AMD Phenom & Spider & Intel QX9770 Comparo @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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AMD Phenom & Spider & Intel QX9770 Comparo - AMD's native quad core Phenom desktop processor is finally here accompanied by the 790FX chipset that makes up the AMD “Spider” platform when used alongside the Radeon 3800 series video cards.


As stated on page one, the Phenom is a disappointment. It comes close to meeting a clock for clock battle at 2.4GHz or so, but still just does not do it. Phenom has not caught up with what Conroe had to offer so many months ago. As the clocks scale, Phenom begins to look even worse against the new Intel Yorkfield processors.
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Please Digg to Share. Thanks.

And I am editing it now, so please drop notes here.....and I will fix them and delete the posts as I go along. I am way behind on this one.
 
And the fall out continues to mount. :eek:

Kyle did anyone go to Tahoe ? Anand seemed very taken aback by it all,and wrote at length about it,and the behind the scenes maneuvering via the PR company AMD hired
to handle the 'controlled reviews' Knowing if anyone didnt go,you would never be one to do such a thing.btw,great review. :(


Wheres the 40% ?
 
Manny Calavera said:
And the fall out continues to mount. :eek:

Kyle did anyone go to Tahoe ? Anand seemed very taken aback by it all,and wrote at length about it,and the behind the scenes maneuvering via the PR company AMD hired
to handle the 'controlled reviews' Knowing if anyone didnt go,you would never be one to do such a thing.btw,great review. :(


Wheres the 40% ?
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Yes I did go. I needed to get the hell out of the house. I have been working 16 hour days for 3 weeks now. Had most of my work done before I left, but did have to run some numbers when I got back.

To put it in plain words, every benchmark that you see in my article was performed inside the HardOCP Bunker on HardOCP equipment with the head HardOCP dude in charge at the keyboard. ;)
 
Thanks for the info. I've got no point waiting anymore I can go ahead and get my P35 mobo and Q6600.
 
Oooohhhhh shittt........

this is bad news for the computer industry. Everyone loses from "As stated on page one, the Phenom is a disappointment..."

well. If ATI can nail the gamers market down (hard), RD790 might yet sell. They definatly need to make a major market shift toward the ATI side of things tho.
 
Good review. Finally some real facts from credible sources. I'll re-read it again tomorrow on a full night's sleep.

This is definitely a disappointment, but not crushingly huge. I do wonder where we go from here. AMD is going to have a rough climb ahead, just based on this sloppy launch. Amazing what a difference 1.5 years can make, almost an eternity in Silicon Valley.

Certainly lots will stop by to say I told you so, even though there was no way of knowing. Just like it was hard to predict that an Israeli design team would ultimately save Intel. AMD could use a bit of that heroism right now.
 
What good is the black edition if the tlb bug keeps the phenom @ 2.3Ghz and below?
 
Damn, based on those numbers I see no reason why anyone would buy a Phenom 9600 over a similarly (if not more cheaply) priced Q6600. It wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that Intel has had their parts on the market for months now.:(
 
brucedeluxe169 said:
this is probably a stupid question, but do *any* of the [H] staff plan on getting/upgrading to a Phenom system? I mean, you guys are surrounded by the best hardware, it would be a bit encouraging if *one* of the [H] staff have deemed the K10 worthy enough to use for their personal system....
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I actually have a special project box that has been in the works for months now. With retail parts getting out, we will be finalizing it soon. It will most likely end up being a dual RV680 CrossFire solution for gaming and "something else" but also a workstation box with a specific goal in mind.

The thing with quad core, it is so friggin hard to utilize. Gaming is overall GPU limited, so unless you are gaming at 1024x768, you will likely not see a difference. If you do nothing but sit around and encode media all day, Intel kicks Phenom's ass across the board.

AMD will be selling unlocked Phenoms, and getting a min of 2.8GHz is what I am thinking. But on the flipside, if the Q9450 Yorkie can run 3GHz all day on air, which I bet it will, that makes a pretty damn nice CPU to have no matter how you look at it.

But to your question....I run a Q6600 in my own box right now, and I would not hesitate to drop a Phenom in here. I don't think I would be losing anything real, but I don't think I would gaining either.
 
