AMD Phenom II 920 & 940 Full Review

[mongoled]

Pretty much what I expected for stock clocks, thanks for the preview. Will be looking out for reviews showing real world results that simulate how most users will be using their quad cores.

Something like, running music, watching video through web browser, multitabs open, virus scanning in background and maybe some file browsing, win raring in the mix.

Also am very interested to see reviews showing performance scaling with increase of nb speeds. If AMD had been able to release the Phenom II at default HT/NB speeds of 2600mhz, me thinks there would be a lot less negative posting here.

So at stock it is a little disappointing, however I expected that, now its just upto some peeps who have the chips to start increasing HT/NB frequencies and showing us comparitive performace gains........

[largon]

Oh, yeah, thanks for the numbers.
But what's the idea behind the flash charts? To simulate slow internet?
¦)

[Pillo-kun]

I dont understand how people can say that amd has a better platform? bought a am2+ for my brother for a phenom 2 sys and although the cpu right now is a 5200+x2 i feel that the am2+ sys feels cheap and not as well thought out as the 775 sys. lets hope that the phenom 2 falls in price cus if not then i have made a bad platfor choice for my brother.

[kromosto]

arent anybody that wondering why tahts so different core corei7 in 1280*1025 to 1680*1050. yes in that res that is more gpu limited but this doesnt explain for example in far cry 2 corei7 give %50 more then phenom2 @ 1280*1024 but in 1680*1050 it gives %10 less. you cant explain this by gpu limitation because they all use same gpu.

So what i am thinking is the problme is all about x58. It seems like it has no problem with cpu but may x58 is limiting gpu more the previous chipsets?

[loutsos]

Thanks for the review, I think the community needed it.

PhII looks quite decent, coming in somewhere between the Kentsfields and Penryns. Not bad, that is quite a lot of performance for any use.

The prices are a bit high though. I hope availability brings some price drops for amd and price cuts from intel...

[Brother Esau]

Sure if you have a thousand Plus Dollars to upgrade to Nehalem .....GO FOR IT!

I will spend a couple of Hundred and and be thrilled compared to what we have witnessed over the Past years disappointment. Taking what I just said into consideration it is indeed a huge leap for AMD Compared to initial release of Phenom.

But the Fact is that Nelhalem is still a RIP from AMD whatever which way you slice it. I guess with unlimited capital of Intel & RD Team compared to AMD they just better make it sing.

[largon]

Yup.
Considering AMD's resources it is nothing short of impressive they can compete with such a hostile competitor.

I dont understand how people can say that amd has a better platform? bought a am2+ for my brother for a phenom 2 sys and although the cpu right now is a 5200+x2 i feel that the am2+ sys feels cheap and not as well thought out as the 775 sys.

What board?

[YukonTrooper]

I dont understand how people can say that amd has a better platform? bought a am2+ for my brother for a phenom 2 sys and although the cpu right now is a 5200+x2 i feel that the am2+ sys feels cheap and not as well thought out as the 775 sys. lets hope that the phenom 2 falls in price cus if not then i have made a bad platfor choice for my brother.

Perhaps he had a bad experience with Intel platforms, but most people would agree that Intel does have the better platform at the moment. Platform quality goes hand-in-hand with what socket chips are doing well in the market. S939 was prime back in the day, as AMD was selling chips like hot cakes. There were tons of boards to choose from; therefore, the competition was good and you could pick up a solid mobo for dirt cheap. Now, we have a large Intel influence in the market and the same thing is happening with LGA775. Companies are simply putting more resources and effort into the LGA775 based mobos, as the chips that correspond to those platforms are selling better. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

[Coldon]

I'm probably gonna get flamed for this, but personally I'd go PII just to be rid of the ty ICH10 controller. If PII can offer similar performance to yorkfield at a lower power consumption, that coupled with a better mobo chipset imo then it would be a viable alternative. Especially seeing that i wont have to swap out my ram. I primarily use my machine as a development rig and right now i barely strain my wolfdale.

This is all dependent on pricing tho, a lot of people might find it cheaper to move to yorkfield if they already have intel systems. CPU wise I'm running a wolfdale because yorkfield was prohibitively expensive when i bought my CPU. then again by feb the prices of the yorkfield chips may have dropped.

[Pillo-kun]

Yup.
Considering AMD's resources it is nothing short of impressive they can compete with such a hostile competitor. What board?

it was a Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H

[kir4]

well i did hoped for more. Also for AMDs' sake.

But i am still considering buying a PII. Curious about spi and pif times. also those wprime charts didn't looked so bad! if the PII rly clocks that high it may do some nice scores!
And for rl it is totaly uninteresting what those benchmark apps tell.. they are so much plattform depending. Mostly it won't show the real thing.
btw i am only gaming with 1680x1050 right now and even thinking about going higher.
and if u play with lower res. does it rly matter if u have 170Fps or 270Fps?? but than it may matter if u have 40 or 50Fps in higher res.

