AMD Phenom II Review Thread

[MsB]

LOL@ HardOCP - Bought and paid for like some posters in this forum

[Donnie27]

I just love this tinfoil hat conspiracy theories.

As if its so hard to put a cpu/ram/gfx card into a mobo and install a os.

Oc benching is another story but you can't do much wrong with out of the box (aka stock) stuff...

edit:

omfg i just read the HardOCP review...

WTF !!!111

Did Hell just froze over and im seeing this correct that Kyle Bennett calls P2 a looser.

Was Kyle drinking or did AMD cut him off

This how threads go when the usual folks can't get threads Censored (i.e. only Pro-AMD Cheerleading allowed) LOL! Games mean nothing since even a stock an E8400 is good enough for that.

[Chad Boga]

bulldozer might come right after westmere

I forgot to pick up this point, but for the desktop, I would be amazed if Bulldozer appears on the desktop within 9 months of Westmere and consider 12 or more months the far more likely prospect.

and with bulldozer supporting 50% more cores than westmere and possibilities of integrated graphics.

I am currently quite sceptical that Intel can make Larrabee work to the extent that they become a contender in the high end graphics market, but if they do manage to pull this off, Nvidia will surely have to merge with AMD.

How much this might help AMD, it is hard to say at this point.

[v_rr]

ASUS Preparing Eight New AMD Motherboards Under the M4A, M4N Series

ASUS is reportedly preparing eight new motherboards based on the AM3/AM2+ sockets, ready for AMD's 45nm desktop CPUs. While two of these have already caught the media's attention, there are more. Tabled below are the eight motherboards based on the AMD 7-series chipsets, the ASUS M4A series, and NVIDIA nForce 700 series (and 900 series chipsets, if the "980a SLI" reference in the table isn't a typo), the ASUS M4N series.

Getting into some details, the M4A79-T is the high-end AMD CrossFireX supportive platform based on the AMD 790FX + SB750 chipset, that supports dual-channel DDR3-1600 (OC) memory. It will feature four PCI-Express x16 slots. The M4A79 Deluxe supports DDR2 memory. It is known that the upcoming AM3 socket Phenom II processors will be backwards compatible with AM2+ (DDR2) platforms. The M4A78T-E is the based on the AMD 790GX + SB750 chipset, it supports DDR3. The M4A78-E supports DDR2, while being based on the same chipset. The M4N series motherboards, start from the 3-way SLI supportive M4N82 Deluxe based on the 780a/980a SLI chipset, again it isn't known if the chart sourced has a typo. There is the M4N72-E based on the nForce 750a SLI, and finally the M4N78 Pro. All the M4N motherboards support DDR2 memory.

http://www.techpowerup.com/81303/ASU...4N_Series.html

[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.

[Zucker2k]

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

You got owned, and instead of showing some data to back up your argument you instead start bashing users with 1024x768 resolution? Talk is cheap, start showing some hard facts.

[roofsniper]

zucker it would be nice if you could stop bashing me without any reason. you want to see some facts? who here runs 1024x768? hmmmm? and if you do what cpu and video card do you have?

[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?

[Zucker2k]

zucker it would be nice if you could stop bashing me without any reason. you want to see some facts? who here runs 1024x768? hmmmm? and if you do what cpu and video card do you have?

See that's your problem, perpetually assuming things and conjuring more assumptions to support your assumptions.

Savantu went to lengths to give you info from Steam, the premier games vending medium and their statistics of users (people who actually play games) resolution. Why did he do that? To backup his argument that the majority of users are still on lower resolutions. If objectivity meant anything to you, you'd accept the fact or show other evidence to back your claims of 1680x1050 as the standard benchmark for gaming. But this is beyond your scope of comprehension so I'll leave it at that.

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?

Dualcores have always been favored over quadcores for gaming; at least on the Intel platform this is the case. Duals overclock easily to 4Ghz+ and therefore give more frame-rates in games; as is evident in some of the tests. An E8600 at 4.5Ghz would annihilate most quads in an overwhelming majority of games simply because only a select number of games actually take advantage of 4 cores so frequency is more important in most game-play.

[eleeter]

Savantu went to lengths to give you info from Steam, the premier games vending medium and their statistics of users (people who actually play games) resolution. Why did he do that? To backup his argument that the majority of users are still on lower resolutions

Who cares? Why would you buy a quad core and then run @1280x1024 anyway?

