Phenom II Review Summaries.....

[nanohead]

This might help us, as its clear that each and every "Expert" review site came to different conclusions.... some are objective, some are downright skewed

Please put in summaries of ones you read.

What I read so far:

XBit Labs: Pretty not believable, its almost like they manipulated their test data to tell a specific story. They didn't slam AMD or PII, but they did throw it under the bus ultimately. They tried to paint the picture that it is ok, but still not as good as the "competition". They only used a 790GX

Fudzilla: Pretty balanced, it didn't seem like they were trying for any specific conclusion. They did not compare it i7, only to high end QC2D. Also used a 790GX

Tweaktown: Their usual total garbage. I don't know why I even keep them bookmarked. Here is a direct quote from them "Phenom II seems to be lacking any real CPU power, even when compared to the Core 2 series and is certainly much less than Core i7." Don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is already made up.

Hot Hardware: Pretty rational, these guys don't often take sides. Their review was pretty balanced, and they respected the effort put into the product. Also used a 790GX

Guru3D: Pretty realistic, with an especially sober conclusion. Balanced. Also used a 790GX

Legit Reviews: Reasonably balanced, had a reasonably open minded conclusion. Also used a 790GX


Feel free to add more!!!

[Stuen4y]

I like the Planet3Dnow review. Its very fair and I really like the conclusions:
Deneb@3GHz(940BE) - 100%
Yorkfield@3GHz(Q9650) - 102.7%
Nahalem@3GHz(i7 940) - 125.3%
and the summary: best Price/Performance buy in the class .

[KeZzZu]

Yeah i think too that PII is best bang for buck in month or so when cream price goes away.

[Particle]

You should add HardOCP's: We hate AMD so before we even get to the testing, here's why we think this product sucks. Nobody is even interested in Phenom II anymore. What a dud. (It's like they live in their own fragile, blue world.)

I think I'll block their domain out in my hosts file. *grumble*

[MrMojoZ]

You should add HardOCP's: We hate AMD so before we even get to the testing, here's why we think this product sucks. Nobody is even interested in Phenom II anymore. What a dud. (It's like they live in their own fragile, blue world.)

I think I'll block their domain out in my hosts file. *grumble*

So they are the guys posting in the XS news forum?

[Particle]

It's worse. The actual subtitle of the review is a rant. They're bashing it before they even get to the body.

[dng]

i stopped reading hardocp a long time ago. enough said. i can't wait to get a 920. i might change my mind and go with the high end 940. i'm also trying to go green this year. decisions decisions .

[demonkevy666]

XBit Labs didn't look at how the Nb changes from a 200mhz ? they did it with agena ?

[roofsniper]

i think some guy at amd put out the wrong word. because every review i have read they think dragon includes a 790gx. and i doubt amd would put a integrated graphics chipset in as their top of the line. most reviews also seem to have obvious errors in places. lots of them on the system specs pages.

[Halk]

AMD sent the Phenom II review samples out with 790GX boards. They may as well have added a sachet of fail sauce. :P

I can understand comparisons between C2Q using a 790GX board because that comparison is very price sensitive, and the reviewer should be looking to see which platform offers better value for money.

If they're going to compare the Phenom II against the Core i7 chips then they should be using an FX motherboard. It's like saying "We compared this Honda Civic against the Porshe 911. We filled the Honda Civic with deisel, and the Porshe 911 with performance petrol". I'm not saying the Phenom II is an i7 beater, but it was a rather inept move of AMD to send out samples with a GX board.

[Particle]

Not really. Good 790GX boards are often better overclockers than their 790FX counterparts.

[Halk]

Not really. Good 790GX boards are often better overclockers than their 790FX counterparts.

Are you meaning that a well built 790GX board is better than a poorly built 790FX board, or are you meaning that there's something in the specifications of the GX board that's better than the FX?

[duploxxx]

decent/fair review from anandtech and promise more in depth review

AMD Phenom II X4 940 & 920: A True Return to Competition
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...oc.aspx?i=3492

[Stuen4y]

Not really. Good 790GX boards are often better overclockers than their 790FX counterparts.

I think exactly the opposite thing. Good 790FX boards are much better than good 790GX boards. I think M3A32-MVP, DQ6, M2R, K9A2 Platinum should overclock PhII higher than the newer 790GX boards. The "old" boards have been designed for extreme OC of the older Phenoms, but their OC potential was poor(of the cpu's and of the boards because of SB600) and 790GX came as a solution with SB750 lowering the production costs of the boards. M3A79-T Deluxe and the DFI SB750 solutions should perform similar to the old boards.

[nanohead]

Not really. Good 790GX boards are often better overclockers than their 790FX counterparts.

I think exactly the opposite thing. Good 790FX boards are much better than good 790GX boards. I think M3A32-MVP, DQ6, M2R, K9A2 Platinum should overclock PhII higher than the newer 790GX boards. The "old" boards have been designed for extreme OC of the older Phenoms, but their OC potential was poor(of the cpu's and of the boards because of SB600) and 790GX came as a solution with SB750 lowering the production costs of the boards. M3A79-T Deluxe and the DFI SB750 solutions should perform similar to the old boards.

