AMD Phenom II Review Thread

[[XC] gomeler]

I am certain that the reason so many overclocks by reviewers were so low was the sheer lack of experience with the systems. I was afraid of blowing up my sample before the launch date so I stuck with a conservative 1.45vCPU which yielded a paltry 3800MHz. Now that the article is live, I'm blasting 1.55vCPU through this chip at 4200MHz and climbing

The biggest issue I have though is the lack of temperature readings, I'm currently using a thermalprobe wedged up against the IHS of the actual CPU to get a ballpark figure :-\ It's reading around 55C at idle while the thermal diodes on the chip still read 19C

[Zucker2k]

I am certain that the reason so many overclocks by reviewers were so low was the sheer lack of experience with the systems. I was afraid of blowing up my sample before the launch date so I stuck with a conservative 1.45vCPU which yielded a paltry 3800MHz. Now that the article is live, I'm blasting 1.55vCPU through this chip at 4200MHz and climbing

The biggest issue I have though is the lack of temperature readings, I'm currently using a thermalprobe wedged up against the IHS of the actual CPU to get a ballpark figure :-\ It's reading around 55C at idle while the thermal diodes on the chip still read 19C

That's a bit toasty; is 4.2Ghz stable, benchable? Nice clocks.

[[XC] gomeler]

That's a bit toasty; is 4.2Ghz stable, benchable? Nice clocks.

This chip won't last long Next week it gets 2.0vCPU and -196 It is stable and benchable for everything but Cinebench x64 SMP. For some reason Cinebench x64 just kills this CPU, everything else including Cinebench x32 SMP runs fine

[Shintai]

The biggest issue I have though is the lack of temperature readings, I'm currently using a thermalprobe wedged up against the IHS of the actual CPU to get a ballpark figure :-\ It's reading around 55C at idle while the thermal diodes on the chip still read 19C

Pretty much confirms what alot have been saying while people reported ultra low temps. They simply read wrong data or just bugged diodes.

For gaming Phenom 2 looks horrible. With basicly Q9400 area for the 940.







Thats a LOOOONG road to 2011 for Phenom 2. 3.2 or 3.4Ghz I guess with a 2ghz NB (AM3 is 2Ghz NB) might be the fastest on stock in its lifetime. 3.0Ghz seems to be the top for 2009 according to AMD roadmaps.

i5 in summer 2009. 32nm i7 in winter 2009. 32nm i5 in 2010. 32nm i8? in late 2010....

[demonkevy666]

Pretty much confirms what alot have been saying while people reported ultra low temps. They simply read wrong data or just bugged diodes.

no his chip senor is probably broken or never worked at all.

hondaguys temps changed when OC.

[ryboto]

For gaming Phenom 2 looks horrible. With basicly Q9400 area for the 940.

How many people are still gaming on 15'' CRT's? These are CPU bound tests, no? Just about all of us here are using higher resolutions, the story is just as grim when we up the quality?

[savantu]

How many people are still gaming on 15'' CRT's? These are CPU bound tests, no? Just about all of us here are using higher resolutions, the story is just as grim when we up the quality?

98% of people are using 1280/1024 or less.I consider this resolution to be far more representative than those where you need a high end card only to get over 20fps.

Secondly , the point is to show CPU power.It pointless to go GPU limited where both a dual core and a i7 965 have the same score while their computing power is different by a factor of 3-4x.

At the very least , it shows which CPU is better positioned to handle future , more demanding games.

[cegras]

98% of people are using 1280/1024 or less.I consider this resolution to be far more representative than those where you need a high end card only to get over 20fps.

Secondly , the point is to show CPU power.It pointless to go GPU limited where both a dual core and a i7 965 have the same score while their computing power is different by a factor of 3-4x.

At the very least , it shows which CPU is better positioned to handle future , more demanding games.

Hang on, hang on a second. Before even debating your percentage figure, don't you agree that it is paradoxical to suggest that people buy a Q9400 or Core i7 to game at 19" resolution?

(Spoiler: If you had the money to buy that, you might as well have upgraded to a higher resolution in the first place)

I mean, people on that kind of resolution will still be running dual cores and 9600GT's .. like me!

[MrMojoZ]

Hang on, hang on a second. Before even debating your percentage figure, don't you agree that it is paradoxical to suggest that people buy a Q9400 or Core i7 to game at 19" resolution?

I'd say anything he could post to show Intel in a more postive light is fair game.

Who would have thought that the Phenom II review thread would have turned into a pro-Intel dumping ground.

[accord99]

Hang on, hang on a second. Before even debating your percentage figure, don't you agree that it is paradoxical to suggest that people buy a Q9400 or Core i7 to game at 19" resolution?

The same people though would probably be upgrading their video cards on a regular basis, therefore a test that actually shows the influence of the CPU is far more useful than one where every CPU scores roughly the same.

