Q8400 stronger than the Phenom II quads when OC'ed over 3 Ghz?

Just saw this article on Anandtech and I have to say it looks like the Q8400 is a stronger CPU than the AMD Phenom II 940 - and possibly therefore the 955 - when the Q8400 is OC'ed past 3 Ghz. Check out the article:

OC results:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] =3559&p=13

Looks like it is better in games than the 940 (probably the 955 then as well)

Article from start:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] i=3559&p=1

Things look worrying for AMD - especially when you see their budget deficit - it would be sad if it affects their R&D - which it undoubtedly will. I think we would all lose if Intel drives AMD into bankruptcy. Anyways - hope you enjoy the article.

Also, has anyone found any similar comparisons and what did they say?

First, your links are broken.

Second, did they overclock the Phenoms as well? The Phenom II can easily hit >3.5GHz, and I would imagine that at those speeds, they would easily beat a 3GHz Q8400.

Sorry about the links - and yes clock for clock core 2 architecture seems stronger - also the Phenoms don't show much improvement over 3.2 Ghz.

New links:
Overclocked results:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] =3559&p=13

Beginning of article for those who wish to read it:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] i=3559&p=1

940 BE basically falls right in between the Q9400 and Q9550.

Somehow I doubt the Q8400 is going to top it.

Well stock vs stock no - but the overclocking results show interesting clock for clock results that have the Q8400 leading in games and several other apps - I thought it was strange at first to - but looking at it it looks like the intels are stronger on a clock for clock basis and that it is only the higher stock clocks on the AMD that give it a lead without overclocking. Would like to see if there are any more articles though to confirm whether or not this is correct

Check out the results man - what you said is what I assumed at first - but it was the opposite of the results - the Q8400 OC'ed stable on the stock cooler up to 3.4 Ghz and at this speed it was quicker than the 940 at 3.6 Ghz. According to Anandtech they hardly saw an increase in game performance between the 940 at 3.2 Ghz and at 3.6 Ghz - whereas the Q8400 continued to scale - but don't take my word for it - check out the article

clock for clock doesnt matter

what matters is computing power per $

Phenom has been consistently ahead in that test against all intel cpu's

Current Q8400's have no VT! They might be ok if you're still on LGA775 but they aren't worth it for a new system.

Oh so they do, I thought the entire Q8000 series didn't have VT. Cross that negative off the list then.

They aren't. I just clicked them. Also, he said the website (AnandTech- so you should just look it up). And yes the Phenom II was OC to 3.6.
the Q8400 was @ 3.3.
The Q8400 beat the Phenom 2 in almost all tests.

Are you serious? The two go hand in hand. I did my research to find the best deal for the best price. I went with an e7400 for just that reason. And as to the price comparison, the q8400 is $5 cheaper on Newegg.

Yeah, they didn't exactly run alot of tests on the overclocking part. Oh well. Anyway it's no secret that AMD CPUs are behind in IPC compared to 45nm wolfdale CPUs, or even the older 65nm Kentsfield. Alot of it stems from bad management on AMDs part, particularly to delay 65nm production to sell more 90nm chips, not taking Core 2 seriously until it was too late, and damaging more than a few relations when it sold one of it's fabs at a time when demand for it's 90nm chips were at it's highest. From there they've just been playing catchup. Anyway AMD is better for me since I already have a 790X board and I don't plan on overclocking with just the stock cooler .

lol. ^^^ very similar to my sentiments. I love the core 2 duo rig im using now, but i put a phenom 9600 in a workstation/low end gaming rig for a friend cuz he didnt have the money or the need for something insane. He lucked out and got one that overclocked well, and I got it all the way to 2.7GHz with a similarly cheap but effective arctic cooling freezer 64 heatsink. Thought about getting the same cpu and putting it in a cheap server but dont see the need for a seperate build when i can create data redundancy with multiple drives in my primary rig. Currently trying to sell my desktop to a friend and purchase a core i7 rig i put together on newegg cuz i dont see myself gaming as much in the future.

Yeah but if you OC you can get a Q8400 on the cheap and it is better bang for the buck then the AMD 940 - at least according to this article.

940 - $190
Q8400 - $183

In Far Cry 2:

940 at 3.6 Ghz - 51.5 fps

Q8400 at 3.3 Ghz - 59.5 fps!!! - that was using the stock cooler - I have seen people with the Q8400 stable at 3.8 Ghz now - if it scales like it looks to do - that will beat the 940 by miles -read the article people and stop just saying what everybody already assumes - I wan to find more articles on this because if it is the case I won't be recommending the 940 or the 955 anymore for gamers who OC - the Q8400 with a higher multiplier than it's predecessors and VT will be the better buy.