These two points of view are one of the puzzling things about this review cycle of the PII. There were NO 790FX reviews that I could find.

I don't believe that there would be much difference in baseline performance between a 790GX and 790FX, although I have no idea if that's true. Many of us (including me) have both, and maybe we could try and determine if there's any truth to it. But it looks like the marketing guys at AMD had lots of control here, as they got lots of the "expert" review sites to talk about "Dragon" more than the new processor in many cases, which includes the 790GX.

As far as OC performance, it would appear to me (although I'm clearly not that bright), that most of the 790FX/SB750 boards are somewhat more robust in the BIOS department and AOD integration, although I could be completely wrong.

But it does befuddle me that AMD completely ignored the 790FX/SB750 board partners who stuck with them during the dark days. Many of us have had spectacular results with the Asus M3A79-T and the Foxconn A79A-S, as well as the perenially strange DFI LP DK 790FXB-M2RSH. It looks like our friends at Gigabyte have simply FLOODED the "expert" reviewers with their DS4H board, with the MSI board showing up occasionally.

I dunno, seems strange to me. The Intel boards were ALL X48 or X58 boards, which is their high end.

[Glow9]

i stopped reading hardocp a long time ago. enough said. i can't wait to get a 920. i might change my mind and go with the high end 940. i'm also trying to go green this year. decisions decisions .

Oh why don't you love the articles on [T]ard. BFG BFG BUY BFG BUY a BFG card we have a special discount for "just" 400 people, ASUS ASUS INTEL ASUS BFG BFG

[Nedjo]

Legit:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/860/1/

"f you are looking for a new CPU for an upcoming build, or looking to upgrade from an AMD AM2 or AM2+ platform, the Phenom II AM2+ CPUs may be a very good choice for you. Considering how, in many cases, simply swapping the processor could cut power consumption by a third while increasing performance by 15-25%, it's hard to pass this up. Phenom II will definitely warrant another article exploring its overclocking potential so if you are on the fence about it, maybe that will be able to sway you."

[roofsniper]

well at least i know i can get better power consumption numbers since those all include a wasted integrated graphics. amd had to have some reasoning behind sending them 790gx boards because i myself believe the fx are superior.

[nanohead]

well at least i know i can get better power consumption numbers since those all include a wasted integrated graphics. amd had to have some reasoning behind sending them 790gx boards because i myself believe the fx are superior.

Yup, scratching my head over that whole thing

[crazydiamond]

idk but i think theres somethin behind it because they used 790gx boards at the preview events too

[G0ldBr1ck]

probly because they care nothing about selling 790FX anymore but have invested allot into 790GX so would have done them no good to use FX to show off the platform.

[roofsniper]

my guess is that amd believes both boards are pretty much the same thing and the gx ones are the most recent so those are the ones they show off. the fx and gx boards are very similar but i believe the fx ones are higher quality.

[daseto]

790FX = 65nm chipset

790GX = 55nm chipset

Unless the new 790FX w/SB750 boards have been shrunk to 55nm, then they are still using the old northbridge, and from a marketing standpoint, you do not want to market your new chip with an old chipset. Not only that, the power consumption between the FX and GX is in the GX's favor even with the gfx enabled if im remembering the review i found that compared the two.

Face it the GX is the new fangled chipset that they are pushing with a new chip, and AMD is trying to stay away from its old and considered failed Phenom launch chipset. Sure the FX might be better but being 65nm costs more to produce hence the obvious price jump when you hit the FX boards.

IMO as long as it OC's well on a GX and the GX is in my price range and is stable im happy. If an FX gets another 30mhz out of the chip vs a GX that isnt that big of a deal. Having onboard gfx isnt all bad, it means they actually have to put a decent heat sink on the NB where some of the FX boards seem to be lacking *cough* DFI *cough*

[Nedjo]

Everyone has tested with 790GX 'cos all 790GX mobos have SB750, and to constitute Dragon platform SB750 is must... besides, I must repeat once again: 790GX is 55nm part and has better power consumption compared to 65nm build 790FX! In idle 790GX consumes somewhere around 1W!

In the last couple of months 790GX mobos have received some nice BIOS tuning and basically all of them are top notch build in terms of quality and features, so they're HighEnd mobos, regardless of the present IGP...

[roofsniper]

Everyone has tested with 790GX 'cos all 790GX mobos have SB750, and to constitute Dragon platform SB750 is must... besides, I must repeat once again: 790GX is 55nm part and has better power consumption compared to 65nm build 790FX! In idle 790GX consumes somewhere around 1W!

In the last couple of months 790GX mobos have received some nice BIOS tuning and basically all of them are top notch build in terms of quality and features, so they're HighEnd mobos, regardless of the present IGP...

yea i know the gx is 55nm but still i believe the fx boards have better quality. and according to SOF phenom II and ACC is pointless because it does nothing.