Manny Calavera said:
Kyle....where or where do you get the two 250Gb Raptors ?? :eek: :D Me wants !

PS: the new graphs look much better then the old ones.Like the color choice as well.
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Western Digital likes [H]. ;)

Office 2007 template to the rescue. And yes, they look a lot better. Thanks for noticing.
 
osalcido said:
What good is the black edition if the tlb bug keeps the phenom @ 2.3Ghz and below?
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REALLY GOOD QUESTION!!!! I should have addressed this.

The Phenoms that will be out at launch that will be unlocked will have corrected BIOS for this issue. It is unsure if it will happer performance yet, but I did verify that you could turn off the switch in the BIOS. I have 3 chips. One has the issue and is correctable by simply giving it more voltage.
 
Manny Calavera said:
Also good to see [H] doing benchmarks with W-Prime and Super Pi 1.5mod :)
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We have used SuperPi since its inception, we just don't publish the numbers till now. We use a bunch of internal tools to make sure things are "right" that we do not use in articles most of the time.
 
This may be bad for AMD as a whole... but I dont see it as the end of the competition in the CPU industry yet. Fact is, these chips are priced at the Q6600 prices, and offer the same or better perofrmance as the Q6600.

Yeah it's late , but so what. The Q6600 prices havent gone anywhere in a while... we finally have a quad-core competitor.

Think about it, why would you go for a Q6600 over a Phenom? There's no reason to choose one over the other it seems. Both have upgradability in the near-term future.

If I were to build a quad system (which I won't since I'm happy at dual), I'd go with the Phenom, simply because I want a CPU nobody else has yet :cool:
 
holy crap, no kidding, those graphs are great looking.....

anyone else getting the feeling that AMD's Phenom would have been oh-so successful had it launched as a dual core without L3 cache? I mean, Athlons dont need so much cache as is, and as a small, tiny, efficient, CHEAP dual core, the Phenom would be up against the Conroes, and at higher Ghz, it might even pull out some wins.... and at better price/performance? I mean, I dont pretend to be a master CPU engineer or marketer, but never in the past 4 years have I seen a situation where gobs of cache helped the K8+...

and lets not forget AMDs Achilles heel: manufacturing. the phenom die is *huge*..... they shoulda left their quad core capacity for the opterons, where it makes more sense, and left their dual core processors strictly for the consumer market, there 95%+ of the market only wants fast dual cores currently anyway.... later, once their 65nm process is refined, they could address the other 5% with high end quads..... would definitely have helped out their margins...
 
I do have a couple of questions...Now, forgive me for not keeping up to date with the new architecture's and such...But last I remember reading, wasn't Intel's Quad's basically just two Core 2's on one die? Is AMD's the same way or is it 4 totally separate cores?

I know it doesn't have any hit on performance, just something I remembered and wonder..Thanks!!

Like I said, forgive me for not following the newest stuff, I just know if I follow it, I'll put myself in debt by actually upgrading.

Edit:
Oh, and Kyle, while you're here, who won that B.E. giveaway?
 
Manny Calavera said:
Speaking of oc'ing and more voltage,how hot did they run,especially the ES 3Ghz ?

Oh and do any of the the newer AM2+ boards support 4x1 ? with oveclocking ?

Oh, and on page 8,the top,What did you mean by "until AMD comes out with a new proccesor,you wont be"...

:confused:


Thank for the heads up,did not know that at all. :)
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Not hot at all....normal head loads on water block. Not as cool as Yorkfield.

Huh?

"AMD thinks that the hurdles it is facing now with Phenom will be smoothed out by the time it has to transition to 45nm in 2008 and will allow for ramping clock speeds that will hold Intel at bay. "
 
BrinNutz said:
I do have a couple of questions...Now, forgive me for not keeping up to date with the new architecture's and such...But last I remember reading, wasn't Intel's Quad's basically just two Core 2's on one die? Is AMD's the same way or is it 4 totally separate cores?

I know it doesn't have any hit on performance, just something I remembered and wonder..Thanks!!

Like I said, forgive me for not following the newest stuff, I just know if I follow it, I'll put myself in debt by actually upgrading.

