do with context of the architecture.  3GHz on a Phenom is insane, hell a 3GHz overclock on a Phenom is damn good right now, so releasing a stock processor that is clocked at the speed that most overclockers consider a good overclock is insane.


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## MadClown (Sep 23, 2008)

shame i only have AM2+, but that doesnt mean i cant get a 3.0ghz quad,


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## soldier242 (Sep 24, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> 3GHz on a Phenom is insane, hell a 3GHz overclock on a Phenom is damn good right now, so releasing a stock processor that is clocked at the speed that most overclockers consider a good overclock is insane.



yup it is tru that OCing a AM2+ Phenom to 3Ghz is hard to do, but i think that these die-shrinked CPUs will clock better and the architecture improvements would help clocking the the next phenom to and past 3Ghz, i don't consider it insane in any way ... 

to the added cache, i think there were some tests showing that the actual phenom architecture doesn't profit that much from added cache and now i think AMD is either adding a huge amount of cache, because they didn't change that much and thats the only way to compensate or the improvements really profit from the cache ... either way i'm eagerly waiting for the 45nm phenoms to show up ... yikes, it sound really confusing


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## mdm-adph (Sep 24, 2008)

newtekie1 said:


> Oh, and there are no posts in that thread that back your statement up.  Unless you call a few posts showing the Phenom managing to equal or surpase the Core 2 at he same clocks in a total of 4 out of 35 tests.  Again, maybe if it was a little closer to 50/50 I would be more inclined to agree with your statement.
> 
> At this point, anyone that would make the statement that Phenom/K10 perform on par with Core 2 is either completely ignorant or a fanboy.  Which are you?
> 
> Edit: Of course you are more than welcome to post some benchs that actually back your statement up and prove me wrong, if you can.



Hmm -- I seem to remember the benchmarks for all these: Winrar, OpenSSL, 3D Studio Max 9, Studio 12, GZip Linux, Sandra Whetstone tests, Scimark Linux, all memory bandwidth tests.  Seems good enough for me.

"Up to par" does not have to mean "faster than" -- it means an acceptable level of performance in relation to something else.  And I'm still not fully convinced that any benchmarks that show Intel chips with _huge_ leads aren't because of some Intel-only instruction set that, of course, AMD is not going to be able to match.


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## newtekie1 (Sep 24, 2008)

mdm-adph said:


> Hmm -- I seem to remember the benchmarks for all these: Winrar, OpenSSL, 3D Studio Max 9, Studio 12, GZip Linux, Sandra Whetstone tests, Scimark Linux, all memory bandwidth tests.  Seems good enough for me.
> 
> "Up to par" does not have to mean "faster than" -- it means an acceptable level of performance in relation to something else.  And I'm still not fully convinced that any benchmarks that show Intel chips with _huge_ leads aren't because of some Intel-only instruction set that, of course, AMD is not going to be able to match.



Again, that isn't even close to half the benchmarks, and there is no way I am even considering the memory bandwidth tests.  AMD is going to win those simply because they have an integrated memory controller, and they have no effect on any real world performance.  And no, less than 10 benchmarks out of over 40 with the Phenom winning is not good enough to back up the statement than Phenom/K10 is equal to Conroe based processors clock for clock.  I'll agree with your statement when you can show me close to 50/50.

Oh, and now we have gone from "equal" to "up to par", your argument just keeps getting worse.  No one said "up to par", you are just trying to change the argument to help your side out.  You and I both said "on par" which means equal to, look it up.

Oh, so now anything that Intel wins, it has to be because of some instruction set that AMD could never match.  It could't be because the processor are just better, could it?  And even if it was because of an instruction set, it doesn't matter, Intel's processors still outperformed AMD's.  The architecture is just better.


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## KBD (Sep 24, 2008)

i'm afraid newtekie is right, mdm. Core 2 is def better than Phenom, that may change with the Deneb, but as of now Core 2 is a beats Phenom clock for clock, not by a great deal but it does.


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## Mussels (Sep 25, 2008)

the AMD fans who are clocking the phenoms cant catch up to intel, but that doesnt mean they dont deserve respect for trying. theres no challenge getting the fastest, most overclockable hardware and going 'looky me i blew $6k on this rig!' the challenge is getting the underdog and getting it as damned fast as you can


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## miloshs (Oct 8, 2008)

the history goes like this concerning who has the better CPU...

Intel
AMD
Intel
AMD
Intel
AMD
Intel
AMD
...
..
.

getting the pattern here?


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## kysg (Oct 8, 2008)

There is no pattern its just another day in the biz of cpu's.


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## Steevo (Oct 8, 2008)

Dammit, I wish I would have waited to get my board, mebey I can change it and RMA it.


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## Chicken Patty (Oct 10, 2008)

Anybody have any idea on the pricing of these things yet, at least for the Deneb?


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