Besides, the average STEAM user has a pretty pathetic system.

[mongoled]

-- Off topic --

It would be very easy for me to say that some 'members' posting on these forums are just plain stupid. But that would be too easy.

Why do I say this, well....

Its quite clear to the informed person that Phenom II is exactly where AMD wants it. The gains they have made through tweaking this architecture with limited resources whose basis started with K8 is commendable.

However some peeps seem intent on only posting negative comments regarding what AMD are trying to achieve. Now......

The conclusion I have come to, is that the majority of the peeps who fall into the negative category are composed of the following groups.

1/ Way too big egos
2/ Way too attached to a hardware company
3/ Have too much Intel stock

Please, can you guys at least stop being so negative in this thread? As other members have pointed out, if you want to be negative about the Phenom II then start your own thread title, 'Phenom II, my negative thoughts' and you can all talk you want in those threads about how 'bad' the Phenom II is.

Im ruling out that they are stupid.

Peeps who want to constructively discuss your points can join your thread, leaving the rest of us who want to read about the 'good' things bypass all your negativity.

At the end of they day, more choices are better for all of us.....

Now back on topic.....

A few reviews showed exactly what the majority of normal users would want from a quad core processor, that is, to be able to use their PC's with a multitude of tasks and not have any slow downs.

The results are quite clear, that K10 based processors are very good at this! This was the main reason I picked the 9950 in my sig over the Q6600. The performance you get in multitasking for the price you pay is excellent



It would be appreciated that people participated positivly in this thread, rather then just spewing their negative thoughts all over it

[accord99]

Who cares? Why would you buy a quad core and then run @1280x1024 anyway?

Because they're interested in which CPU will have more grunt to run the shiny new GPU they buy next year?

[gOJDO]

I tend to disagree. As rk7p5 said, this Christmas I tested my systems, Kentsfield and Agena, clock for clock (all real world apps)

Gaming benchmarks are missing in your comparisons, and there Kentsfield wipes the floor with Agena.

, and based on them, I would say that PhII 940 is between 9550 and 9650, and PhII 920 between 9450 and 9550.

Well none of the reviews came to your conclusion, so I prefer to believe in what all the reputable sites concluded rather than listening to what you think.
Also FSB 1333 offers 2-3% better performance than FSB 1066, DDR3 offers 2-3% better performance than DDR2 and Yorkfield is 5-6% faster than Kentsfield (FSB1333), clock for clock in average. So your conclusions about Yorkfield, based on Q6600 vs Agena comparisons excluding gaming are unsupported.

As for i7, Deneb can only compete in gaming. In everything else, i7 bruttally outperforms it.

[Piotrsama]

Its quite clear to the informed person that Phenom II is exactly where AMD wants it. The gains they have made through tweaking this architecture with limited resources whose basis started with K8 is commendable.

However some peeps seem intent on only posting negative comments regarding what AMD are trying to achieve. Now......

The conclusion I have come to, is that the majority of the peeps who fall into the negative category are composed of the following groups.

1/ Way too big egos
2/ Way too attached to a hardware company
3/ Have too much Intel stock

Well said.

[Jochenp]

You don't understand! The PII is waaaay smoother than the i7!

[Leeghoofd]

Who cares? Why would you buy a quad core and then run @1280x1024 anyway?

Besides, the average STEAM user has a pretty pathetic system.

There are more purposes for a CPU then just gaming, I do rendering and folding so the more cores the merrier... and I still buy the fastest GPU around not for the games but for the benches.

And I still game at 1280 x 1024 only because I'm limited by my monitor.... It's not that everyone has a 22 inch these days. To all the ones that comment the gaming resolution ; visit a lanparty someday and be shocked how many users even have a CRT (15-19") these days... not every gamer is a 30 year old with a 2000 dollar salary... and not many CPU's are overclocked as most users buy prebuild rigs and are into gaming not hardware

[largon]

I completely fail to see the point in low res/LOD/filtering gaming benchmarks.
I guess someone wants to believe the age-old prophecy of the elusive "future CPU intensive games". Today we're playing yesterdays "future games" and so far those proverbial CPU intensive titles are nowhere to be seen. When we look at the game benches done on realworld settings we see CPU has little bearing on the results. Once CPU becomes a bottleneck FPS is already so high nobody gives a turd about what the FPS actually is as it's through the roof.
What is that 40% FPS advantage worth when frame rates float around 100FPS?