Edit:
Oh, and Kyle, while you're here, who won that B.E. giveaway?
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Yes, AMD's is "native" Intel's is not.

Have not gotten to the NE giveaway yet. WIll do that today. Been busy with this Phenom stuff.
 
Manny Calavera said:
Maybe I am just tired,but I dont get your meaning. :eek:

Is the Phenom not a new chip in your eyes?
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I wrote that weeks before the Phenom was launched. Yes we are going to do a real world CPU gaming comparison, but that takes about 180 man hours....more time than we have had retail CPUs in our hands by far.
 
After reading that review, I regret upgrading my 939 system two weeks ago to a Q6600/X38 board, because just as soon as Asus ships their 790FX quad PCI-e slot board, I'm moving back to AMD.

Why? Because as Kyle pointed out, a mhz or two here there doesn't really make huge difference in high resolution GPU-limited gaming. But it's nice having the option of running 4 GPUs.

The Phenom is very affordable for a quad-core. If they keep the prices under control on the 790FX boards it looks to be fairly competitive with a X38/Kentsfield platform, with the added bonus of AOD and potential Quadfire.

Combine that with the 38xx cards and the whole Spider platform integration if it's done right is a solid product choice for the enthusiast and the value concious alike.

Sure, some of us would liked to have seen the Phenom kick some C2D ass, but at least what they did deliver shows up to the fight and throws solid punches all 15 rounds with Intel's current mainstream quad-core part. If nothing else, it'll force Intel to cut prices to negate the Spider Platform value advantages.

Plus, AOD could encourage those nervous Nellies that are hesitant to overclock to get a bit more bang out of their system than they would using an Intel platform, further increasing the Phenom/RD790 value advantage. People like that would never consider cranking up the clocks on an Intel, so a Q6600 would forever run at 2.4ghz.
 
Croak said:
After reading that review, I regret upgrading my 939 system two weeks ago to a Q6600/X38 board, because just as soon as Asus ships their 790FX quad PCI-e slot board, I'm moving back to AMD.

Why? Because as Kyle pointed out, a mhz or two here there doesn't really make huge difference in high resolution GPU-limited gaming. But it's nice having the option of running 4 GPUs.

The Phenom is very affordable for a quad-core. If they keep the prices under control on the 790FX boards it looks to be fairly competitive with a X38/Kentsfield platform, with the added bonus of AOD and potential Quadfire.

Combine that with the 38xx cards and the whole Spider platform integration if it's done right is a solid product choice for the enthusiast and the value concious alike.

Sure, some of us would liked to have seen the Phenom kick some C2D ass, but at least what they did deliver shows up to the fight and throws solid punches all 15 rounds with Intel's current mainstream quad-core part. If nothing else, it'll force Intel to cut prices to negate the Spider Platform value advantages.

Plus, AOD could encourage those nervous Nellies that are hesitant to overclock to get a bit more bang out of their system than they would using an Intel platform, further increasing the Phenom/RD790 value advantage. People like that would never consider cranking up the clocks on an Intel, so a Q6600 would forever run at 2.4ghz.
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I really hope that running quad xfire doesn't become the norm. That would really suck.

So kyle, wanna tell us when those 250gb raptors are coming to retail?
 
zmjone2992 said:
So kyle, wanna tell us when those 250gb raptors are coming to retail?
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I am such a dufus, they are 150GB Raptors. I test with three WD hard drives...the "scratch" drive that we read off of is a WD 250GB Caviar. My bad, I did not even pick up on him asking that earlier as to what he was asking exactly. 16 hours into this today, I need some sleep.
 
CopyThat said:
Sleep is overrated man! ;)
Great review as usual
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I agree sleep is for non-enthusiasts. I will sleep in my computer science class tomorrow. :D The spider platform does look good, I am interested despite the lackluster performance of phenom.
 
Come on AMD. We NEED you to be competitive. Without you, it would be back to the days of $500 mid-range processors. That's not good for the industry and it's not good for enthusiasts. The only thing that wins in a world without AMD is Intel.

Phenom is a disappointment. I was looking at upgrading my desktop (Socket AM2, X2 3600+), but now I'm going to save the money for a Penryn Core 2 Quad system.

