AMD Phenom II 920 & 940 Full Review [UPDATED with more tests]

[Donnie27]

Originally Posted by OverClocker_gr
maybe,but i dont want to see again 939 - > AM2

I hope you mean with AM3 cause I'm the same way I was POed big time. But if you mean AM2 I'd say its done after these chips. Ugrade path for current users. I'm curious what AM3 can bring but so far its just PII w/ ddr3.

No, I think he means an upgrade that really wasn't much of an upgrade at all. AM2 was mostly a compatibility change over from Sc-939 DDR1 to DDR2 more or less. Upgrade paths are moot, IMHO, I think AM3 will make sticking with AM2+ or etc.. a poor decision. AM3 will perform better since PhII might need more bandwidth.

[LightSpeed]

940 seems to be even with the Q9550, exclude the x32 cinebench score and take the x64 score...

not too bad, in that case AM3 should close the clock for clock gap a bit more...right now its performing equal to a 170mhz slower york

heres hoping for cheaper quads from both camps

[AbelJemka]

No, I think he means an upgrade that really wasn't much of an upgrade at all. AM2 was mostly a compatibility change over from Sc-939 DDR1 to DDR2 more or less. Upgrade paths are moot, IMHO, I think AM3 will make sticking with AM2+ or etc.. a poor decision. AM3 will perform better since PhII might need more bandwidth.

Poor décision? AM3 cpus are functionnal on AM2+ motherboard so why it's a poor décision? If you want to stick with DDR2 you can for a long time. If you want to go to DDR3 it's like on Intel platform, you change your mobo!

[AbelJemka]

940 seems to be even with the Q9550, exclude the x32 cinebench score and take the x64 score...

not too bad, in that case AM3 should close the clock for clock gap a bit more...right now its performing equal to a 170mhz slower york

heres hoping for cheaper quads from both camps

Interesting thingsis that, PII 920 undercut Q9400 in term of price and same for PII 940 with Q9550. That match the stock peformance perfectly.

[Glow9]

Interesting thingsis that, PII 920 undercut Q9400 in term of price and same for PII 940 with Q9550. That match the stock peformance perfectly.

Thats why I'm ordering one haha, I said if it was even equal to a Q9450 and cost less I would. I've been itching for a Quad for a long time

[Donnie27]

Poor décision? AM3 cpus are functionnal on AM2+ motherboard so why it's a poor décision? If you want to stick with DDR2 you can for a long time. If you want to go to DDR3 it's like on Intel platform, you change your mobo!

AM3 and DDR3 should add more performance than AM2/+ boards. Yes, you will have to change your motherboard on the AMD system as well. Upgrade path becomes almost moot. Sure you can settle for a little less performance and stick with the old stuff. IF that's case, why bother upgrading at all?

Interesting thingsis that, PII 920 undercut Q9400 in term of price and same for PII 940 with Q9550. That match the stock peformance perfectly.

Match performance?

[herderien]

maybe your answer is on your first line.

yes but what i don't understand is when the GPU is the botleneck, usualy every FPS is almost the same cpu by cpu (as for other high res tests in you review) but in this particular game i7 are even between each other and 10 to 15% back from other CPUs.

any idea on what could cause this ?

[Olivon]

Thx for your review OverClocker_gr

Waiting for IPC comparison

[Vinas]

Amazing to see AMD losing in the Cinebench to Q9550 and Q9450... Apparently the real competition is still the LGA775 chips and not nehalem.

[Dante80]

Amazing to see AMD losing in the Cinebench to Q9550 and Q9450... Apparently the real competition is still the LGA775 chips and not nehalem.

What do you mean amazing? They are marketed, priced and positioned against 775 chips, of course. Nehalem is a complete platform upgrade, AMD will have a more direct competitor for it when AM3 DDR3 boards and chips are out.

[Mr.BSEL]

yes but what i don't understand is when the GPU is the botleneck, usualy every FPS is almost the same cpu by cpu (as for other high res tests in you review) but in this particular game i7 are even between each other and 10 to 15% back from other CPUs.

any idea on what could cause this ?

It is because hyper threading is being used with the core i7 which hampers the performance of that particular game.

