AMD Phenom II Review Thread

[RPGWiZaRD]

It took a while for AMD to catch up Core 2.

[largon]

Considering they're dealing with an architecture that has changed very little since 2003 it's amazing they have.

[savantu]

Considering they're dealing with an architecture that has changed very little since 2003 it's amazing they have.

The changes from K8 to K10 spread over 3 pages , that's a bit more than "very little" although you're half right , the basics are the same.

What worries me is the fact they will hold on the current uarch until 2011 , 2 full years.Skipping Westmere , it will go head to head with Sandy Bridge.

[tajoh111]

I was surprised at the TR numbers as well, but Anandtech got 3.9ghz with stock cooling (1.52v).

If you read a bit down on the same page, he says 3.9 is not stable.

I am let down by AMD shady marketing lately. That overclocked chip was incredibly cherry picked. Similarly, it looks like leaked overclock score around the net were leaked on purpose, of again, very cherry picked numbers. AMD has done so many dirty leaks.

Atleast Dr Who said his chip was cherry picked.

The general consensus so far, is on air, the phenom II hits 3.7ghz. Certainly not bad, but considering it performs clock for clock a little worse than c2q and c2q are known to hit higher clocks than 3.7, its honestly, just enough to be competitive. If one wants the best performance, even for the dollar(socket 775), without taking into account name of brand, intel is still the way to go.

Phenom II is simply what Phenom should have been. Phenom was hyped to have better performance than the c2 architecture, and it didn't. In this case it matches the c2q architecture(actually a bit slower against the newest revisions). But it is atleast not embarrassing because it can chauk up a couple of very small wins against some of intels products.

To those that say its a affordable alternative to CI7, core I7 performs 22% better clock for clock and overclocks(which is important to the people here) 10-15%. That equates to a 30%+ percent performance delta which means they are not even in the same performance class anymore.

Correction the core i7 has a 22% performance advantage even with a ten percent frequency disadvantage.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...0,2114-10.html

So the actual performance clock for clock is 25%, so we are getting close to a 40 percent performance delta when taking into account max overclocks of both.

[Heretic]

If you read a bit down on the same page, he says 3.9 is not stable.

I am let down by AMD shady marketing lately. That overclocked chip was incredibly cherry picked. Similarly, it looks like leaked overclock score around the net were leaked on purpose, of again, very cherry picked numbers. AMD has done so many dirty leaks.

Atleast Dr Who said his chip was cherry picked.

The general consensus so far, is on air, the phenom II hits 3.7ghz. Certainly not bad, but considering it performs clock for clock a little worse than c2q and c2q are known to hit higher clocks than 3.7, its honestly, just enough to be competitive. If one wants the best performance, even for the dollar(socket 775), without taking into account name of brand, intel is still the way to go.

Phenom II is simply what Phenom should have been. Phenom was hyped to have better performance than the c2 architecture, and it didn't. In this case it matches the c2q architecture(actually a bit slower against the newest revisions). But it is atleast not embarrassing because it can chauk up a couple of very small wins against some of intels products.

To those that say its a affordable alternative to CI7, core I7 performs 22% better clock for clock and overclocks(which is important to the people here) 10-15%. That equates to a 30%+ percent performance delta which means they are not even in the same performance class anymore.

Correction the core i7 has a 22% performance advantage even with a ten percent frequency disadvantage.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...0,2114-10.html

So the actual performance clock for clock is 25%, so we are getting close to a 40 percent performance delta when taking into account max overclocks of both.

I might be blind, but I don't see where he says 3.9GHz is not stable. He does say that 4+ GHz is not stable and that 3.45GHz was stable at stock volts except on PCMark Vantage TV/Movies and Flight Simulator X.

As for the rest of your post, I agree. PhII is just at the competitive mark, and will most likely fall from that mark if/when Intel cuts prices on their quads. If the rumors in the AT article are correct, that should be later this month.

[saveus222]

You talk as if current C2Qs/S775 don't even exist...

News flash, the performance levels of PII is right in line with C2Qs and the pricing reflects that. As many people will tell you, PII is more about competing against C2Q than Ci7.

have u been reading the reviews ?

What!? I just read 3-4 reviews and Phenom II hasn't bested any core 2 duos really so i7 even being a match..... What reviews are you reading?

question is what reviews are you reading ? it falls right in between Q9300 and Core i7

[AKM]

So basically Deneb@3Ghz without Hi-K has the same power consumption as a 3Ghz Yorkfield, awesome job I'd say.

http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//i...d=51&Itemid=42

[Leeghoofd]

question is what reviews are you reading ? it falls right in between Q9300 and Core i7

It fals inbetween the Q9300 and the rest of the Yorkfields.... not bad, but I'm pretty sad about most stable shots are

question is what reviews are you reading ? it falls right in between Q9300 and Core i7

It fals inbetween the Q9300 and the rest of the Yorkfields.... not bad, but I'm pretty sad about mostly just 3.8GHz stable shots wished 4ghz was more of a comon thing on high end Air, But a nice upgrade for current AMD platform users, let the price wars begin !!!

And ow boy are there strange comments in some reviews... and some ow so GPU limited, aren't some reviewers finding it strange that they get identical results with all these different CPU's...

