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

[Gener_AL (UK)]

Just got a watt meter so yes,we will include a power consumption but without agena since we send it back to his owner

I have a Watt meter here and can run some tests if you needed ?

I managed to get MY whole System + 22" LCD + G25 wheel & speakers down to 144w total consumption but that was with the NF570SLI , for some reason i cannot equal that with the 790FX.

[Blaber]

Here's a preview of what's coming soon

All processors clocked at 3.7GHz now.

Cool Phenom II CLK/NB @ 3.7/2.25 Ghz Using DDRII, So how much of an improvement in scores one will see on PhenomII using DDR3 @ 1333 and Nb @ 2.7 Ghz..

[Glow9]

you guys able to test 790FX vs. 790GX I guess I'm just curious which can OC higher since ones cheaper and has a smaller chip I believe?

[Lastviking]

you guys able to test 790FX vs. 790GX I guess I'm just curious which can OC higher since ones cheaper and has a smaller chip I believe?

It will clock about same if i´m not wrong...It was diffrent with PI

[qurious63ss]

Cool Phenom II CLK/NB @ 3.7/2.25 Ghz Using DDRII, So how much of an improvement in scores one will see on PhenomII using DDR3 @ 1333 and Nb @ 2.7 Ghz..

3-5%

[Brother Esau]

Cool Phenom II CLK/NB @ 3.7/2.25 Ghz Using DDRII, So how much of an improvement in scores one will see on PhenomII using DDR3 @ 1333 and Nb @ 2.7 Ghz..

I doubt very much at all. It's just Feeding the Machine through Psychological Marketing Tactics "Newer is Better & Faster" have seen this attitude consistent with consumer mentality over the Past couple of years and as a Power user I have yet to see this actually being the case.. More is better and newer is better Mentality keeps the Rich people Rich and the working man broke and feeding the machine.


( This Statement is in Reference To DDR3 )

[Lastviking]

Just got a watt meter so yes,we will include a power consumption but without agena since we send it back to his owner

Thats sad..

What NB/IMC clocks are used @ 3.7ghz on the Phenom II someone did write 2.25 ghz is that true?, it its are why dont you use higher?

[qurious63ss]

I doubt very much at all. It's just Feeding the Machine through Psychological Marketing Tactics "Newer is Better & Faster" have seen this attitude consistent with consumer mentality over the Past couple of years and as a Power user I have yet to see this actually being the case.. More is better and newer is better Mentality keeps the Rich people Rich and the working man broke and feeding the machine.

No it's called this>>>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C9CH3q9PLI Pay attention to 3:00.

[Brother Esau]

No it's called this>>>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C9CH3q9PLI Pay attention to 3:00.

Thats charming man we got serious problems coming our way with the current generation!

[imamage]

That's cool
I can't wait to see Phenom II 940 for sales in Hong Kong and get it on my M3A79-T DELUXE For some fun overclocking
Thanks for sharing

[BenchZowner]

So how much of an improvement in scores one will see on PhenomII using DDR3 @ 1333 and Nb @ 2.7 Ghz..

None.
Because the RAM's performance isn't a factor in gaming performance in these cases.
The "desktop" applications that benefit from higher RAM performance are very limited.
The desktop programs that benefit mostly from higher RAM performance are the archivers ( WinRAR, 7-zip, WinZIP ) only in Compression/Archiving.
In decompression there's no benefit from using a high performance RAM instead of a "slow" value one.

That applies to every desktop CPU, including the Core 2 Duo/Quad/Extreme, Core i7/i7 Extreme & the Phenoms ( gen. I & II ).
It's the way the applications/algorithms work, not a CPU related thing.

[OverClocker_gr]

Thats sad..

What NB/IMC clocks are used @ 3.7ghz on the Phenom II someone did write 2.25 ghz is that true?, it its are why dont you use higher?