Here is a link that shows a performance boost when hyper threading is turned off.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/15818/6

[AbelJemka]

AM3 and DDR3 should add more performance than AM2/+ boards. Yes, you will have to change your motherboard on the AMD system as well. Upgrade path becomes almost moot. Sure you can settle for a little less performance and stick with the old stuff. IF that's case, why bother upgrading at all?

Same reasoning aout socket 775 so! What performance DDR3 brings? So what can we do? Stick on DDR2!

[Clairvoyant129]

What's the release date on PII? I want to order one but I can't seem to find it anywhere.

edit: Never mind on the release date, so far it looks good, not quite the Q9550 but it would be awesome chip to overclock and play around with.

[Nasgul]

Same reasoning aout socket 775 so! What performance DDR3 brings? So what can we do? Stick on DDR2!

Ah! Ever heard of Tripple Channel with 1336? "THAT" is what DDR3 is for. Just like PCIE 2.0, you can implement it on every board but not every video card is 2.0.

[moiraesfate]

What's the release date on PII? I want to order one but I can't seem to find it anywhere.

edit: Never mind on the release date, so far it looks good, not quite the Q9550 but it would be awesome chip to overclock and play around with.

Thats because the release date is Jan 8, 2009. I don't know where the hell these people are getting prices from because I can't find prices anywhere.

[AbelJemka]

Ah! Ever heard of Tripple Channel with 1336? "THAT" is what DDR3 is for. Just like PCIE 2.0, you can implement it on every board but not every video card is 2.0.

I speak and most speak about 775 not 1336. i7 is in another league

Thats because the release date is Jan 8, 2009. I don't know where the hell these people are getting prices from because I can't find prices anywhere.

Search in AMD section, there is a lots of links.

[v_rr]

4% more performance with AM3

[Donnie27]

Same reasoning aout socket 775 so! What performance DDR3 brings? So what can we do? Stick on DDR2!

Actually NO! DDR3 did give more room for overclocking since it can run at higher speeds. 775 processors don't have to depend on unlock multipliers.
Phenom II will need more bandwidth coming and going to and from the cores. So yes DDR3 will help. Also note that DDR2 is about about dead as DDR1 was when Intel moved to it as well. The economies are the only thing slowing down adoption of DDR3 as it stands right now.

Note, if BOTH DDR3 and HT 3.0 doesn't help when they are Both tested together, AMD is in for a very rough ride indeed.

[demonkevy666]

Actually NO! DDR3 did give more room for overclocking since it can run at higher speeds. 775 processors don't have to depend on unlock multipliers.
Phenom II will need more bandwidth coming and going to and from the cores. So yes DDR3 will help. Also note that DDR2 is about about dead as DDR1 was when Intel moved to it as well. The economies are the only thing slowing down adoption of DDR3 as it stands right now.

Note, if BOTH DDR3 and HT 3.0 doesn't help when they are Both tested together, AMD is in for a very rough ride indeed.

Hyper transport 3.1 (3200mhz)

HT 3.0 is already implemented on board just. the chips don't full support it's max speed t stock. (2600mhz) chip speed Hyper transport is 1600-2000hz

[Caveman787]

Donnie I don't get your thinking you still need high or unlocked multiplier because the chips can only go so high on fsb/ht clock. So I don't see how ddr3 really helped overclocking.

[clonez]

phenom 2 consumes only 50w @ 2.6ghz

http://www.hardware-infos.com/news.php?news=2620

massive consumption increase with +0.1v and 1ghz, but we've seen that already (and 120w isnt that much for 3,65ghz)

[Caveman787]

From what some testing phenom II's have shown us it might not even need any voltage increase to reach 3.6.

[loutsos]

4% more performance with AM3

Am I the only one thinking that AM3 is a bad idea?
I mean, if I was going the DDR3 way (plus CPU, plus DDR3-supporing mobo), I'd probably get the cheapest i7

[demonkevy666]

Am I the only one thinking that AM3 is a bad idea?
I mean, if I was going the DDR3 way (plus CPU, plus DDR3-supporing mobo), I'd probably get the cheapest i7

am2+ chis are support to be able to go in to am3. I think Am3 chip will have high ram speed support.

[Caveman787]

Apparantly ht 3.1 is up to 3200mhz and 3.0 is only up to 2600 mhz.

Am3 will have ht 3.1, so there may be more performance increase there.