[AbelJemka]

It fals inbetween the Q9300 and the rest of the Yorkfields.... not bad, but I'm pretty sad about most 3.8GHz stable shots wished 4ghz was more of a comon thing on high end Air... but a nice upgrade for current AMD platform users

And ow boy are there strange comments in some reviews...

Just watch stable overclock reached by reviewer with i7 and end users overclocks

[duploxxx]

It fals inbetween the Q9300 and the rest of the Yorkfields.... not bad, but I'm pretty sad about most 3.8GHz stable shots wished 4ghz was more of a comon thing on high end Air... but a nice upgrade for current AMD platform users

And ow boy are there strange comments in some reviews...

you always find strange comments, the real strange part is how reviewers actually OC, in core2 times you see oc's with the best air coolers like ultra120 extreme, its already known phenom2 needs cool down to clock higher. Now they test on stock cooler. Where are the NB oc's????

[massman]

you always find strange comments, the real strange part is how reviewers actually OC, in core2 times you see oc's with the best air coolers like ultra120 extreme, its already known phenom2 needs cool down to clock higher. Now they test on stock cooler. Where are the NB oc's????

We'll have to wait untill the extreme overclockers take these processors for a spin, I guess. There weren't that much Phenom I clockers to begin with, so I reckon a lot of people have to get used to the technology first.

[onethreehill]

http://xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/dis...nom-ii-x4.html

[maroon1]

The majority of those reviews show than Phenom II 940 performed worse than lower clocked Q9550

[Shocker003]

We'll have to wait untill the extreme overclockers take these processors for a spin, I guess. There weren't that much Phenom I clockers to begin with, so I reckon a lot of people have to get used to the technology first.

+1

Am equally waiting for the price and fanboys war that will soon start.
I trust the ocs posted here more than the ones from reviewers, as our members take their time to push their cpus to the limit and have time on their hands. Reviewers are always trying to beat each other to post without really taking the extra pains in ocing.

[savantu]

have u been reading the reviews ?


question is what reviews are you reading ? it falls right in between Q9300 and Core i7

You know , between the 2 you missed the following :

-Q9400
-Q9450
-Q9550
-Q9650
-Q9770

Somehow , you missed the elephant sitting on the sofa in the living room.

From what I've seen , Phenom 2 fights most with Q94x0 and Q9550 , the later having a slight edge overall.

[Miss Banana]

To me it seems reviewers have made a mess of power consumption comparisons. Some did not get cool and quiet to work, others made these comparisons depend on the chipset too much. The result is power consumption numbers that differ a lot from review to review.

[Lightman]

Regarding clocks reached in TR review one would look at production date of that CPU - 0839. Retail is getting 0848/0850....
If you read comments on our forum made by Sampsa and Macci you would noticed that they stated on several occassions AMD review chips and early ES weren't clocking that well. Retail chips are better. Much better if you consider NB clocks up to 3.4GHz from 2.6-2.7GHz and HT 3.0 ColdBug is fixed as well. Just look at benchmarks with HT 1.9GHz NB 3.2GHz under LN2....

Other than that chip performs well considering execution units are mostly unchanged from K7 (except SSE extensions).

Intel has another 2 years of relative peace in performance segment. Then in 2011 we will see what AMD engineers are up to with Bulldozer.

[Trouffman]

hey guys,

here is the video report from Syndrome-OC :
http://www.syndrome-oc.net/octv.php?episode=17&lang=en

Regards,

[Chad Boga]

The PhII 940 is not outrageously priced, in fact I would say it's official price is fair enough compared to the Intel Quads.

However this is not a bargain like AMD/ATI delivered up with the 4850/70 combo, so at these prices AMD won't move a lot of units once the pent up demand of the AMD enthusiast is met.

What might hurt them more than Intel is the deteriorating economy, as they no doubt need the PhII to be more of a sales winner than the PhI, and Intel already have an established Quad market that sells well, although obviously they will be hit by the economy too.

What will be interesting to see play out is the effect the PhII has on the rest of AMD's Phenom lineup. Will there be a Halo effect that shines on them, even though they are on a less efficient architecture compared to the PhII's, or will they increasingly be viewed by the public as "brown bananas", that will only be able to be shifted with savage price discounting?

[Motiv]

From what I've seen , Phenom 2 fights most with Q94x0 and Q9550 , the later having a slight edge overall.

I'd agree with this and I'm sure the prices will reflect it.

[Chad Boga]

Intel has another 2 years of relative peace in performance segment. Then in 2011 we will see what AMD engineers are up to with Bulldozer.

If you are right about Intel's relative peace(and I think you are), then unless Intel wants AMD to stick around, they will have the means to put them to the sword and finally get rid of them.

[G.Foyle]

http://pclab.pl/art34921.html

[tajoh111]

We'll have to wait untill the extreme overclockers take these processors for a spin, I guess. There weren't that much Phenom I clockers to begin with, so I reckon a lot of people have to get used to the technology first.

HWC use phase and Ln2, and the max they hit was 4.6. Pretty good for amd, but not close to what we were seeing in the leaks.

[AbelJemka]

HWC use phase and Ln2, and the max they hit was 4.6. Pretty good for amd, but not close to what we were seeing in the leaks.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=213657

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=213690

[tajoh111]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=213657

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=213690

Somethings makes me think, especially when one of the post involved macci, thats those chips were incredibly cherry picked.

It doesnt help the second event was sponsored by amd