AMD Phenom II 920 & 940 Full Review

[roofsniper]

Nobody is doing that; here, a chip is rated at 125W TDP @ 1.35v how much power you think it'll have to draw to reach that TDP? You work it out. I already know the answer and you don't accept it, so work out the math. We shall see.

well i tried working out the math but then i found out it makes no sense at all. how many watts can i draw at that wattage? do you mean how many amps it will have to draw to reach that tdp? i did the math for that and it is no more than 92.6 amps no more than hmmmmm. so are we looking at how much power the cpu will consume under the absolute worst conditions or are we looking at what its average power consumption is? the average is all that matters. as we don't look for maxiumum fps on a video card review we don't look for maximum power consumption either.

[AbelJemka]

i am sorry for ati seems they are gonna die with amd c'mmon amd you can do better than that at least game benchs at high res aren't bad and thats only positive thing about this new cpu

Only positive?
Compare to Penryn, PII wins Winrar, Wprime and 3DM05.
Compete in 3DM03,3DM06 and Vantage.

IBlah, blah

Just wait PII powers numbers and you could conclude after please

[Clairvoyant129]

You speaks like people telling 4870 matches 280GTX because it beat it in ONE bench. Pathetic...

I should have mentioned that I was comparing it on a clock for clock bases. Even with a 600MHz advantage, it still can't completely dominate 2 year old quad core. Looks like I know what my next upgrade will be.

And Abe, it has been shown multiple times in various reviews Intel's TDP is very relaxed. The 45nm Penryns does not teach their max TDP @ stock clocks, unlike their AMD counterparts but I guess you will have a hard time believing that.

[junkmonk]

to all the ungrateful idiots saying: oh i'm never going to look at a review from this site again because they used superpi etc etc... give them a break. they spent however many countless days i'm sure coming up with the first real results to compare the i7, q9450, q9550, q6600 and the phenom II. not to mention breaking nda just to give the community what they want.. they didn't have to publish these. they're the first to give us something real to talk about, other than bull speculations and rumours.

anyways, on to the results: from the limited gaming perspective, it seems like this chip is a winner. I'm definitely interested. Results are on par with my expectations for everything else as well. I'm getting one of these chips.

[accord99]

You should do some testing yourself on power usage for the computer, I don't think you are going to get those low values on Intel. I have done some testing my self and I don't really understand how some review sites has got the values they present.

I have, they are pretty much dead on. The 45nm C2Ds and C2Qs are simply an incredible achievement in performance/watt, performance and power consumption.

[bowman]

Lets get them to SKIP 32nm and go straight on to bulldozer at 22nm.

I don't think that's a good idea. That's the kinda thing that led to GeForce FX and its likes.

[mAJORD]

I should have mentioned that I was comparing it on a clock for clock bases. Even with a 600MHz advantage, it still can't completely dominate 2 year old quad core. Looks like I know what my next upgrade will be.

And Abe, it has been shown multiple times in various reviews Intel's TDP is very relaxed. The 45nm Penryns does not teach their max TDP @ stock clocks, unlike their AMD counterparts but I guess you will have a hard time believing that.

it can't? :|

you obviously didn't read the whole review.. even with a 400Mhz clock advantage (920) it completely dominates Q6600, whilst almost certainly using less power.

A 9950 for reference would have really helped here, but for a die shrink, like barc-shanghai, looks like they've done a great job.

[Morais]

This isnt a FULL review...Where are the power consumption and power dissipation tests?

[demonkevy666]

why?
Whats wrong with the destroyer and 260GTX(216SP)?
We have also Asus M3A79T but the destroyer is much better board.
At tests i ve done they have exactly the same performance.



Q6600 was at defaults(2.4G)

I have nothing angst the board I actually plan on buying a destroyer. The Asus seem to be a favored board for overclocking, at least in the amd section. I don't see much about the destroyer here though, not many people will to put phenom in SLI/TriSLI. I would like to see some mutli-card difference with phenom 9950/9850 vs phenom II

[demonkevy666]

I don't think that's a good idea. That's the kinda thing that led to GeForce FX and its likes.

