AMD Phenom II 920 & 940 Full Review

[Wiggy McShades]

At 1680 x 1050 the phenom wins in far cry, equals the core i7's in crysis (the phenom 940 is one fps better than the core i7 920 with turbo off), and then loses in WIC. I don't see that as amd taking back the gaming crown and if you want a good bang for you buck set up q9550 looks to be a better choice compared to the phenom 2 940 for gaming. I'm disappointed in the phenom again, after owning a 9850 BE and now to see no real improvement is kinda sad.

[YukonTrooper]

Yikes. If this review is an accurate reflection of performance, looks like I'll simply be dropping a Q9550 into my rig and waiting another cycle. Expected more from the green camp.

[AbelJemka]

bs; it is obviously choked by the single gtx 260 216.
put some ubber grfx with the sys. and watch i7 fly away

True but 260GTX 216 is not a crappy card.
If i7 buyers need to buy a uber graphic card too, platform cost become very awful.

[Zucker2k]

Again you don' know temps nor PII wattage.
That's not even extrapolation nor speculation, your claims are just pure imagination...

In case you missed it, I am running a Q9550, so I know something about wattage/temps of the eo caliber. Secondly, AMD's on die sensors are not calibrated to give you feeds from the hottest parts of the core, so the temps we're seeing are not actual core temps; I personally believe this is why even Deneb struggles after about 1.55v to overclock unless cooled considerably. Search for the shots. In the wattage department, 45nm C2Q is unbeatable.

[Tiridum]

you sure it isn't 3.7v?

just drop it, this isn't helping anyone. this is like jehovas telling you what to believe. just let people decide for themselves, there's some fine technology on both ends.

I don't state otherwise, basicly i think people have choice right now, if they want to buy a good machine, they buy a phenom2 or a core2, both are amazingly fast
but if you want to have the best pc around, you simply buy a i7, which is an awesome but rather expensive cpu(and platform)

i am just happy that AMD is getting a little back in the game, Intel dominating everything was getting boring (they still dominate a lot, but phenom looks promising)

[Macadamia]

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.



And no, a Q6600 OCed to 3.2 will give you just ~13000 points, slightly more or less (200 point margin).


Of course all the C2Qs tested here use 1866Mhz RAM, while most arguments about "value" never ever ever include 1866Mhz RAM prices.

In case you missed it, I am running a Q9550, so I know something about wattage/temps of the eo caliber. Secondly, AMD's on die sensors are not calibrated to give you feeds from the hottest parts of the core, so the temps we're seeing are not actual core temps; I personally believe this is why even Deneb struggles after about 1.55v to overclock unless cooled considerably. Search for the shots. In the wattage department, 45nm C2Q is unbeatable.

DIFFERENT SILLICON ACTS DIFFERENT ZOMG!

Seriously if you'd stop being a Shintai sucker and being trollish at that, maybe we'd start to take you with a smidge of seriousness. Wait, you'll never do that.

[Clairvoyant129]

Wow, I didn't expect this... looks like it's on par with Kentsfield @ 2.4GHz, very disappointing.

[AbelJemka]

At 1680 x 1050 the phenom wins in far cry, equals the core i7's in crysis (the phenom 940 is one fps better than the core i7 920 with turbo off), and then loses in WIC. I don't see that as amd taking back the gaming crown and if you want a good bang for you buck set up q9550 looks to be a better choice compared to the phenom 2 940 for gaming. I'm disappointed in the phenom again, after owning a 9850 BE and now to see no real improvement is kinda sad.

Come on! Win or loss where?
On 1680x1050 bench biggest difference is 2fps!!!

[amdcian]

You don't even know the price

According the info I know from AMD supporter in my country, the expected price of PII 920 is about $230 and 940 is $275

But with this situation, AMD must slightly cut price to increase the competitive competence

[accord99]

I highly doubt any chip could use that little watts

Plenty of reviews have shown the 45nm C2Ds and C2Qs to have exceptional power usage. Like here where the QX9650 uses less power than a E6750:

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14606/12

Or Anandtech's examination of the QX9650 which suggests it probably doesn't hit its TDP till around 3.8GHz

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=3184&p=2

It's pretty evident that the Intel's mainstream dual-cores use 20-30W under full load while even the QX9650 only consumes about 65W.

[mAJORD]

The only Blind fanboi is anyone who says Phenom II = no more than Q6600.. seriously.

Bit disapointing results next to penryn, but fairly expected. I would have pitched P II 940 against Q9550, and this review shows PII falling just a tad short of that.

As mentioned though, way too many synthetic app's which really benefit i7's HT, and huge mem bandwidth advantages.. The review Makes Yorkfield look like a 486 at times, which more balanced reviews don't portray.

If anything most of the synthetics in this review show how much of a monster i7 will be in serverland in 6mths or so, but aren't really indicative of desktop performance.. PhII will look better

Review Needs:

*Photoshop, and other photo editing app's
* hi def and std def video encoding - divx, WM, H264 etc. plenty of free to download app's you can use here
*movie editing programs
*audio encoding - FLAC, lame mp3, etc
*sysmark
*virus scanning



*

[YukonTrooper]

Come on! Win or loss where?
On 1680x1050 bench biggest difference is 2fps!!!

