AMD Phenom II AM3 review thread

[Glow9]

AMD should have just kept these on DDR2 and would have helped memory companies I'd imagine its cheaper to crank out a bunch of DDR2 1600 for AMDs high end, good reviews people. I have to say I'm impressed with winrar and i7 hyperthreading actually big time at work

[ether.real]

http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//i...id=54&Itemid=1
Interestingly enough it seems everybody used DDR2 boards

AM3 boards in general aren't ready yet. Give it a month, I know ClubOC will be looking at AM3/DDR3 performance.

[ether.real]

AMD should have just kept these on DDR2 and would have helped memory companies I'd imagine its cheaper to crank out a bunch of DDR2 1600 for AMDs high end, good reviews people. I have to say I'm impressed with winrar and i7 hyperthreading actually big time at work

You know all of these are compatible with AM2+/DDR2, right?

[Glow9]

You know all of these are compatible with AM2+/DDR2, right?

lol your right. Why is it the AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition Processor seems to be an OC champ? I guess in terms of thing why can it OC higher than a Quad? isn't it just a quad with a core disabled does it reduce that much stress?

[informal]

lol your right. Why is it the AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition Processor seems to be an OC champ? I guess in terms of thing why can it OC higher than a Quad? isn't it just a quad missing some cache and a core disabled?

It's missing one core(and its L2),the L3 cache is the same,6MB.
It's OC champ because it's an unlocked chip fully(all multies are unlocked-for NB,core clocks and Vcores) and has one core less to worry about.Power draw is less than with a QC,but perf. is also lower in multithreaded apps,so a valid trade off.

Looking at AM3/DDR3 X3/X4 gaming results ,it looks like these chips profit the most in games,while being slightly faster in other apps too.There is that issue of "poor" AM3/DDR3 performance we heard from various sites(due to not optimized BIOS at the moment).I'd give mobo makers one month to do the AM3/DDR3 BIOS job better and see what comes out of that.But even with these "unoptimized" BIOS versions,AM3/DDR3 is still faster across the baord than AM2+/DDR2,so well done

[Glow9]

It's missing one core(and its L2),the L3 cache is the same,6MB.
It's OC champ because it's an unlocked chip fully(all multies are unlocked-for NB,core clocks and Vcores) and has one core less to worry about.Power draw is less than with a QC,but perf. is also lower in multithreaded apps,so a valid trade off.

I guess I'm still missing something, it's performance: value is awesome but AM3 Quad BE's are unlocked too. Seems like theres something missing? I dunno I guess I figured the Quad BE's would be going a lot higher than the value tri-cores

Anyone know when Nvidias MCP83 boards are coming out?

[informal]

I guess I'm still missing something, it's performance: value is awesome but AM3 Quad BE's are unlocked too. Seems like theres something missing? I dunno I guess I figured the Quad BE's would be going a lot higher than the value tri-cores

Anyone know when Nvidias MCP83 boards are coming out?

There are no *multiple* quad core AM3 BE parts.There will be only one or two,the 945BE(3Ghz/2Ghz for core/NB) and 950.After some time AMD will introduce a new one in Q3(3.3Ghz) and probably a 3.5Ghz by the end of the year.

For the time being,the only BE parts will be the eol 940 AM2+ and 945/950BE that will come in the next two months(with the possibility that even 945 will be multi locked).
As for NV boards,should be March/April launch iirc.

[Rammsteiner]

I guess I'm still missing something, it's performance: value is awesome but AM3 Quad BE's are unlocked too. Seems like theres something missing? I dunno I guess I figured the Quad BE's would be going a lot higher than the value tri-cores

Anyone know when Nvidias MCP83 boards are coming out?

But what makes you think those tri-cores are value? Those tri-cores are basicly just quad cores with one core disabled, that's it. There are a lot of people would just dont feel like having a quad right now and save a bit of money by going with a tri-core.

