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

No.6 said:
Out here in the world of limited budgets comparing apples to apples does not involving putting production ~$250 parts against pre-release $1000 parts and expressing disappointment.
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I didn't see anyone doing this, other than a reference. The focus was almost entirely on the Q6600.

Are we all reading the same documents?

No.6 said:
(side-note: the ability to use 'Phenom' with existing AM2 boards is significant but not mentioned in this writeup)
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Yes, it was.
 
No.6 said:
Out here in the world of limited budgets comparing apples to apples does not involving putting production ~$250 parts against pre-release $1000 parts and expressing disappointment.
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We compared it to a Q6600 that is $3 cheaper and the Phenom is still lacking in IPC and still a disappointment for a new architecture launch.

As for Phenom going in current AM2 socket boards, I really don't think that tremendously impact our readership as I don't think most of our readers jumped at AM2. Most would still be on 939 IMO.
 
This being a new core architecture launch, you had better damn well believe the best of the best were going to be compared. It would have been irresponsible to do it any other way. The Q6600 was put in for the price parity and for clock parity. Made for a great rounded out group of comparisons. With the Phenom at 3GHz we could see the comparative scaling as well which is not good to say the least.
 
CestusGW said:
I'm a bit frustrated by this turn of events.

My X2 3800+ is starting to disappoint me a bit in newer games (and the good ol' 7900GT isn't helping much either), so I've been looking forwards to Phenom as a chance to jump to quad-core without swapping out my motherboard.

With AMD's announcement of free GPU documentation, I was also hoping that open source 3D drivers for ATI cards would become possible (I'm a 64-bit Linux user by nature). So I was thinking that a Phenom+ATI setup would be the kick in the pants I'm looking for.

Unfortunately, it seems like the value proposition is a bit weak. OTOH, this might be the incentive I need to just save my damn money instead, so I can get myself what I really want (whether that's BMW's F800ST or Triumph's Sprint ST remains to be seen)
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The good news for you, is that the 2.3ghz Phenom, is kinda close to the Q6600. So it wouldn't be all that bad of a deal for you to upgrade to it. Compound with that the fact that gaming is GPU limited, and not CPU most of the time, especially between these CPU's at playable settings. They are practically even (for gaming).

Phenom might be a great upgrade path for you. Since you wont also need a new motherboard/memory, etc. Definitely cheaper.
 
Hey Kyle, my apologies if this has been asked already, but I'm too tired to read over the whole thread...

Will you be doing a 'real world gaming' article comparing Phenom and C2Q? Hopefully with CF/SLI results as well? :D
 
I have a Q,

maybe this can be answered, the AMD Phenom X4 cpus have different clocks for L3 cache/NB right and cpu, are the L3 and NB clocks locked together? and do they increase when you push the HTT Speed? or not? if that is true, the engineering sample of the 3Ghz part you guys tested had the NB/L3 cache at <2000mhz crippling any sort of scaling of the rest of the cpu?
 
For the long term health of AMD they can't just reduce prices and aim for second best. We all know that the high end is a small part of the market, and the mainstream is where the bulk of the sales and revenues are, but it is more complicated than that.

The high end wins give you mind share, which translates into more midrange sales. When I checked a month ago, both Dell and HP were offering only NV cards on midrange systems.

Intel was able to be the only quad game in town for a long time, so it was able to reel in a premium on quad parts for a long time. I don't claim to know the numbers, but those premiums still help raise ASP. Before AMD hits the market, Intel drops the Q6600 prices aggressively, so AMD is releasing an expensive to produce chip with the premium already removed from the quad market before they even joined it.

They are now positioning the 3850 against the 8600GTS?? This is still a full blown 320sp monster. This aggressive down marketing from AMD is great for consumers, but it is tailspin AMD needs to pull out of with some wins that let them get a premium.
 
harpoon said:
Hey Kyle, my apologies if this has been asked already, but I'm too tired to read over the whole thread...

Will you be doing a 'real world gaming' article comparing Phenom and C2Q? Hopefully with CF/SLI results as well? :D
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Will work on getting is scheduled now that we have retail CPUs.
 
harpoon said:
Hey Kyle, my apologies if this has been asked already, but I'm too tired to read over the whole thread...

Will you be doing a 'real world gaming' article comparing Phenom and C2Q? Hopefully with CF/SLI results as well? :D
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I think Kyle mentioned that Brent has quite a bit of CF experience under his belt so maybe he's working on an article for it?
 