Yes,HT link/NB freq @ 2250MHz.
I used this nb freq because the next multi was the x11 with 2475mhz on nb and it gave me no boot,with no time to find what stops me

[_Lone_Wolf_]

None.
Because the RAM's performance isn't a factor in gaming performance in these cases.
The "desktop" applications that benefit from higher RAM performance are very limited.
The desktop programs that benefit mostly from higher RAM performance are the archivers ( WinRAR, 7-zip, WinZIP ) only in Compression/Archiving.
In decompression there's no benefit from using a high performance RAM instead of a "slow" value one.

That applies to every desktop CPU, including the Core 2 Duo/Quad/Extreme, Core i7/i7 Extreme & the Phenoms ( gen. I & II ).
It's the way the applications/algorithms work, not a CPU related thing.

Like others I assume AM3 will be bringing Opteron's 2.2Ghz northbridge clockrate to the desktop, how much does performance improve from this while maintaining stock core clocks?

[SkullCracka]

overclocker keep the ht low or near stock. there is not much benifit in Oc'ing the ht or htt. just raise the multi on cpu and nb.

i think you will then find you can up the nb much higher and still boot.

[Calmatory]

overclocker keep the ht low or near stock. there is not much benifit in Oc'ing the ht or htt. just raise the multi on cpu and nb.

i think you will then find you can up the nb much higher and still boot.

Why would OC'ing with multi yield better performance than OC'ing with HT? Usually as low multi as possible and fast bus is way faster than slow bus with high multi. Applies to other systems aswell, not only x86 PC's.

[bldegle2]

someone please explain how DDR3 is better?????

DDR2, lower latencies (i am presently @5-4-4-15) @1000, yet in DDR3 to get the 1333 you may see timings such as this (7-6-6-28, or higher)....and, as I personally saw at the AMD conference, DDRII rigs clocked to the same frequencies as DDRIII rigs showed virtually the same performance, identical....

who is fooling whom here? higher frequencies, higher latencies, lots of $$$ spent on hardware, and the same performance?????

bleh, gonna slap a Deneb in my DFI 790FX-M2R, not gonna spend a dime more until I see some major improvement in the mems arena, it seems like pure hype at the moment.....

laterzzzzz........................

[Brother Esau]

Why would OC'ing with multi yield better performance than OC'ing with HT? Usually as low multi as possible and fast bus is way faster than slow bus with high multi. Applies to other systems aswell, not only x86 PC's.

K8 overclocking does not apply to K10 Overclocking and you must completely relearn how to overclock AMD and throw what you know and associate with K8 Overclocking out the Window its useless and HTT Overcloking is Dead.

[SkullCracka]

K8 overclocking does not apply to K10 Overclocking and you must completely relearn how to overclock AMD and throw what you know and associate with K8 Overclocking out the Window its useless and HTT Overcloking is Dead.

thats right..... tell em how it is Brother. lol

htt/ref clock is just that a refernce clock to the multis on the ht,nb,cpu, and ram. you can allways up the HTT slowly once you find max multi for the nb,cpu.

but yes k10 different in all ways to previous ways to overclock. its not just the cpu that is unlocked. indipendant multi's all based on the ref.clock/htt.

got it. good.

[Hornet331]

K8 overclocking does not apply to K10 Overclocking and you must completely relearn how to overclock AMD and throw what you know and associate with K8 Overclocking out the Window its useless and HTT Overcloking is Dead.

must relearn is quite a bit a overvaluation.

There hasn't changed much the only thing is that you play now with the multi insted of the HT clock.

[BenchZowner]

someone please explain how DDR3 is better?????

DDR2, lower latencies (i am presently @5-4-4-15) @1000, yet in DDR3 to get the 1333 you may see timings such as this (7-6-6-28, or higher)....and, as I personally saw at the AMD conference, DDRII rigs clocked to the same frequencies as DDRIII rigs showed virtually the same performance, identical....

who is fooling whom here? higher frequencies, higher latencies, lots of $$$ spent on hardware, and the same performance?????

bleh, gonna slap a Deneb in my DFI 790FX-M2R, not gonna spend a dime more until I see some major improvement in the mems arena, it seems like pure hype at the moment.....

laterzzzzz........................