That's exactly what he's trying to say.

[Zucker2k]

DIFFERENT SILLICON ACTS DIFFERENT ZOMG!

Seriously if you'd stop being a Shintai sucker and being trollish at that, maybe we'd start to take you with a smidge of seriousness. Wait, you'll never do that.

Still doesn't change the fact the chip sucks 1.35v at default clocks, performs on par with a Q6600.

[Blaber]

As i said before, these days we are also working @ clock to clock comparison @ 3.1

deneb vs kentsfield vs yorkfield vs bloomfiled.

As soon as we finished it i ll report back

Please also mention at what speed PhenomII NB you will be running at in that review 3.1Ghz clock-to-clock review.

Also 3.1Ghz seems to be too low of a overclock , probably 3.6 ~ 3.8 Ghz with PhenomII NB@2.7Ghz would be a nice comparison to do.Also mention the idle temps/load temps and Power consumption at those clock speeds.

[Wiggy McShades]

Come on! Win or loss where?
On 1680x1050 bench biggest difference is 2fps!!!

yeahh that's what im getting at. i think at that rez it was up to the gpu. honestly if amd priced the phenom 2 940 bellow the price of a q9550 then sure its a good bang for your buck setup, but its still not what I personally was hoping for out of this new release.

[Tiridum]

Still doesn't change the fact the chip sucks 1.35v at default clocks, performs on par with a Q6600.

Why is 1.35V bad?

[BrowncoatGR]

Still doesn't change the fact the chip sucks 1.35v at default clocks, performs on par with a Q6600.

Are you sure you were reading the right review? Stop with the trolling please

[AbelJemka]

In case you missed it, I am running a Q9550, so I know something about wattage/temps of the eo caliber. Secondly, AMD's on die sensors are not calibrated to give you feeds from the hottest parts of the core, so the temps we're seeing are not actual core temps; I personally believe this is why even Deneb struggles after about 1.55v to overclock unless cooled considerably. Search for the shots. In the wattage department, 45nm C2Q is unbeatable.

Send me links please. Links with PII comsumption and temps and i believe you.

Wow, I didn't expect this... looks like it's on par with Kentsfield @ 2.4GHz, very disappointing.

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

According the info I know from AMD supporter in my country, the expected price of PII 920 is about $230 and 940 is $275

But with this situation, AMD must slightly cut price to increase the competitive competence

Why?

Still doesn't change the fact the chip sucks 1.35v at default clocks, performs on par with a Q6600.

Volatge = power consumption? Since when!
Sorry if it perfoms on par with Q6600 so is Penryn so don't buy PII don't Penryn go buy Q6600

[Zucker2k]

Why is 1.35V bad?

This is why:

Check out my idle volts/watts in everest; yes, software but relatively spot on. I know, can't believe it myself, especially since I'm on a C1, instead of a EO.

Send me links please. Links with PII comsumption and temps and i believe you.


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


Why?


Volatge = power consumption? Since when!
Sorry if it perfoms on par with Q6600 so is Penryn so don't buy PII don't Penryn go buy Q6600

Good enough, YOu show me a PII beating that.

[gosh]

Plenty of reviews have shown the 45nm C2Ds and C2Qs to have exceptional power usage. Like here where the QX9650 uses less power than a E6750:

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14606/12

Or Anandtech's examination of the QX9650 which suggests it probably doesn't hit its TDP till around 3.8GHz

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=3184&p=2

It's pretty evident that the Intel's mainstream dual-cores use 20-30W under full load while even the QX9650 only consumes about 65W.

OT
Why did they create Atom?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...nt,1997-6.html

[accord99]

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.

And no, a Q6600 OCed to 3.2 will give you just ~13000 points, slightly more or less (200 point margin).

Cinebench is mostly unaffected by memory latency and bandwidth or HT link speed or FSB. And Ph1 performed well against Kentsfield in this benchmark, but it didn't translate into most applications.

Of course all the C2Qs tested here use 1866Mhz RAM, while most arguments about "value" never ever ever include 1866Mhz RAM prices.

Not that it matters, the Everest memory latency and bandwidth indicates that the C2Q probably would have done just as well or better with only DDR2-1066.

[AbelJemka]

This is why:

Check out my idle temps in everest; yes, software but relatively spot on. I know, can't believe it myself, especially since I'm on a C1, instead of a EO.

Nice PII you have good temp
Err...that's not PII!!!
What's the point?

[Tiridum]

This is why:

Check out my idle temps in everest; yes, software but relatively spot on. I know, can't believe it myself, especially since I'm on a C1, instead of a EO.

i thought you said 1.35V was bad on an AMD cpu?

AMD uses a totally different process then Intel, you cannot compare those
maybe 1.35V sucks on Intel's HKMG bulk cmos, but is quite common on a SOI proces

so please dont compare bananas to Lychees

[BrowncoatGR]

This is why:

Check out my idle temps in everest; yes, software but relatively spot on. I know, can't believe it myself, especially since I'm on a C1, instead of a EO.

how are your Q2C idle temps relevant to P2?

[accord99]

OT
Why did they create Atom?

A dirt cheap to make product that they can sell into entirely new markets. The C2Ds they can save for the markets that are willing to pay a premium for performance/watt like in ultra-portable business class notebooks.