But the Ppc is amazing for i7, intel did a good job while integrating the mc.

I think most important now is how prices are developing.. and both platforms have their pros.

[ajaidev]

You should really try GTA4 on the AMD platform...

[Spacemaster]

Notice that is at 4.Ghz? Let's see a PHII do that.

Fixed; I meant idle volts/watts.

I think that power consumption is important for OC. New c2q E0 do not consum to much power. This is my latest Q9550 11h prime – 4GHz@1.216@air and you do rest of mat.

I think that AMD must release new CPU stepping with lower consum, in future.

[Shintai]

Not much go in Phenom 2. And the IPC like 65nm Core 2 was true.

[Miss Banana]

Not sure what everyone is so shocked about. Phenom + more L3 + higher frequencies = faster than Q6600, mostly keeping up with Yorkfield but a little behind still. Anyone who claimed it'd be faster than Yorkfields and 'almost as good as Nehalem' clearly decided to not let facts get in the way of their search for fantasy and drivel.

It's not like it's a new architecture. Barcelona was the CPU division's R600, this is their RV670.. Now let's just hope they have an RV770 to show as well. Given their current roadmap where Bulldozer is mothballed and this arch will be milked until 2010 and beyond I am pretty damn pessimistic.

Omg, someone in this thread posted a useful post.

Oh and may I add this review does not show the two strongest points of the P2; overclocking and performance per watt.

[YukonTrooper]

I don't think we have enough info to be claiming performance-per-watt as a strength. I'll believe it when I see it. Performance-per-watt over Yorkfield isn't looking too promising...

[Zucker2k]

people seem to forget this a great drop in upgrade for anyone with a AM2 mobo. As long as the price is right can't really say AMD failed. Now if this was a totally new chip for AM3 it be another story.

Q9550 is a drop-in upgrade too.

Omg, someone in this thread posted a useful post.

Oh and may I add this review does not show the two strongest points of the P2; overclocking and performance per watt.

Funny how the goal-post keeps shifting.

[Tiridum]

@Tiridum

sure AMD is much much better.

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

i never stated that.... *sigh*

both Intel's and AMD's cpus have their own advantages/disadvantages
but lets consider the facts, AMD finally has produced something that is competitive somehow

I dont feel anything about being smoother with a K8 platform, my E8400 @ 3.8Ghz is doing a fine job at making things smooth...

@Zucker2K

quite funny how you misinterprete my post
let me clarify it for you
- phenom2 <<<<<< i7 (so it isn't a competitor)
- phenom2's prices is starting at around 200$, that is midrange
- people can finally start choosing (between yorkfield and deneb) both platforms have similar performance and similar price, so people have choice now, a few months back Intel dominated the whole market, it's always good to have competition for us, so that prices go down

[N19h7m4r3]

I don't care what people are posting. I want official reviews from respectable sources

Either way I'm getting a 940 BE

[Hornet331]

I'm probably gonna get flamed for this, but personally I'd go PII just to be rid of the ty ICH10 controller. If PII can offer similar performance to yorkfield at a lower power consumption, that coupled with a better mobo chipset imo then it would be a viable alternative. Especially seeing that i wont have to swap out my ram. I primarily use my machine as a development rig and right now i barely strain my wolfdale.

Your jokeing right?

From all the Chipsets out there intel still produces the most solid once.

AMD recently just brought out a chipset worth considering (SB7xx) the SB600 was a joke (usb performance anyone? )

[OverClocker_gr]

I don't care what people are posting. I want official reviews from respectable sources

Either way I'm getting a 940 BE

dont expect anything different form what you are seeing at this review.

[Tiridum]

dont expect anything different form what you are seeing at this review.

more real-life situations maybe

[OverClocker_gr]

yes,but nothing different about the performance of the cpu's

[AbelJemka]

Q9550 is a drop-in upgrade too.

Q9550 is a drop-in upgrade for AM2 mobo?

[justapost]

@OP: Thanks for the results, nothing unexpected here.

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.

What did anandtech use to generate load? techreport used cb10. Use CoreDamage or Core2MaxPerf to get close to the worst case, should be at least 20W AC more.

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

Can you please run one of the above mentioned apps and post consumption in idel and load, so we can compare once PII is available for all of us?.

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.

I'd vote for 3.0/3.6GHz and 3.8-4GHz. 3GHz at stock all others at lowest possible voltages. I assume no chip will have problems with 3.6GHz at reasonable voltages.
For power consumption it would be nice to have two alternatives generation load. One can be CB10 or povray to simulate an average load and the other should be an worst case tool like coredamage or core2maxperf.

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?

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.

I wonder if the scaling on PII's diminished because the single core runsnow makes better use of the bigger L3 cache but it's not enough to improve the multi core test as well?