This really is a dissapointment, but not unexpected. AMD needs to get faster clocked parts out yesterday. Even still, the drop-in compatibility with only a BIOS flash on AM2 boards is great (come on MSI and get out an update for my board!) provided you don't get a large speed hit associated with it. Any possibility of a mini-eval of vanilla AM2 performance? ;)

Even still, I still plan to buy one once the 2.4GHz parts finally do get out since I already have everything else needed, and going with the extra cost of putting together an Intel platform doesn't make sense for an extra 5-10% boost in gaming at best (which is my primary use other than burning DVDs and CDs, listening to music, and web browsing).

As for Kyle's comment about AMD telling him that 2.4 and 2.6GHz parts (not) coming out in January, he's not alone in thinking that. Fuad over at Fudzilla seems to think it won't be until March that the B3 stepping chips start to tip up. This is simply too far away.

This is big trouble. It leaves chipzilla with a huge window of opportunity to widen the gap even further, keep prices very high on their faster parts, and eat away at AMD's margins even more by slashing prices on the cheaper to produce 45nm parts that are even faster clock-for-clock than Kentsfield. I'm very worried about DAAMiT's future. I really hope they pull through, but the storm clouds seem to be getting darker by the minute. :(
 
Mad_CatMk2 said:
I think Kyle mentioned that Brent has quite a bit of CF experience under his belt so maybe he's working on an article for it?
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CrossFire is underway...

And to the other question about blacking out, have not experienced any screen black outs on X38 platform.
 
Kyle overall what do you think of the new 790 boards? How close do you find AMDs OCing software can get to what you guys OCed?
 
nTune has always had lofty goals, but it always has been a flaming piece of shit.
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Probably the funniest and most truthful thing I've read in a long time.
 
"nTune has always had lofty goals, but it always has been a flaming piece of shit."

(two thumbs up)

I would actually like to see some FSB vs Multipler overclocking to get an Idea of what to expect in that regard.

As far as the power usage section goes, I think it would have been more usefull to measure total system power at the wall IE Killowatt meter so that the Intel vs AMD platforms could be compared as a complete package, disabiling items in bios and running off couple of power supplies doesn't give a clue as to how the overall system performs. Yes I do understand that you wanted to isolate the power draw on the motherboard/cpu itself. Mebe in a followup article that little tidbit can be covered.

At any rate, good review, now lets see if Nvidia can build a good board n chipset for it, it may be worth buying, (nvidiot fanboy hehe)
 
Only thing that im happy about in this launch is the "native" quad core bullshit failing. I hated that marketing from the beginning since it doesnt mean squat jack if the performance isnt there, which it seems like it isnt.

Dont get me wrong, im really sad and dissappointed to see the Phenom processor to do as bad as it is, I just really hated that marketing. Hopefully AMD will come up with something in the next year. Maybe there tri-core processors will be something. We can only hope.
 
Zerikin Loukbel said:
How's that? Phenom's do have SSE4a.
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Do not confuse SSE4 with SSE4a.

The Phenom includes 3-4 new instructions. AMD refers to these instructions as "SSE4a" for marketing reasons. They have nothing to do with SSE4.

SSE4 consists of 54 instructions. Penryn implements 47 of those, with the rest slated for Intel's next-generation Nehalem.

The Phenom does not support any SSE4 instructions. AMD has said it will incorporate some of these SSE4 instructions in their next-generation Bulldozer core in 2H 2009. The remaining SSE4 instructions won't be added before 2010.
 
eric66 said:
does this new mobo support intel cpus or they are amd only ?
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AMD only. AMD and Intel processors haven't shared motherboards since the the socket 7 days. Basically from the Pentium II on the Intel processors have always used their own socket types.
 
Ok, didn't know they had done that with the naming thing on SSE4. That's some dirty marketing scheme naming right there.
 
KenF said:
The 'real' problem for AMD are the new Penryn-based quad Q9450 ($316) and Q9300 ($266) coming on January ~4.

Today, the AMD Phenom 9600 ($283) is fairly competitive with the Intel Q6600 ($266). But on January ~4, the Q6600 (2.4GHz) is replaced with the Penryn-based Q9300 (2.5GHz), and the Q9450 (2.66GHz, 12Mb cache) is just $50 more.