Just like why people dont buy a HD4870X2 but a few HD4850's, they're not value buit simply offer less. Or why a lot of people got a Wolfdale instead of a Yorkfield, same thing

The only sad thing is that it misses 2MB of L3, because where Athlon X2 6500/7750 was doing nice is because it has more L3 cache available for the two cores than the quad cores had

[informal]

The only sad thing is that it misses 2MB of L3, because where Athlon X2 6500/7750 was doing nice is because it has more L3 cache available for the two cores than the quad cores had

Actually Ramm,the tri core 720BE has full 6MB of L3 .The X4 810 has 4MB L3,2MB less than 940/920 Denebs.

[onethreehill]

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3512
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...50aHVzaWFzdA==
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha...nom_ii_x4_810/
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=667
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2340569,00.asp
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/898/1/
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...=294&Itemid=63
http://www.insidehw.com/Reviews/CPU/...-vs.-DDR2.html

[Rammsteiner]

Actually Ramm,the tri core 720BE has full 6MB of L3 .The X4 810 has 4MB L3,2MB less than 940/920 Denebs.

I = phail

Indeed, nvrmind my phailure. It does have 0.5MB less L2, but that makes sense.

So in otherwords, X3's is actually more awesome than X4 if you dont care a lot about multithreading/tasking

[Glow9]

But what makes you think those tri-cores are value? Those tri-cores are basicly just quad cores with one core disabled, that's it. There are a lot of people would just dont feel like having a quad right now and save a bit of money by going with a tri-core.

Like I said value, a BE for $145ish vs. $200+ For quad. If people were thinking in terms of gee well I wont use all 4 cores for any other reason than they most likely wouldn't pick up a BE. This is a value performance chip for those who know what to do with a BE.
Most people who wouldn't take advantage of a dualcore let alone a quad would be fine with singlecores lets face it thats most people

[Rammsteiner]

Like I said value, a BE for $145ish vs. $200+ For quad. If people were thinking in terms of gee well I wont use all 4 cores for any other reason than they most likely wouldn't pick up a BE. This is a value performance chip for those who know what to do with a BE.
Most people who wouldn't take advantage of a dualcore let alone a quad would be fine with singlecores lets face it thats most people

You cant compare the 940BE with a 720BE. 920 is better comparable to 720BE because they run at the same clocks. It's only a 40 Euro difference between those two, seems all right for an extra core. I just dont get what you're going for, but value has a complete other meaning in my book, expecially since Mhz's/cache do add in any situation for average speed where's a 4th core might not.

I'd name the Deneb 8x0 series value over Heka 7x0 series. Serious value CPU's would be Propus, Rana and Regor, or to go short, upcoming Athlon X2/X3/X4 series.

720BE is some good bang/buck CPU, it certainly isnt a value chip though.

[Macadamia]

720 is brand-relative a good deal (vs E8400/7500).

Compared to the X4 810 and X3 710, it feels a bit awkward (as the 710 can go to 3.4-3.5+++ by HTT OC too).

[Mads321]

You cant compare the 940BE with a 720BE. 920 is better comparable to 720BE because they run at the same clocks. It's only a 40 Euro difference between those two, seems all right for an extra core. I just dont get what you're going for, but value has a complete other meaning in my book, expecially since Mhz's/cache do add in any situation for average speed where's a 4th core might not.

I'd name the Deneb 8x0 series value over Heka 7x0 series. Serious value CPU's would be Propus, Rana and Regor, or to go short, upcoming Athlon X2/X3/X4 series.

720BE is some good bang/buck CPU, it certainly isnt a value chip though.

I dont know if you've seen the conclusion I've made in my review, but I have made a chart where I have calculated the percentage of performance for each individual benchmark, figured out the average of that, and then compared it to the prices of the CPU's.

I ended up with X3 720 vs. i7 920 = 30% more performance to the Core i7

And for the Danish prices X3 720 vs. i7 920 = +142% higher price for the i7 920 (far more than double).

Now I'm just gonna fly this last piece, but it has importance I think. This from the dictionary:

val⋅u⋅a⋅ble [val-yoo-uh-buhl, -yuh-buhl] Show IPA Pronunciation

1. having considerable monetary worth; costing or bringing a high price: a valuable painting; a valuable crop.
2. having qualities worthy of respect, admiration, or esteem: a valuable friend.
3. of considerable use, service, or importance: valuable information.