As far as the test shows the extra cache is not good bang fro the buck - go with the Q8400 or the i7 - I challenge people to make retorts with references I want to know if this is really true and I won't just accept some of the wanton blabberings above (I didn't mean you Helloworld - that was a fine statement), I want to see evidence supporting your claims otherwise you might as well try convincing a concrete wall to juggle coconuts.

Thanks Randomizer for fixing the links it was my bad - sorry I didn't do it earlier.

sorry I've read the whole article --- really looks good for Intel... forget my last post

Thank you - judging by the comments you must be one of the first hehe

Although if you don't plan on overclocking then I think AMD has the lead - just for us enthusiasts who do it looks a bit different

I would just like to point out that comparing a Q8400 to a Phenom II 940 in only Far Cry 2 is a bit biased as its proven Far Cry 2 just performs better with Intel.

Phenom II X4 940 looses to even a Q6600 when both are stock in far cry 2, while it easily beats the Q6600 in Left4Dead, Fallout 3, and narrowly beats it in Crysis Warhead.

[url=http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3492&p=18 ][/url]

Yes this is why we need some more comparisons with overclocked Q8400's against the 940/955 clock for clock

Do you seriously think Anandtech is spintel!? I don't think so, but I would like to see the OC results for the other games, that's why I want to see some more articles like this

Usually, when they do an article, they show the better marks for that part vs the competition, since thats the essence of the article, its meant to show what the article is about, unless the part in question is a stinker, then they show how it fails in most things, but still show a few good results. Common practice

Thanks.

Hmm now i have to consider the E7400 or the 720Be but i still think the 720 be will make the game. Again I don't know if I should go with am3 + ddr2 ram, somehow it would overstrech the budget but futureproofness is nice.

I would like to continue my thoughts now but I will be in France for the next to days...... feel free to comment I will read it on wednesday.

720 Be or E7400? IF 720 am3 or am2+???

Hmm future proofness - check out this article if you want - it is on that topic exactly:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] end-system

As for AM2+ vs. AM3 - because AM3 isn't triple channel I think it is really superfluous - I would save and get AM2+ - then upgrade to DDR3 later when it is triple (because the dual channel DDR3 boards are pointless IMO) Right now you can get DDR2 high speed and ultra low latency (4-4-4-15) timings for less than $60. Any improvements on that from faster DDR3 will probably not be worth the premium - however if you have seen comparisons showing this I would like to see them - all of those I have seen show hardly any benefit from DDR2 to DDR3 upgrade or from 1333 Mhz DDR3 to 2000 Mhz - at least worth the premium you pay for 2000Mhz RAM. Of course the Sandra scores look impressive with 6Gigs of OC'ed ram on a triple channel X58 board - but even those don't seem to do much for gaming yet.

720 BE will give you a bit of performance over the E7400 in multithreaded games - how much when both are OC'ed, I don't know. Single or dual threaded games will run faster on the OC'ed E7400 I think - but again I haven't really seen any comparisons of this directly - only E8000 series vs. the 720. Only real downside with the 720 is that it is a power-hog.

Nobody said it for sure - no one knows - it may or may not happen. Point was that triple channel architecture is more efficient than dual - so unless AMD skips it and goes quad or there is some other innovation, triple would be a logical step. In any of those cases dual channel DDR3 MOBOs are obsolete - I just don't see what advantage DDR3 really has until the boards cost the same - because the boards aren't different in any other way

Good article that - it exemplifies the advantages with triple channel - look at the gaming tests (too bad its only crysis) and you can see that the triple channel advantage scales as the speed increases (1 fps at 1066 Mhz and 3 fps at 1600 Mhz). This is because technically the dual channel is less efficient at higher speeds (or triple channel is more efficient - better way to look at it). If you look at comparisons between DDR2 and DRR3 you can see small increases due to the speed differences - but they are a far cry from those seen in Sandra and other synthetics - that is why RAM is really not the best thing to upgrade if you want bang for the buck in gaming. If you want to take full advantage of your DDR3 RAM's increased speeds - you really should have triple channel - because once the speed approaches and surpasses 2000Mhz there is little benefit from dual architecture - the bus width hampers it. This is why triple channel + DDR3 is better for the enthusiast and DDR2 + a better GPU is better for the gamer looking for value, taking into consideration current prices. What's the point in shelling out an extra $40 on an AM3 board and an extra $10-40 on the RAM - just to see 1-2 fps increases!? For that money you mine as well spend more on the GPU or CPU - especially when if you really wanted to go enthusiast you would get a Core i7 anyways. And that is why I don't see the point of AM3 until it costs the same as AM2+

sry - edited

Do you mean dual channel scaling well at higher speeds compared to itself or compared to triple channel at the same speeds - because I would like to see if you have any articles on this. I got the impression that triple channel moves farther and farther away from the performance of dual channel as the speed increases?