AMD Phenom II 920 & 940 Full Review

[Chad Boga]

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.

I need to start using the same deodorant as you or something.

When I said pretty much exactly this, I had people coming out of the woodwork to condemn me.

[s3rv3r]

cant,monitor limitations


@ yorkfield and kentsfield its imposible due to mobo.

260-216 at the comparison, runs @ 710/1100/1446

I understand. Thanks man. I will wait more reviews. Don`t worry about some people says.

You are doing a great work.

[verndewd]

put a phenom 1 in that bench setup. it would get murdered. Thats actually a pretty good bench considering they are still using last gen metals. Some of the scores make you wonder like the resolution differences in gaming. but all in all they have kind of come back as core did against socket 939 before core 2 was launched. so all in all it does look promising. Once hafnium is implemented , HKMG etc it should perk things up a little for AMD. intercore bandwidth and latency was lower and respectively higher than youd expect for a second or 3rd revision (or whatever) native quad. Alot of room for improvement on that. but really quite a jump from the limp wristed am2 faire.

[Lastviking]

Thanx STEvil


ok. Lets sum up.

First of all later today we will add
UT3
GTA IV
ETQW

we decided that clock to clock comparison will be @ 3700mhz.

Besides that, a Phenom X4 9950BE clocked at 3ghz will be compared to deneb at same speed to see if the only thing that amd did is die shrink

Great

What NB clock will you use on Phenom II?

[OverClocker_gr]

Great

What NB clock will you use on Phenom II?

nb and ht link are @ 2250

Another game will be added

Devil May cry 4


So the list of the games that we hope to upload the result and share with you are:

Devil May Cry
GTA iV
UT3
ETQW

[leoy]

BTW, I saw PII in Plaisio.gr's prices list. Is it available for buying?

It has 24 hour availability since 24/12....
Some folks bought it but it is clearly overpriced....

[Spacemaster]

Another game will be added

Devil May cry 4


So the list of the games that we hope to upload the result and share with you are:

Devil May Cry
GTA iV
UT3
ETQW

So, when we can se update?

[Chad Boga]

Another game will be added

Devil May cry 4


So the list of the games that we hope to upload the result and share with you are:

Devil May Cry
GTA iV
UT3
ETQW

BTW, Could you benchmark for "Smoothness".

[Kuroimaho]

So far the Phenom II confirms what a legend the Q6600 is.

[Chad Boga]

So far the Phenom II confirms what a legend the Q6600 is.

Did/does the Q6600 overclock better than the Q6700, or was it a case of the Q6700 being dearer(but not better at overclocking) and then discontinued, whilst better steppings of the Q6600 continued to come out?

[clonez]

it was cheap (cheaper than the 6700, of course) and still performs well, after years
its still THE chip to get in the 150€ sector

lucky guys who paired it with 8800gtx in 2006, its still an awesome system

[[XC] riptide]

BTW, Could you benchmark for "Smoothness".

See sig.

[Chad Boga]

See sig.

Yeah, but this is Phenom II were talking about now!!!

[demonkevy666]

it's not about "smoothness" it puts the scene together in a different way.

I've seen screen shots where they're minor detailed differences.

[gOJDO]

It has 24 hour availability since 24/12....

Last weekend I was in their stores, but the representatives gave me no info about when it will arrive.

Some folks bought it but it is clearly overpriced....

Yeap, overpriced compared to any other quad-core alternative.

Anyway it is a very good chip and deserves my time to play with it. I'll get one for sure when it will be priced properly.

[Shintai]

it's not about "smoothness" it puts the scene together in a different way.

I've seen screen shots where they're minor detailed differences.

Are you saying a scene is made up in 2 different ways if it was a Core 2 or a Phenom that was the CPU behind it? And thereby the result looks different?

[demonkevy666]

Are you saying a scene is made up in 2 different ways if it was a Core 2 or a Phenom that was the CPU behind it?

well it's the whole scene is the same it's just there are minor details that different for each cpu.

[Shintai]

well it's the whole scene is the same it's just there are minor details that different for each cpu.

Are you saying it looks DIFFERENT?

Its like saying a Phenom gets one value in an Excel spreadsheet. And a Core 2 a different one. Their result needs to be 100% identical. Else one of them cant calculate.

[Zucker2k]

I've made a summary with benches run till now (jumping crappy Everest and Sandra):

wPrimes off!

[Jochenp]

it's not about "smoothness" it puts the scene together in a different way.

I've seen screen shots where they're minor detailed differences.

You've seen compressed screenshots.

[savantu]

I've made a summary with benches run till now (jumping crappy Everest and Sandra):

Taking into account the 5.7% frequency difference , it seems Yorkfield is faster than Phenom 2 by 9.5% clock/clock.

This review was interesting and hints at the Phenom II's performance levels, but I am anxiously awaiting to see if reviews from The Tech Report and Anandtech make things any clearer or not.

I also thought the i7 results were bizarre and whilst I want to see what happens when The Tech Report and Anandtech compare i7 to PhII, it does support my theory that the i7 is an unbalanced CPU at this stage, reminiscent of the first generation Pentiums for mine.

How exactly is it unbalanced? Where does it lack ? And don't point to gaming at low vs. high resolution , the jury is still out until we get optimized drivers.

[roofsniper]

wait so im a little confused. i keep hearing this q6600 cpu is better than phenom II. what is this cpu? i don't think i have ever heard of it. because i have heard of the q6600 cpu that they happened to have in this review and somehow i can't see how it is better than phenom II. maybe im just blind but idk. w/e i guess fanboys will be fanboys. i wonder what will happen after it is released. will people still be in denial?

[qurious63ss]

wait so im a little confused. i keep hearing this q6600 cpu is better than phenom II. what is this cpu? i don't think i have ever heard of it. because i have heard of the q6600 cpu that they happened to have in this review and somehow i can't see how it is better than phenom II. maybe im just blind but idk. w/e i guess fanboys will be fanboys. i wonder what will happen after it is released. will people still be in denial?

The Q6600 stock speed is 2.4ghz so it has a 400-600mhz disadvantage to the 920, 940 PIIs. The rationale is that if you clock them the same then the Q6600 will probably edge out the PIIs. No one here is in denial, it's just that the OP has enough credibility with members of XS to believe the numbers. BTW this is a "limited" review that will not satisfy everyone but at least I will give him the benefit of the doubt and believe the numbers are correct.

[Chad Boga]

How exactly is it unbalanced? Where does it lack ? And don't point to gaming at low vs. high resolution , the jury is still out until we get optimized drivers.

Is it a videocard issue or the platform isn't fully mature yet?

Leaving this review aside, other reviews have shown a very mixed benefit in gaming over C2Q.

I am glad I don't need to buy a computer right now and I look forward to the 32nm shrink which I suspect will address most if not all of my concerns.

[roofsniper]

The Q6600 stock speed is 2.4ghz so it has a 400-600mhz disadvantage to the 920, 940 PIIs. The rationale is that if you clock them the same then the Q6600 will probably edge out the PIIs. No one here is in denial, it's just that the OP has enough credibility with members of XS to believe the numbers. BTW this is a "limited" review that will not satisfy everyone but at least I will give him the benefit of the doubt and believe the numbers are correct.

yes i understand that but it is not proven. and if you are taking ocing the q6600 into consideration then why not oc the phenom II? sure maybe an oced q6600 can be better than a stock phenom II but who says a oced phenom II can't be better than a stock q9xxx or an i7? if you are gonna oc one then you oc them all. the clock to clock at 3.7 will help some but you still have to remember the fact that if the q6600 maxes at 3.7ghz then you should max out the phenom II as well.......