Phenom is late, it's slow, and it's not even cheap. I like AMD as a company, but ultimately I'm going to buy from whoever can give me the best product for the best price. Right now, AMD's not even in the game.
 
well it might not be bad
if the unlocked cpus dont get gouged and they turn on to OC well itll be ok
but if not guess im going intel next year for the first time in years
 
Once again they're competing largely on price. I imagine the Phenom will drop in $$ reasonably quickly to put it under Q6600 in terms of perfomance per $.
 
The only thing missing from this review was an overclocked Q6600 to go head to head with the overclocked 3 GHz Phenom.

I am however extremely disappointed on the power consumption performance of the AMD system. They don't even beat Intel on idle consumption. Shame on you AMD. Shame on you.

Good review.
 
Fooshnik said:
Once again they're competing largely on price. I imagine the Phenom will drop in $$ reasonably quickly to put it under Q6600 in terms of perfomance per $.
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Yeah. AMD will have no choice. I'll bet that Intel will respond to this launch by slashing prices even deeper some point in the near future. While I'd hate to see them bleed AMD dry, I wouldn't mind dropping Q6600 prices :cool:

As usual Kyle, nice review. I appreciate your commentary about the direction of the industry. And I literally LOLed at the "nTune has always had lofty goals, but it always been a flaming piece of shit." remark!

Hopefully AMD can get their shit together and ramp up those clockspeeds! With the launch of the new Radeons and the 790 FX, it's starting to look like almost a good time to switch back to the AMD side of things.
 
  1. dugg
  2. sad to see phenom disappoint so much
  3. maybe a quad 3800 system would make a really, really good folder?
 
While you where playing around with the Spider system, did it have the random screen black outs that is common with Vista and C2D systems running an ATI video card?

Got my MSI K9A2 PLATINUM 790FX ordered from new egg, still going to pick up a Phenom when it becomes available, the AMD Overdrive is just a to cool of a program not to play around with.
 
Pepsiennis said:
Kyle, could that be the one that looked to suffer from leakage in the power consumption graphs?



Your words above are encouragement enough. Do you think that A) AMD can scale Phenom and get it to market by, say, the end of Q1'08? And B) would a Phenom OC'd to around 2.8 make a reasonablly capable gaming box? Thanks!
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No it was not. That was a "good" CPU.

2.8GHz stock Phenom by Q108? I really don't think so. They tell me 2.6GHz in January, so it would seem very doable, but I have lost my AMD faith. AMD is going to have to prove it me. No freebies left here.
 
LstOfTheBrunnenG said:
The only thing missing from this review was an overclocked Q6600 to go head to head with the overclocked 3 GHz Phenom.
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I did not see that as needed since it was already represented in the stock QX6850. We all know what those Q6600s will do. I don't think there is an Intel die out there now days that is not doing at least 3GHz if you hold your mouth right...
 
Croak said:
Why? Because as Kyle pointed out, a mhz or two here there doesn't really make huge difference in high resolution GPU-limited gaming. But it's nice having the option of running 4 GPUs.
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Yes, except those GPUs have to be from AMD at this point.
I'd like to see some benchmarks that prove that their quad-crossfire actually beats a dual 8800GTX or Ultra setup across the board.
Because there are two things we have to consider here:
1) nVidia's fastest GPUs are considerably more powerful.
2) Multi-GPU doesn't scale all that well. Going from 1 to 2 GPUs doesn't get anywhere near a doubling of performance, and moving to 4 GPUs will see even more diminishing returns.

And to be honest, I don't see AMD producing faster GPUs than NV anytime soon, probably not before your next motherboard upgrade.
 
debello_64 said:
While you where playing around with the Spider system, did it have the random screen black outs that is common with Vista and C2D systems running an ATI video card?

Got my MSI K9A2 PLATINUM 790FX ordered from new egg, still going to pick up a Phenom when it becomes available, the AMD Overdrive is just a to cool of a program not to play around with.
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I did no 3800 testing on my systems. You could ping Brent on that though, he has logged a lot of Vista 64-bit / 3800 hours lately, and he has some CrossFire experience there as well now.
 