I never said release it early I mean they could work it for more years to prefect a better designed chip, like in the 2011 year.

[gosh]

I have, they are pretty much dead on. The 45nm C2Ds and C2Qs are simply an incredible achievement in performance/watt, performance and power consumption.

OT
What are the results that you have got? I am interested, the environment is important and have done some testing also

[OverClocker_gr]

I've rechecked CB10 scores.

Phenom II is much better in x64, beating the 2.83GHz 9550 definitely. Clock for clock (P-II @3.2) it's almost the same as a 400Mhz FSB 9770, so we have to "cripple" that for the Q9650.

you are right.

P2 @ default


qx9650 @ 9550 clocks



Lets say that its not AMD optimized(which i dont know), how many "real" x64 progs do you use on your every day use?

[Macadamia]

I use Cinema 4D, Realflow, Maxwell Render, Maya and Houdini.

All are x64. I'm not your average guy, but there you go.

[demonkevy666]

you are right.
Lets say that its not AMD optimized(which i dont know), how many "real" x64 progs do you use on your every day use?

shows huge improvements over a 9850/9950

[OverClocker_gr]

I use Cinema 4D, Realflow, Maxwell Render, Maya and Houdini.

All are x64. I'm not your average guy, but there you go.

Ok,but again Deneb is slower clock to clock

[Tiridum]

Ok,but again Deneb is slower clock to clock

what is mem clock and latencies for both platforms?

[rozzyroz]

hey, thanks for the review, i found a lot of good information in there.

do you think you could run the games tests with HT off?... just for comparison sacks.

[OverClocker_gr]

@Tiridum

sure AMD is much much better.

You can "feel" instantly the difference, browsing over windows.

[fatguy1992]

Well in most tests it was that much better then a Q6600 @ 2.4GHz vs a 3.0GHz PII. I'd like 2 see how they all did at the same GHz.

Anyway very good review.

[OverClocker_gr]

hey, thanks for the review, i found a lot of good information in there.

do you think you could run the games tests with HT off?... just for comparison sacks.

in our next review(which is on the way) for clock to clock comparison there will be the option for HT on and HT off.

Otherwise you can see here @ our older review for Core i7( http://www.hwbox.gr/showthread.php?t=2915 ) what you should expect

[Caveman787]

I'd like to see max and reasonable air overclock comparison's between them all.

Considering for core i7 3.6 is the sweet spot before heat gets to bad, phenom II seems like the sweet spot could be from 3.8 to 4.2, q6600 has 3.4 to 3.6 and q9450/q9550 has 3.8 to 4.0.

[OverClocker_gr]

the phenom that i got in my hands, tops out @ 3.8 with ~1.5v.(stable)

@4g im not able even to boot windows with any voltage.

[Caveman787]

Huh, guess you got a bad one because most everyone that I've heard testing them has gotten to 4.0 pretty easily.
By that 4.0 I meant 940. I've seen 3.8 and 4.0 for 920 as well from high htt overclock, so I'm assuming they have pretty close air overclockability.

How high are you getting the htt/nb with your overclock?
Or are you just multiplier overclocking?

[roofsniper]

Ok,but again Deneb is slower clock to clock

ehhh clock to clock doesn't matter as much if it can oc higher. from what we have seen so far deneb looks to be an amazing ocer.

[Daveburt714]

I just hope the PhII's get released pretty soon, so some of the XS guys with experience tweaking Phenoms can post some results...

Thanks for the review OverClocker_gr, it's nice to see some solid stock numbers but I can beat alot of the PhII scores with my OC'd 9950BE (@3.2Ghz)...

Phenoms have always been temperamental beasts.
Before anyone makes snap decisions about their potential performance, why not wait until they are in the hands of people who have been taming it for the last year...