As I see it, Core i7 920 is only value in the 1st meaning of the word, whereas X3 720 fits with the description # 2 and 3

[eric66]

reviews are very positive at least the ones that i've read congrats amd seems to me like a nice job

[Shintai]

I dont know if you've seen the conclusion I've made in my review, but I have made a chart where I have calculated the percentage of performance for each individual benchmark, figured out the average of that, and then compared it to the prices of the CPU's.

I ended up with X3 720 vs. i7 920 = 30% more performance to the Core i7

And for the Danish prices X3 720 vs. i7 920 = +142% higher price for the i7 920 (far more than double).

Now I'm just gonna fly this last piece, but it has importance I think. This from the dictionary:

val⋅u⋅a⋅ble [val-yoo-uh-buhl, -yuh-buhl] Show IPA Pronunciation

1. having considerable monetary worth; costing or bringing a high price: a valuable painting; a valuable crop.
2. having qualities worthy of respect, admiration, or esteem: a valuable friend.
3. of considerable use, service, or importance: valuable information.

As I see it, Core i7 920 is only value in the 1st meaning of the word, whereas X3 720 fits with the description # 2 and 3

i7 is 2045DKK. So the X3 720 is 845DKK? X4 920 is 1451DKK. 845DKK would be very cheap.

[Rammsteiner]

Nevermind, I just woke up when I saw Glow's post and somehow I read something else, like completely missing it was about performance/value instead of just value. Now things makes sense

Forgive me now

[Frontl1ne]

Is it just me, or does AMD's chips seem to perform better at higher res/graphics? I'm not talking about bottleneck margins here but at least 5 - 6 FPS better than Intel counterparts. Can anyone explain why 'cause I always thought that lower res/graphics would show the maximum potential of CPUs the most as it eliminates graphics card bottlenecking.

[informal]

i7 is 2045DKK. So the X3 720 is 845DKK? X4 920 is 1451DKK. 845DKK would be very cheap.

The OP already posted the prices in the summary of the review:

$145, or around DKK 856,- is the price of the Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition. The Core i7 might be better overall, but in the tests we have done, which should cover the vast majority of stress-tests for a CPU, we managed to make the graph above, which calculates the performance (red) versus the price(blue). The graph is made based on the clock-by-clock test, where all CPU's were running at 3 GHz. Furthermore it has to be noted, that the numbers for the Core i7 is taken from the triple channel 6 GB results. The performance difference between the X3 720 BE and the i7 920 is 30%, while the price is a staggering 142% higher on the Core i7. Almost 1½ times price increase! In other words there is not a shadow of a doubt, that you get most value for money when purchasing a Phenom II, and that is the reason for the top grade in this category.

[knightwolf654]

must admit the HOCP review is much improved over the one they did on the 940

[kl0012]

The OP already posted the prices in the summary of the review:

This is very faulty postulate. The following sentence will be also correctly:
The performance difference between the Pentium E5200 and the X3 720 BE is 30%, while the price is a staggering 142% higher on the X3 720 BE.
You can check it just here:
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3512
I think that something like Celeron E1200 is placed on the upper top of price/performance function extremum.
Besides, using "price/performance" term in this case is faulty by itself just because you pay for CPU only once but then use it during relative long time. (Try to calculate haw much time/energy/money in total you can save on movie transcoding by 30%-faster CPU during 2-year period )

[FischOderAal]

After some time AMD will introduce a new one in Q3(3.3Ghz) and probably a 3.5Ghz by the end of the year.

I wouldn't be so quick with that one. It was only ONE site that stated this and it was launched somewhat in december or november last year...

[onethreehill]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...ii-x4-810.html

[BertM]

you cant compare with E1200.
quote from xbit labs: The results of the new Celeron E1200 in games should be not very encouraging for the gaming fans. Its performance is truly below any acceptable level because of the small L2 cache. Even overclocking doesn’t help.

i dont find any of these websites usefull. luckaly a few give info on what timings they used and some didnt even bother to try with ddr3 memory.
and when they finaly showed some adequate data for comparison,they didnt do a clock for clock test.
i guess its up to xs amd users to find out what these puppy's realy can do on ddr3.