A First Look at AMD's Triple Core Phenom

Although it will not be available before the second quarter of 2008, we decided to take an early look at the performance of AMD's upcoming triple core Phenom 8000 series. Read on for a comparison of Phenom performance at one, two, three and four cores.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/0 [...] re_phenom/

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I still visit Tom's Hardware regularly however the reviews over the past say 4-6 months really seem to have missed the boat. Is it just me or have others found the comments / questions answered by reviews to be poor?

I don't think there is much surprise in this article. Wow the tri core performs between the dual and quad in thread optimized code! Shocker! Wow, in semi optimized code the Tri and Quad perform very similar wow! I mean come on.

Here are some bigger questions IMO:
1) Cache. Will the Tri core have access to the same cache as the Quad? Thus in applications which require a large cache, will the increased cache hit rate make up for the loss of a core?

2) Overclocking! Let's face it if you don't overclock or are on a tight budget, AMD is likely your choice. Yeah it gives up some 200-600MHz to the C2D but for a given amount of cash, AMD has a solid position. Once you begin overclocking this all changes. The C2D simply blows AMD away (Or if you have several hundred to spend on the CPU). For example, I bought X2 5600 w/ 1Meg cache. $100 bucks delivered back before the abundance of C2D options. OC'd it to 2.95G. 690 chipset, AM2 socket. Current quads are a bad upgrade choice. Well this tri may be perfect! One less core, less heat, better OCing, yes yes?
*note* I did read the article, heat production was still up indicating that the core was likely running to some degree. However you didn't even attempt OCing!

Anyway, Tom's is no longer my first stop for "solid" reviews because these reviews simply don't answer the important questions.

Simply Disappointed.

Well considering they have yet to recieve a real tri core from AMD, OC'ing will not fare any better. It is the same 9900 they have been using so even with 1, 2 or 3 cores disabled it will more than likely OC the same.

Once THG gets a real tri core they will try OC'ing it but there is no guarantee it will do any better just like B3 has no guarantees.

I think the only thing this review shows is how much a second core helps single threaded applications by offloading background tasks (networking etc.) from where the app is running.

Hmmm this could be the recession chip. With the economy slowing down this could be exacty what AMD needs.......kina ironic if you think about it. Cheap CPU, good performance. McDonalds could add it to their dollar menu.

I know the Vista index score is BS, but does anyone else think that its weird that a single core Phenom @ 2.6 scores a perfect 5.9 for the cpu score?

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/0 [...] page7.html

Yep, I call shenanigans on the cpu index scores.

poor amd just can't catch a break. it still cost the same to make a tri- just as a quad-core. the best they can do is sell at cost or maybe 1-3% margin. i thank amd for their athlons, but competition between amd and intel is coming to an end... and their (amd) biggest downfall is releasing testing samples to any joe & jane that wanted to do a review.

actually, you're wrong
if AMD will sell the toliman with a defective core.. then its LOSE AN AGENA (due of low yields ), BUT TO SELL IT AS TOLIMAN
thats better than sell nothing.

He wasn't saying to not sell them. He was saying that a tri core cost the same as a quad to make. And they cannot expect people to buy a tri core if the quad core is the same price.

Let me ask you this. If you had the option of a tri core @ 2.3GHz and a quad core @ 2.3GHz and both were the same price which would you go for?

Its like asking if a Ford GT and a Chevy Cavelier were the same price. If you select the latter you are one crazy....

mmmm..... Ford GT....

We don't know which core will be disabled but once we get one can see. Also we cannot tell if it will clock higher as the higher clock speed deficiency seems to be due to the B2 stepping. Or it could just be the architecture/process aka SOI.

We will have to wait and see.

Some of this is true. But Asus usually will update if they said it will support a CPU. My mobo is a P5K-E with the P35 chipset and it stated on the box it will support Intels 45nm CPUs. And so far the last BIOS added support for every Wolfdale dual core and every Yorkfeild quad core.

They could have not added it and forced us to buy a X38/X48 mobo but Asus is one of the better companies out there. Hell my old P4P800 supports every PGA478 Pentium 4 CPU out there. It was the LGA775's when BIOS updates stopped.

Now to compare AM2 vs AM2+ isn't that hard even with thought. The HT 3.0 vs HT 2.0 will make the major difference in memory sensitive applications as the HT link is mainly a memory bandwidth booster hence why HT gets better memory bandwidth than FSB does.

I doubt the differemce will be big enough in gaming and other big user apps to really upgrade to a AM2+. But once apps and games start to take advantage of the extra memory bandwidth it might prove to be worthwhile. But I don't expect that to happen really until the time of Nehalem and AM3.

But yea I would love to see a comparison of the two sockets just to see what the difference is.

I don't know if anyone actually realises this, but many of the tri core benchmark results are lower than that of C2D or even A64 X2.

Compare http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/0 [...] page6.html to http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/0 [...] page7.html for example.

No surprise then that C2D and X2 numbers are not available for comparison.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure what market tri-cores will appeal to. In most cases, it doesn't provide noticeably better multithreaded performance than higher clocked dual cores, and is slower in single/dual threaded software.