Kyle, are you sure it's a leakage problem? Power goes up quadratically with voltage, so it's no surprise to see an overclocked 1.35V Phenom consume MUCH more power than a stock 1.1V Phenom.

Using a CPU wattage calculator at http://newstuff.orcon.net.nz/wCalc.html I've used 2.3GHz / 1.1V / 95W as parameters for a stock Phenom 9600. Using those figures, a 2.8GHz / 1.35V Phenom comes out to a whopping 174W! with a delta of 79W compared to the Phenom 9600 @ 95W.

Considering your tests show an 81W difference between the stock and overclocked Phenom, I would say that the CPU wattage calculator is very accurate, and the higher power consumption is simply a case of physics / mathematics in terms of power scaling. I don't know the exact formula, but I'm sure I can dig it up...
 
Scali2 said:
Yes, except those GPUs have to be from AMD at this point.
I'd like to see some benchmarks that prove that their quad-crossfire actually beats a dual 8800GTX or Ultra setup across the board.
Because there are two things we have to consider here:
1) nVidia's fastest GPUs are considerably more powerful.
2) Multi-GPU doesn't scale all that well. Going from 1 to 2 GPUs doesn't get anywhere near a doubling of performance, and moving to 4 GPUs will see even more diminishing returns.

And to be honest, I don't see AMD producing faster GPUs than NV anytime soon, probably not before your next motherboard upgrade.
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We should have a lot of content on these exact questions coming up very soon then more over the next 30 days. We want to KNOW the same exact thing.

I will say this, CrossFire looks to have matured greatly in the last year, to the point of where it is up to even with SLI. I have seen some great scaling numbers and with the RV680 being the next big bet for AMD, CrossFire had damn well better be smooth as butter since it will have to work to prop up that dual GPU card.
 
harpoon said:
Are you sure it's a leakage problem? Power goes up quadratically with voltage, so it's no surprise to see an overclocked 1.35V Phenom consume MUCH more power than a stock 1.1V Phenom.

Using a CPU wattage calculator at http://newstuff.orcon.net.nz/wCalc.html and using 2.3GHz/1.1V as parameters for a stock 95W Phenom, a 2.8GHz / 1.35V Phenom comes out to a whopping 174W!
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Nope, never said I was sure, I said it seemed possible.

I was a bit surprised at the power numbers, but it is quite possible we are seeing a good bit of leakage at those higher Phenom speeds.
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I do realize there is an increase, but it seemed a bit much for me, and no I did not do the math. I was monitoring water block temp with my system and it was no where near a 175w part. :) I remember those Prescott days.
 
I'm just surprised with the Scaling to 3GHZ, it showed almost no improvement, is that a bug with the ES? or just phenom sucking? Even K8s scaled better with speed.

on the flip side, I can sell my 6420 and 680i board get a 790fx and 9600 for the same price :p not too bad I'd say


and Dugg
 
zmjone2992 said:
I really hope that running quad xfire doesn't become the norm. That would really suck.
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What planet do you think that would happen on? Dual xfire is far from the norm even in gaming circles.

Triple and Quad setups are really only for people who spend more time benchmarking than actually gaming. Either a professional HW reviewer, or a geek in need of professional help with some need to brag about their computer hardware.

A quad setup of even $200 cards costs $800. Then you have 512MB of Ram x 4 (2Gig), but essentially acting like 512mb. 4 times as many component, 4 times as much heat and noise, 4 times the cost, 4 the power bill, etc... Which will likely be slower than a single card released a month later.

Quad crossfire (or triple SLI) is a silly abomination, that crosses the line between enthusiast and idiot. Naturally this line may be in different places for different people so YMMV.

Anyone back on topic. I don't think there was any surprise in the results as a few hardware sites tested the Barcelona platform on a suite of benches a while back and this is essentially what it showed. AMD still hasn't caught Conroe on IPC. I believe this was foreshadowed months ago when the started pushing future tech like Bulldozer and went silent on Barcelona. The bad news of the day is launch speed, as they can only manage to launch at the speed of Intels lowest end Quad Part.

This ties back to the article on AMDs prognosis, which is still not good. They can only survive so long making second best parts and pricing them downmarket.
 
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