You got owned, and instead of showing some data to back up your argument

How does steam stats prove he's wrong?
Right, they don't. For all we know, most of those sub-SXGA users could be running those single cores that still cover one third of the surveyed systems. And you know what? That's the most likely scenario. No far-fetched assumptions needed to deduct that.

90% of QC buyers don't have a clue of what they're having.

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

you instead start bashing users with 1024x768 resolution? Talk is cheap, start showing some hard facts.

So it's more plausible 90% of QC users don't know what they have but it's entirely plausible people with 10 year old monitors are educated "power users"?

[PetNorth]

Gaming benchmarks are missing in your comparisons, and there Kentsfield wipes the floor with Agena.

well first of all, my graphic cards aren't capable :P Second, I tend to discard games benchmarks because to me are useless in general terms, cause in real world, CPU is a secondary actor.

Well none of the reviews came to your conclusion, so I prefer to believe in what all the reputable sites concluded rather than listening to what you think.

It's not what I think, it's the result of my set of benchmarks. Also, do you think those "reputable sites" test a more complete, detailed, and explained set of benchmarks with real world apps, than mine?

Also FSB 1333 offers 2-3% better performance than FSB 1066, DDR3 offers 2-3% better performance than DDR2 and Yorkfield is 5-6% faster than Kentsfield (FSB1333), clock for clock in average. So your conclusions about Yorkfield, based on Q6600 vs Agena comparisons excluding gaming are unsupported.

You talk about Yorkfield improvements. Deneb isn't improved at all, it seems

Anyways, when I own both I''ll know myself. Nothing out there is better than personal experience

[Shintai]

if you are buying a laptop then yes it might be. westmere for laptops is set for late 2009 to january 2010 while the desktop versions are set for first half of 2010 for the high end and last half for the mainstream and low end. the high ends won't be competing with deneb and will actually just be competing with nehalem. plus bulldozer is set for 2011 which will include 12 cores and will be the core used for fusion so we could be seeing graphics in the cpus by then. so even though you are saying how westmere is going to destroy amd look at the big picture, bulldozer might come right after westmere and with bulldozer supporting 50% more cores than westmere and possibilities of integrated graphics.

What 12 core bulldozer are you talking about. There is a K10 based 12 core that gonna cost something around 2-4000$. Desktop "bulldozer only stands as 4cores with GPU and 4+ cores without.

Easy, when i point the review I was talking about all games in that review, not only fear. Check-out the other games

The AMD roadmap is allways changing. 15 days ago and AMD made changes. And as far as I know not to be on roadmap don´t say nothing.
As far as i know AMD still have de Phenom "Stars"/FX to come and will have 6-core opteron also in midle of this year (H2), not final 2009 like shintay said. It´s H2 for the 6-core:

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?op...=7224&Itemid=1

So AMD can do somethings to counter i5 by Q3. One 3.2-3.4Ghz CPU? Possible...
A 6-core CPU? Also possible...
Everything is open.

The 6 core is server only. Plus there aint any desktop above 3Ghz on their roadmap for a good reason. The 6 cores die would be too big for any practical mainstream market. And yes, it is late 2009. Not middle.

[Zucker2k]

I completely fail to see the point in low res/LOD/filtering gaming benchmarks.
I guess someone wants to believe the age-old prophecy of the elusive "future CPU intensive games". Today we're playing yesterdays "future games" and so far those proverbial CPU intensive titles are nowhere to be seen. When we look at the game benches done on realworld settings we see CPU has little bearing on the results. Once CPU becomes a bottleneck FPS is already so high nobody gives a turd about what the FPS actually is as it's through the roof.
What is that 40% FPS advantage worth when frame rates float around 100FPS?
How does steam stats prove he's wrong?
Right, they don't. For all we know, most of those sub-SXGA users could be running those single cores that still cover one third of the surveyed systems. And you know what? That's the most likely scenario. No assumptions needed to deduct that. So it's more plausible 90% of QC users don't know what they have but it's entirely plausible people with 10 year old monitors are educated "power users"?