You've got the details wrong.
First of all, the decent DDR3 kits can do DDR3-1400 5-5-4-15, and some can even go up to DDR3-1500 - DDR3-1550 at 5-5-5-15.
The lower timings are nothing unless they're backed by high frequencies.
DDR3 can reach amazingly high bandwidth and low latencies easily.
The best DDR2 memory can't touch a mediocre DDR3 set if both systems are tuned properly in terms of bandwidth & latency.

The numbers are there, to "feel" the difference you must run something that depends on RAM performance as well, not only on the CPU's performance.
A Core 2 Quad at 3.2GHz with a decent DDR3 memory kit can kick a Core 2 Quad's at 4GHz with a DDR2 kit ass easily in archiving ( WinRAR, 7-zip, WinZIP compression ).

Let's try to stay on topic now

[HondaGuy]

AM2+ Phenom II's to last until Q2
Written by Fuad Abazovic
Wednesday, 31 December 2008 10:51



Middle of it

Phenom II X4 940, the 3GHz version of AMD's Deneb core, and Phenom II X4 920 at 2.8 GHz will have an unusually short life cycle. The CPU will officially launch on January 8th and the last orders for these two will have to be placed in mid Q2 2009, sometime in May, we reckon.


The CPU will continue to sell until the end of Q3 and it might happen that they completely disappear be the end of Q3 2009. This doesn’t surprise us, as CPUs such as Phenom II X4 945 at 3GHz and AM3 socket and Phenom II X4 925 with 2.8GHz clock, AM3 socket and DDR3 memory support will be there to take over.

The beauty is that AM3 is backwards compatible with AM2+ and due to AMD's combo memory controller the AM3 CPU will work in AM2+ boards with DDR2 memory. This is probably one of the best things that came from AMD in a while. The combo memory controller that supports both DDR2 and DDR3 makes AMD much more flexible then Intel.

Source: http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?op...11173&Itemid=1

[BrowncoatGR]

Thanks for the additional tests. It's a very complete review now.

[keithlm]

Yes,HT link/NB freq @ 2250MHz.
I used this nb freq because the next multi was the x11 with 2475mhz on nb and it gave me no boot,with no time to find what stops me

I have a 9850 that is on the borderline of being good and bad. The Gigabyte motherboard I have require me to lower the NB/HT to 1.8Ghz to get it Prime95 stable for more than 4 hours. The Foxconn motherboard I have is Prime95 stable for at least 24 hours using the default bios voltage. (Except for memory... I must increase that from default to use DDR2-1066.)

The Foxconn A79A-S bios has a "CPU PLL Voltage" which if I increase from the default setting of 2.49V to 2.74V I can go from the default of 2.0Ghz to 2.2Ghz or even 2.4Ghz. (The Gigabyte does not have this setting. At least the bios from May did not. There is a new bios from this month I have not seen yet.)

If I leave that setting at the 2.49V default it will lock up in Prime95 if I go above 2.0Ghz. (And at 2.0Ghz I don't think it is completely 24/7 stable unless I add some voltage... it is only mostly stable.)

SUMMATION: See if you can increase CPU PLL Voltage.\

[Brother Esau]

must relearn is quite a bit a overvaluation.

There hasn't changed much the only thing is that you play now with the multi insted of the HT clock.

Biggest mistake most have made since Phenom Launch is that people just don't want to believe that I swear its true I have seen most blow up their Boards (All Makes) and POP their CPU BECAUSE THEY JUST CANNOT AND WILL NOT LISTEN TO LOGIC OR REASON when I tell em DO NOT Overclock Phenom via HTT>>>>>>>>>>You would think by the way they Ignore this I was trying to Keep them from Loosing Their Virginity


So here I sit and watch all of this as it transpires with the Same Board since Day 1 as all these Folks Blow their Stuff Up Even Still to this Day 1 Year Later and they still swear that the Logic of more is Better (HTT) in this instance ................Absolutely F@cking Amazing!

[Throwed]

Weird that this review don't have any overclocked results for the PII's. Especially the 940 that can be easily overclocked via multi. This way we can see how it scales. I'll wait to a more in depth review is done. Thanks for the tid bit anyway though.