The price gap between dual and quads is already very tight, it doesn't seem like there is much room for tri core pricing. It will be interesting to see how it all pans out, but I'd be very surprised if it actually ends up a hit on enthusiasts sites such as THG.

The L3 cache question is a good one, but you miss the point of the article regarding overclocking and heat. This is not a B3 triple core Phenom 8000. It is a quad core with one core disabled in bios to simulate scaling between cores. When we see actual retail B3 cores, both quad and triple, then we'll see whether they overclock better. I don't expect Phenom's to overclock until 45nm Shanghai on AM3 this time next year.

As for Phenom B3 triple vs. C2D, that's not the point of the article and won't be addressed until the CPU releases. Few buying an enthusiast system will go for Phenom quads or triples. It's a good upgrade choice for an existing AM2 board that has an available bios. It's a good upgrade choice for someone wanting to position themselves for 45nm Phenom on a 790 Crossfire board.

The heat issues in the article merely show that heat doesn't change with one core disabled in the bios. We'll see how thermals go with genuine triple cores. Like Tom's Phenom core vs. Athlon X2 core, the article addresses real issues of how the various flavors of AMD CPU's relate to each other. It's time we had more than just the "OMG, Phenom suxs! It's slower than Q6600" sort of posts based on benchmarks that are only about overclockers and the enthusiast's who overclock.

Just as someone building an Intel system needs information to decide between various Intel flavors, so too do those building or upgrading AMD systems. That's what the Tom's Phenom articles have been about.

Yeah this is true, I'd like to see a C2D running at around 2.6ghz and an athlon X2 running at 2.6ghz as well just for comparison. Should beat X2, but c2d/Penryn would still probably win, except maybe on the thread optimized apps. None of this stuff pitting a 3.2ghz cpu against a 2.6ghz cpu.

I actually don't mind non clock for clock comparisons as long as the products being compared are at equivalent price levels. I don't see why a $150 tri core should not be compared to a $150 dual core.

So what? Just because a higher clocked X2 outperforms a lower clocked Phenom tri core (or even quad core) does that make it any less true? It's clocked higher because IT CAN BE. Do you think AMD would not clock their Phenom at 3GHz if they could? Of course they would! But the reality is that they can't, not yet anyway.

Performance per $ is the most important. If an equivalently priced dual core beats a tri core, then thats what matters. I don't need to underclock the dual core for some useless 'clock for clock' comparison to make the tri core 'look' better. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that 3x K10 2.6GHz cores would be faster than 2x K8 2.6GHz cores, it's just a pointless comparison.

This is all just speculation on your part. All reports I've seen indicates tri-core will initially be clocked up to 2.5GHz only.

If nothing else, AMD wouldn't want their tri-core 'leftovers' outperforming their quads. It wouldn't make for good PR.

I got flamed for speculating that the triple cores will be clocked higher than the quad cores. It turns out that the B3 quads are expected to go to 2.6, but the triple cores only to 2.5. That's still higher than the actual clock of released Phenom's at the time I made the statements.

What I'd hoped for was a bad core on some Phenoms that prevented stock clocks higher than 2.6, such that when it was disabled, we might see 3.0 or 3.2 Phenom's. That's not to be with the B3's, but might be true with the 45nm.

If 45nm Phenom releases at 3.2, it will be up against Nehalem at 4.0 and above (if reports pan out). AMD's still back in the K62 days as far as market share goes, except this time around, it's the OEM's and notebooks that make them profitable. The closest thing they have to an enthusiast part is from ATI, the 3870x2.

So, should I go Wolfie 3.0 after all on a Crossfire board? Is there a board that will be Nehalem compatible in truth and not in FUD such that I'd not have to buy a new motherboard when I do go Nehalem? IMHO, the 3870x2's and 4870x2's on 24" LCD's at 1920 x 1200 really need the fastest CPU possible, and that's not AMD right now.

Not one, not two, BUT 3 CRAPPY CORES!!!!!! 1 MORE THEN CORE'S A 2 (duo)

What next, a core 2 Trio, or a threesome, wait th...never mind.

As for the celeron 420 - its equal or better then a A64 3000+ or P4 3ghz so expect good things, and super efficent (even the E2140 does ~35w) - i wonder how easy it would run with a passive cooler...

No but Intel will have a six core, that would be a sext core maybe. That will probably push the quad cores down a bit so they will be in the tri core price range. And if people think more cores = better and a quad core cost the same tri cores will be useless.

That would be interesting.

Sure we could ... but we'd need the best marketing person in the world to help us sell the idea to move to the rest of his/her kind =p

Anything new in May 08?

I am looking for a starter CPU for a 780g board. I would expect to upgrade the CPU in 12-18 months.

8x50 triple cores are now shipping with the low end 8450 (B3) for about $150. That price is about the same as a 5000+ BE with name brand heatsink and fan.

Most of my activities are web browsing and email. Occassionally, I expect to be transcoding video. I have an Opteron 165 in 939 board right now slightly overclocked.

What is the conventional wisdom right now?

Thanks