It is more likely that gamers, especially the kind that actually create an account on steam and buy games, know a little bit more about their hardware and capabilities than the average computer buyer who'll buy whatever latest rig Dell and HP are pushing into the market. Why? Because the gamer who wants to play the latest and greatest game is going to learn quickly either through experience or from a gaming forum what sort of hardware is required to play which kind of game. No?

[accord99]

I completely fail to see the point in low res/LOD/filtering gaming benchmarks.
I guess someone wants to believe the age-old prophecy of the elusive "future CPU intensive games". Today we're playing yesterdays "future games" and so far those proverbial CPU intensive titles are nowhere to be seen. When we look at the game benches done on realworld settings we see CPU has little bearing on the results.

They're everywhere, it's just that the games also have gotten even more GPU intensive. But certainly I would much rather have a E6600 rather than a similar time period 5600+ based on these benchmarks at high settings:

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=770&p=3

Of course, if you only looked at extremely GPU limited benchmarks from 2006 you wouldn't be to tell that the E6600 is going to age a lot better.

[AbelJemka]

It is more likely that gamers, especially the kind that actually create an account on steam and buy games, know a little bit more about their hardware and capabilities than the average computer buyer who'll buy whatever latest rig Dell and HP are pushing into the market. Why? Because the gamer who wants to play the latest and greatest game is going to learn quickly either through experience or from a gaming forum what sort of hardware is required to play which kind of game. No?

No! How creating an account on Steam and buy games is a skill
It's like install Itunes and buy songs for Ipod, everyone can do that!
Steam Hardware Survey is far from represent gamers hardware. 10% of Steam play solely CS since more than 5 years!



http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14156
Techreport hardware survey from december show a far better picture of review readers hardware.

Main display resolution

* 1024 x 768 (364 votes)
7%
* 1280 x 800 (93 votes)
2%
* 1280 x 960 (91 votes)
2%
* 1280 x 1024 (1305 votes)
25%
* 1400 x 1050 (37 votes)
1%
* 1440 x 900 (341 votes)
7%
* 1600 x 1200 (431 votes)
8%
* 1680 x 1050 (1401 votes)
27%
* 1920 x 1080 (103 votes)
2%
* 1920 x 1200 (799 votes)
15%
* 1920 x 1440 (44 votes)
1%
* 2560 x 1600 (122 votes)
2%
* Other (113 votes)
2%

[T_Flight]

I completely fail to see the point in low res/LOD/filtering gaming benchmarks.
I guess someone wants to believe the age-old prophecy of the elusive "future CPU intensive games". Today we're playing yesterdays "future games" and so far those proverbial CPU intensive titles are nowhere to be seen. When we look at the game benches done on realworld settings we see CPU has little bearing on the results. Once CPU becomes a bottleneck FPS is already so high nobody gives a turd about what the FPS actually is as it's through the roof.

This statement could not be more wrong. There are simualtions out there right now that a GPU upgrade won't do a thing for becasue they are CPU bound. FSX is one of them. No ammount of GPU upgrade in the world will allow you to get flyable settings when the IQ is cranked. It responds to CPU upgrades.

This myth that all that games/sims require is just an GPU upgrade is just that...a myth. In fact, you spoke about the Future/Past pretty matter of factly also. There is another title from the past still being flown that is not just CPU bound...it is entirely CPU bound and doesn't respond at all to GPU upgrades. It's name is Falcon 4.

So now we've dispelled the myths from the past and present, let's focus on the future. We have another title called Fighter Ops, and I can assure you that it too will be heaviliy dependent on Multithreading. I have followed that sims dev diaries from the very beginning and am a member of their forums. It will require not just a strong GPU, but a strong CPU and will take full advantage of the platform...not just the GPU. In fact taking full advanatge of user's platforms is one of the primary missions during development.

Games and Sims have been riding out GPU tech (at least some of the more sloppily coded ones), but that free ride is starting to slow, and they are gonna have to start taking adavanatge of Multithreading, and they are. Titles like GTA IV which is heaviliy bugged right now, but at least they are heading the right direction is one of those.

It ain't all about the GPU. It has never been all about the GPU, and it never will be.

[largon]

You come up with few niche games played by a small group of Thrustmaster-gripping livingroom pilots and all of the sudden games are in general CPU bound? And it's hardly any wonder that a fighter sim can't be particularly GPU demanding as the game enviroment is virtually a blank sky and a textured ground? Your GPUs shaders are sitting idle on the GIB seat while you whoosh away...