The difference will only grow as vendors release updates to applications and games with SSE4.
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True, I wonder what AMD will charge for their Phenom FX @ 2.6GHz if it can't even beat Intel's slowest quad.
 
nTune has always had lofty goals, but it always has been a flaming piece of shit.
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This is the reason I keep reading the [H]. Hard edged non apologetic journalism that doesn't cater to fanboyism. The basic fact still seems to persist that, whether you use the A QX6800 or a comparable Phenom at gaming resolutions, your FPS difference isn't going to make or break your gaming experience.

So, it really should be about what "platform" is cheaper and more efficient. Sure, the difference is clear cut at 640x480 and 1024x768. I game at either 19x12 or 16x10. By that point, my video card is the limiter, not the CPU. That's the main reason why I didn't get to anxious to jump on the DDR2 / C2D bandwagon. To make that switch would garner far too little performance increase per dollar spent. Looks like I'll be riding the 939 train for a year or so longer before I build a truly Crysis capable rig.
 
Ok, so the TLB issue is showing up at 2.4ghz+, thus them not releasing higher clocked parts at the moment. So, what good would it be to overclock one of these CPUs? Would the problem not show up then also?

AMD is in trouble, no two ways about it. Hopefully the change in leadership will help. Hopefully before things go really bad. Things going bad for AMD is not a good thing, even if you like Intel. They are the only thing keeping prices down and innovation going at the pace it's going, at least from Intel.
 
I am conflicted at this point, I wanted to go with AMD for my 2-3 year rebuild, but I am unsure of what to at this point now that the reviews have come out. I really like AOD, and I really like the 790FX chipset, but right now it seems that the Phenoms fall flat their face.

Do we know when the Black Edition of the 9600 will be hitting stores? I looked at NCIX and I can't see it, though they list the regular 9600.

Do you guys think it might be worth it to bypass Phenom right now and just buy an Athlon64 5000+ Black Edition along with a 790FX board, then pick up a Phenom once all of the kinks are worked out?
 
Mana said:
Do you guys think it might be worth it to bypass Phenom right now and just buy an Athlon64 5000+ Black Edition along with a 790FX board, then pick up a Phenom once all of the kinks are worked out?
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Thats what im going to do. 5000+ is cheap enough anyway. Now if only newegg would post up the Abit and Asus 790s.
 
So here are my thoughts about the Phenom.

If you look a bit closer at all of the reviews there is one thing you should consider.

In all benchmarks, which takes a big benefit of multicores and multithreading, the Phenom does pretty well. Clock per Clock Phenom is equal to C2Q and event beats Intel in some of that benches.

More or less the Phenom is a CPU designed for the highly multithread/multicore optimized server market, and the K10 Barcelona makes a good job in it.

So on Desktop there is a big leck of multithreaded Software and SSE Optimization. All the benefits
of the K10 architecture (Scaling and SSE128 ) have almost no effect.

Maybe this will change in future.

PS: Sorry for my poor english...
 
Great review Kyle, I didn't know that the Phenom was being released today, although I saw on Friday that newegg had some AM2+ motherboards, that was exciting. I think it's true, Phenom really isn't living up to any of it's hype, which is depressing, but that's probably because AMD has been focusing on trying to get EVERYTHING else developed, the cool new chipset, fix their HD 29xx series, etc. And so far, everything is looking pretty good with these new mobo's (except for the SB), and the new video cards are priced really nice.

I do think it's a shame though, that AMD seems to be spreading itself too thin, and in effect can't compete with the high-end anymore. Phenom is pretty meh, although if it were a little cheaper it would be right in the correct place. The video cards can't compete, and instead AMD wants us to buy 4 video cards to get high-end? It's an interesting idea, but still, that's a lot of heat to try and get rid of, it's also a lot of electricity, and it's also putting a LOT of faith in AMD to get good enough drivers out to make that $800+ dollars of Crossfirex'd video cards actually do what they're supposed to do, which can be quite a scary thought, although their drivers do seem decent.

If I upgrade anytime soon, I'm not sure if I would keep my current mobo, get a Phenom, or get a 790FX and keep my X2 and see if I can get a better OC out of it.... Or just go with a C2Q and a P35 mobo or something like that. Think I'll have to wait a while longer. I kind of laughed at that one pic of AMD's motherboard pricing though. The MSI board looks to be one of the better laid out boards since it seems to be the only one that will take 4xdouble-slot video cards, and it's only $170 right now. But that slide said $150-250 for 790FX, and Newegg has Gigabyte's DQ6 for sale right now for $280 + shipping :eek:
 
It's possible we're a few BIOS revisions (and one major chip revision) away from talking about a slightly different chip. Socket 939 or AM2 didn't start very strong out of the box either. AMD is trying to get us to focus more the platform, and I don't mind in the least. And we still haven't seen real world benchmarks or the platform fully exploited or stretched out. Who's even to say one or two in four of these cores can't hit higher than 3GHz and beyond? Sorry for trying to be the voice of reason, but reading all the unrealistic disappointment gets tiresome.
 
