Phenom II reviews

[Albuquerque]

LOL, you tried making any sort of logical comment on the [H] forums? Isn't that like going to HondaAcura.NET and extolling the value of a Hyundai Genesis?

Seriously though, AMD did better than I expected them to given what they started with. Working from the same basic K8+ architecture that has now been named K10 plus the additional cache, silicon tweaks and fixes and here we are at near-Penryn speeds. Not bad guys, not bad. And you can use it on AM2 systems, that's even better.

I don't believe Phenom II and i7 are really competition -- they're in two different performance and price classes; only the hardcore geeks are going to make the connection. In terms of what Joe and Jane user might go buy at a Best Buy, AMD already had plenty of opportunity for market share even before PII. But the combination of this extra speed bump and the overclockability should finally give them that "halo" of performance that has likely otherwise tainted their offerings to laypeople who don't really understand what they need anyway.

 

[Skrying]

LOL, you tried making any sort of logical comment on the [H] forums? Isn't that like going to HondaAcura.NET and extolling the value of a Hyundai Genesis?

Sometimes I enjoy running into a wall!

 

[BRiT]

I still say fuck AMD CPUs ever since they prematurely ditched the Socket 939 platform.

 

[Skrying]

I still say fuck AMD CPUs ever since they prematurely ditched the Socket 939 platform.

Eh? S939 seemed to have a great life.

 

[Davros]

quick q:
do the i7 boards support crossfire + sli ?
arnt intel shortly going to bring out i5 with integrated pci-e controller - what benefits will that bring ?

 

[Skrying]

quick q:
do the i7 boards support crossfire + sli ?
arnt intel shortly going to bring out i5 with integrated pci-e controller - what benefits will that bring ?

Yes the Core i7 X58 boards support Crossfire and SLI. Can't answer the other question off the top of my head, either part.

 

[Davros]

so nvidia have in their driver if not nv chipset disable sli unless its a i7 board yes, i assume the havnt removed the restriction on other intel chipsets running sli

 

[BRiT]

Eh? S939 seemed to have a great life.

They killed that platform off too early to move to the AM platform which offered less performance for higher costs. They never did put out a suitable upgrade from an X2 4600+ CPU.

 

[Skrying]

so nvidia have in their driver if not nv chipset disable sli unless its a i7 board yes, i assume the havnt removed the restriction on other intel chipsets running sli

I'm not sure if it works on older Intel chipset boards, but it certainly works on X58 Core i7 boards. 3-Way SLI with x16 lanes on all slots is only possible with the NForce 200 chip on the board as well but it has been shown to make zero difference and actually add latency.

 

[swaaye]

They killed that platform off too early to move to the AM platform which offered less performance for higher costs. They never did put out a suitable upgrade from an X2 4600+ CPU.

Frankly I don't think there is a great upgrade path from something like that on AM2, either. The top 65nm K8 CPUs aren't much faster and don't overclock phenomenally better. Though I do I have to say that my $50 X2 3800+ that does 3 GHz on stock volts is nice, but it's not much better than my 'ol $300 Opty 165 @ 2.5 (esp cuz of the 65nm's cache size and latency gimpage). And, Phenom has never been an amazing choice and still isn't that great and definitely was never going to go to such a retro socket with obsoleted DDR1.

The only really great, well-priced, performance-per-clock improving upgrade from that X2 is a Wolfdale, IMO. Unless, of course, you need 4 cores.

Phenom II has nice power consumption that makes C2Q look kinda ugly. If you care about such things. I think that may be its best aspect and, combined with decent speed and pricing, it makes it somewhat tempting.

 

[homerdog]

quick q:
do the i7 boards support crossfire + sli ?

Yes, with or without the nForce 200 chip. Actually the NF200 appears to be good for nothing.

arnt intel shortly going to bring out i5 with integrated pci-e controller - what benefits will that bring ?

i5 won't be out for a while (Q3 soonest) and I dunno about the integrated PCIe controller.

 

[Skrying]

Phenom II has nice power consumption that makes C2Q look kinda ugly. If you care about such things. I think that may be its best aspect and, combined with decent speed and pricing, it makes it somewhat tempting.

Going by Tech Report's numbers it is barely superior under idle and slightly worse under load. I fail to see how that makes the C2Q look ugly in any way.

 

[digitalwanderer]

You ever try and put on a 775 heatsink?

 

[Miksu]

Most of the reviews are positive but [H] is quite different. I have to question reviewer's sanity when I find remarks like these:

Certainly we don’t feel like we have anything special here. Anyway, Phenom II hardware and information are not exactly in short supply, so we will give you the quick and dirty run down on this new processor. And trust me, it is dirty for the enthusiast.

think that the enthusiast is wondering exactly what I am wondering. “How does this Phenom II do clock-per-clock compared to Intel’s Core 2 and Core i7?” Now while some of you will whine loudly, “That’s not fair! That flagship Core i7 is $1000!” Well you people just need to shut the hell up and go have a drink. You are already unreasonable, so a little alcohol won’t hurt you in the least.