[savantu]

Hang on, hang on a second. Before even debating your percentage figure, don't you agree that it is paradoxical to suggest that people buy a Q9400 or Core i7 to game at 19" resolution?
...

Not at all.90% of QC buyers don't have a clue of what they're having. You and this forum isn't representative of real world users .How hard is it to accept that ?

Back in 2007 this were the most common used resolutions :

1. 1024 x 768 55.34%
2. 1280 x 1024 17.23%
3. 1280 x 800 8.23%
4. 800 x 600 8.18%
5. 1152 x 864 3.67%

Maybe in 2010 , half of the users will be 1280/1024.So that resolution is very relevant.

http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_..._internet.html

According to Valve HW statistics in November 2008 :


Primary Display Resolution
1280 x 1024 24.83%
800 x 600 (-0.07%) 0.98%
1024 x 768 (-1.02%) 24.40%
1152 x 864 (-0.07%) 4.06%
1280 x 768 (0.00%) 0.88%
1280 x 800 (+0.08%) 8.33%
1280 x 960 (+0.02%) 2.19%
1280 x 1024 (-0.42%) 24.83%
1440 x 900 (+0.51%) 10.38%
1600 x 1200 (-0.08%) 1.18%
1680 x 1050 (+0.65%) 14.91%
1920 x 1200 (+0.17%) 3.74%
Other (+0.88%) 4.14%

Under or equal 1280 represent 65% of the market ( assuming other is over 1280 ). Testing at uber high resolutions is pointless from a CPU perspective .People might have Core I7 and SLI and game at 1280.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

[roofsniper]

anyone using 1024x768 resolution most likely doesn't know what a core is or is concerned with it.

[BrowncoatGR]

Not at all.90% of QC buyers don't have a clue of what they're having. You and this forum isn't representative of real world users .How hard is it to accept that ?

Back in 2007 this were the most common used resolutions :

1. 1024 x 768 55.34%
2. 1280 x 1024 17.23%
3. 1280 x 800 8.23%
4. 800 x 600 8.18%
5. 1152 x 864 3.67%

Maybe in 2010 , half of the users will be 1280/1024.So that resolution is very relevant.

http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_..._internet.html

According to Valve HW statistics in November 2008 :


Primary Display Resolution
1280 x 1024 24.83%
800 x 600 (-0.07%) 0.98%
1024 x 768 (-1.02%) 24.40%
1152 x 864 (-0.07%) 4.06%
1280 x 768 (0.00%) 0.88%
1280 x 800 (+0.08%) 8.33%
1280 x 960 (+0.02%) 2.19%
1280 x 1024 (-0.42%) 24.83%
1440 x 900 (+0.51%) 10.38%
1600 x 1200 (-0.08%) 1.18%
1680 x 1050 (+0.65%) 14.91%
1920 x 1200 (+0.17%) 3.74%
Other (+0.88%) 4.14%

Under or equal 1280 represent 65% of the market ( assuming other is over 1280 ). Testing at uber high resolutions is pointless from a CPU perspective .People might have Core I7 and SLI and game at 1280.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

And only 11% of Steam users have a QC
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/cpus/
You really think most of those are in the 65% having a low res monitor?

[ryboto]

98% of people are using 1280/1024 or less.I consider this resolution to be far more representative than those where you need a high end card only to get over 20fps.

Secondly , the point is to show CPU power.It pointless to go GPU limited where both a dual core and a i7 965 have the same score while their computing power is different by a factor of 3-4x.

At the very least , it shows which CPU is better positioned to handle future , more demanding games.

I can't argue your first point, because I can't say for a fact, as you have, that that is the resolution 98% of people use. I doubt that's the case for the buyers interested in purchasing a Quad core system. edit: Cegras beat me to the point I was trying to make while I was writing! kudos!

I would also contest the justification based on your second point. I would much rather see how it performs at all resolutions, to get an idea of the performance scaling.

Your third point makes the most sense out of the three, and I agree with it.

[Jacky]

I would also contest the justification based on your second point. I would much rather see how it performs at all resolutions, to get an idea of the performance scaling.

No, you don't. It's still the same code that will run on the CPU, so they will perform similar, just the gap will be smaller and you will be looking at GPU performance.

Hmm. It's crazy. We are all here for the same reason i presume. Uor love for hardware and computers.Aren't we? then why does every thread end up this way?? I'm new here on this forum and i don't get it? I'ts all about "mine is bigger than yours". Sad.

What are you talking about? I haven't seen such civilised discussion in a long time.

[ryboto]

No, you don't. It's still the same code that will run on the CPU, so they will perform similar, just the gap will be smaller and you will be looking at GPU performance.

No I don't what? want all resolutions? I remember one review where the i7 systems framreate dropped after certain resolutions in a few games. I guess if I think about it, I wouldn't have been offended if they'd done it, because you're buying a platform if you go either camp, so wouldn't it be good to know how that platform performs in situations you'd actually use it(specifically games in this case)?