The bottom line for a company like AMD is that it has to have better products in order to keep its head above water, and I don’t envy them.

The Athlon 64 was a phenomenal processor (no pun intended) for its time, and with almost three solid years of dominance AMD only made marginal business gains. It was however able to be profitable because it was able to sell processors at higher prices. The price drop on the Q6600 just this summer has really put a crimp in AMD pricing. They are forced to sell their very first quad core CPU’s as much lower prices than Intel did. The Q6600 started at $850. AMD has nothing to offer worth that money at the moment.

So my point is simple. AMD is in a world of trouble. They can’t just have similar products and prices, they need KILLER products that they can sell for higher prices than Intel. Otherwise, why even bother with the AMD platforms? When you’re the little dog, in order to survive, you need a big bite, and the Phenom is not it.

AMD needs to introduce something innovative VERY soon. Maybe they have a hybrid GPU/CPU on the way or something. But at this rate, they are about to become a footnote.
 
vista_blista said:
It's possible we're a few BIOS revisions (and one major chip revision) away from talking about a slightly different chip. Socket 939 or AM2 didn't start very strong out of the box either.
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Oh come on.
Behind every cloud there's a silver lining, but this is getting ridiculous.
The disappointment is very realistic. AMD promised us 3 GHz chips, significantly better performance than Intel's chips, and better performance-per-watt.
We have gotten none of that, not even close.
I think you are being unrealistically optimistic about it all.
There isn't going to be a magic bios upgrade that will make the Phenom suddenly perform 30-40% better. And as we've seen, even at 3 GHz, Phenom isn't going to be all that impressive. In fact, at those speeds the performance-per-watt will really fly out the window.
I can't recall any big issues with 939 and Am2, or any kind of bios or chip revision that made any significant changes in performance or power consumption.
 
Snowdog said:
Quad crossfire (or triple SLI) is a silly abomination, that crosses the line between enthusiast and idiot.
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you sir, are getting qft


end of discussion.... dual (not quad) core cpu and a SINGLE beefy video card for my gaming rig


and to the guy above... 939 didn't start out strong? gotta be kidding me... intel was nowhere to be found the second half of 754 and pretty much the entirety of 939.... AM2 was a lackluster answer to core2... 939 was solid through and through, the chipsets tweaked but there was no large increase in performance...
 
vista_blista said:
It's possible we're a few BIOS revisions (and one major chip revision) away from talking about a slightly different chip. Socket 939 or AM2 didn't start very strong out of the box either. AMD is trying to get us to focus more the platform, and I don't mind in the least. And we still haven't seen real world benchmarks or the platform fully exploited or stretched out. Who's even to say one or two in four of these cores can't hit higher than 3GHz and beyond? Sorry for trying to be the voice of reason, but reading all the unrealistic disappointment gets tiresome.
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Doesn't matter. Intel is hitting on all cylinders. They’re competitive at pretty much every price point. The only thing left now is the e-penis rights for the crown, and Intel seems to have a firm hold on that head for quite some time. In a way, the processor market is really very boring. There isn’t anything that is exciting about either company because they both have vanilla solutions for any amount of money you wish to spend. They'll both be snoozers once Intel gets their interconnect or hyperconnect or whatever they call their integrated memory controllers. Course, it will make for excellent gaming.
 
Looks like I will be getting a Yorkfield CPU, its faster clock for clock and seem to overclock better. Looks like my next desktop after 5 years of faithful performance from AMD will be an Intel.
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
I have a Q,

maybe this can be answered, the AMD Phenom X4 cpus have different clocks for L3 cache/NB right and cpu, are the L3 and NB clocks locked together? and do they increase when you push the HTT Speed? or not? if that is true, the engineering sample of the 3Ghz part you guys tested had the NB/L3 cache at <2000mhz crippling any sort of scaling of the rest of the cpu?
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I tried to get a straight answer out of AMD on this and never did. Our3GHz eng sample was clocked at 1.6 HTT and 1.6NB. We could push the HTT to 2.0, but the NB stayed at 1.6. This is why I included the warning in the system specs.
 
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