The Phenom II performance speaks for itself. It loses to its old nemesis, the Core 2, which I think some folks will be surprised by. The Phenom II loses to the Core i7, which I think was to be expected. The Phenom II is a loser.

Compare these to Anand's conclusion:

Phenom II is AMD's return to competition, and unlike the best the original could do, the sequel is actually worthwhile. Even if Intel drops prices to maintain control of the quad-core market, you have AMD to thank for that. It's similar to what happened in the GPU market last summer: competition keeps prices in check. Economic woes or not, both AMD and Intel are going to be fighting hard for your business this year.

 

[Moloch]

Most of the reviews are positive but [H] is quite different. I have to question reviewer's sanity when I find remarks like these:







Compare these to Anand's conclusion:

Well Kyle did write it...

 

[Brad Grenz]

[H] is a conundrum to me. I kinda appreciate their GPU review philosophy in the face of so many reviews which were just telling you how many hundreds of FPS you get at 640x480 in Q3. But I don't care about a clock for clock comparison of these CPUs. I want a dollar for dollar analysis. And for me that includes not just the price/performance of the chip itself, but the whole platform cost. Obviously i7 is fast, but you pay through the nose for not just the CPU, but the mobo and 3 sticks of matched DDR3.

Even with C2Q the platform cost is quite a bit higher. I just did a little experiment on newegg. My criteria for a fully featured mobo was 4 memory slots, 2 PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots, gigabit ethernet, firewire and 6 SATA ports. If you do that search for AM2+ the cheapest option is $80. For LGA 775 it's $110. If you want one that isn't off brand the AMD platform bumps up to $85. Intel it jumps to $210!!! i7 starts at $210 and adds like $100 to your memory cost.

I just like the fact that I should be able to drop a Phenom II into my 2 year old mobo and get a really significant performance boost.

 

[Bludd]

Phenom 2 seems to be a good upgrade for current AM2 and AM2+ users, but I don't think it warrants a switch from any Core 2 CPU.

 

[Sxotty]

Phenom 2 seems to be a good upgrade for current AM2 and AM2+ users, but I don't think it warrants a switch from any Core 2 CPU.

Exactly. And the [H] review though sensational was totally fine.

Anand, Toms etc all showed the same result, they just tried to make it sound better than it was.

Phenom II sucks for someone thinking purely in dollar/performance unless they already have and AMD setup which is rather unlikely considering how badly AMD was doing prior to this. Looking at the tables on anands shows that pretty clearly especially if the Intel price cuts come through. It is starting to look like AMD made a good bet buying ATI now that their CPU business is in the doldrums.

I was waiting for phenom II quite expectantly prior to this actually as I like the AMD platform for some irrational reason when it comes to CPUs, but it just doesn't live up my expectations at all.

 

[Skrying]

What? The only person who shouldn't be interested in Phenom II is a current Core 2 owner or someone who would spend enough to buy a Core i7 computer. Otherwise a Phenom II is completely reasonable to look at and better in some cases. For instance, mATX form factor pricing is very much superior for the AMD based systems. The motherboards are half the cost! That's the difference between a HD4850 vs HD4870 for a gamer, that is huge!

Just look past the CPU cost alone, the motherboards for AMD are much cheaper for whatever reasons. G45 and GeForce 9300 based boards are stupidly expensive, I know. That's why I couldn't justify a Core 2 Duo E5200 vs an AMD system. HD4870/GTX 260 >>>> HD4850/E5200, or now if you do a lot of heavy threaded applications Q6600/Q8200 vs Phenom II 920.

 

[Ateo]

What? The only person who shouldn't be interested in Phenom II is a current Core 2 owner or someone who would spend enough to buy a Core i7 computer. Otherwise a Phenom II is completely reasonable to look at and better in some cases. For instance, mATX form factor pricing is very much superior for the AMD based systems. The motherboards are half the cost! That's the difference between a HD4850 vs HD4870 for a gamer, that is huge!

Just look past the CPU cost alone, the motherboards for AMD are much cheaper for whatever reasons. G45 and GeForce 9300 based boards are stupidly expensive, I know. That's why I couldn't justify a Core 2 Duo E5200 vs an AMD system. HD4870/GTX 260 >>>> HD4850/E5200, or now if you do a lot of heavy threaded applications Q6600/Q8200 vs Phenom II 920.

I would rather pay more for an Intel chipset made by Intel than one from NVIDIA or AMD, looking back at my experiences dating back from when I jumped from my Amiga 1200 to the PC with a 486DX.

No touches Intel's record with chipset stability, period!