Phenom X6 thuban Black edition

[rescawen]

Recently techpowerful revealed that AMD is working on a black edition phenom x6 @ 3.2 Ghz and with a unlocked multiplier for 300. I am really interested in it and hope it can boost the performance in SC2. I have a AM2+ mobo that supports 140w CPU.

How much will I be able to OC with my noctua cooler and will bios flash be enough, so my mobo will support it,

Thank u for ur time.

http://techpowerup.com/118139/AMD_Working_on_Black_Edition_Phenom_II_X6_Part.html

 

[flyinfinni]

that question is really hard to answer because we don't actually have any reviews or even any real hardware to draw on. We know the chips are supposed to be coming out, but we don't really know much more than that. We don't know how much OCing headroom it will have, how hot it will run, or what it will require when it comes out.

You may need a BIOS flash to support it (most likely you will) but we can't tell you if your particular mobo company is planning to update your particular boards BIOS for that chip. Heck- we don't even know what mobo you HAVE. Tell me what mobo you have, and I can give you my guess on whether they will do a BIOS update based on the company and what they typically do, but I can't give you any REAL info. I would imagine a BIOS flash would be all it will need to run on an AM2+ board, but we really don't know since we don't know what tweaks they'll be throwing into them.
As for OCing with your noctua cooler, we can't say how much you'll be able to OC it since we don't know how far they can OC at all- since they aren't out yet. I would guess they'll be similar in OCing to a phenom II x4, but will probably not go quite as high as you have 6 cores to keep stable instead of 4. Anything on this really is just guesswork right now though since the chips are not available and we have no test data.

 

[rescawen]

http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=KC8yHOfBMCe9SlrP&templete=2

asus mobo 790FX/SB600

 

[rescawen]

http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/starcraft_ii_wings_of_liberty_beta_performance,6.html

 

[flyinfinni]

With and Asus board, I would imagine they will do a bios update that will support the Phenom II x6. However, you have the SB600 version of the board, which is older and doesn't OC nearly as well as the newer SB750, just so you know. That means, you may not be able to clock as high on that board as the chip might actually be capable of, but like I said, we don't really know what type of OCing overhead it will have.

 

[loneninja]

By SC2 you mean Star Craft 2 right? I may be wrong but I heard rumors that SC2 only supported 2 threads, which means a Phenom II X2 and Phenom II X6 would perform virtually identical if clocked the same.

Either way, look at the gulftown reviews, it's 6 cores gain nothing in gaming compared to a 4 core I7. Phenom II X6 is being released to improve multithreaded performance, it's been a severe weakness since I7 was launched.

 

[flyinfinni]

Zipzoom- thats true in a majority of situations right now, but in the future, that will probably change. I agree that for right now I would save my money and get an x4, but I was just answering the OPs question

 

[flyinfinni]

Very true.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

2 more cores are not going to help in gaming. So what I'm saying is that it won't be any faster than a 4 core X4 955, save for the extra cache.

Isn't AMD's cache scheme exclusive, with the L3 divided amongst each core? If so, then 9 megs/6 for the X6 should be the same if not slower than 6 megs/4 for the X4, the slower part due to latency issues..

 

[flyinfinni]

Actually, the L3 cache on the AMD Phenom II's is shared between all cores, so the x6 with 9 megs of Cache will actually probably be faster than an x4, even in lesser threaded apps, if they are clocked the same.

 

[loneninja]

The X6 still has 6Mb L3 cache, it's getting listed as a 9Mb cache processor because many sources combine the 3Mb L2 cache it'll have with the 6Mb L3 cache it has. Some sources list Phenom II X4 as an 8Mb cache processor for this same reason.

Added more cache would be worthless, and they certainly wouldn't reach a 125W TDP with more. Look at the Athlon II vs Phenom II, only difference is one has L3 cache and the other doesn't. There is a big difference in power consumption and an average of 7% performance difference.

 

[flyinfinni]

Good call on that Loneninja. I hadn't realized that.
So really, unless you are the application is threaded enough to use all 6 cores, it won't be any different than an x4 at the same clock.

 

[cybot_x1024]

i hope with the turbo mode and unlocked multiplier this cpus will be able to compete with the intel nehalem and gulftown.
I understand there will also be a 4 core version based on thuban (Phenom II X4 960T i think) that will have turbomode and a TDP of 95w.

 

[flyinfinni]

Yeah- thats what I was reading (about the x4 version) though I haven't seen anything about a turbo mode, but that would be cool.

 

[ericlecarde]

2 more cores are not going to help in gaming. So what I'm saying is that it won't be any faster than a 4 core X4 955, save for the extra cache.

Not really, it Depends on which game. BC2 and SC show very significant gains with more than two cores.

 

[flyinfinni]

It really just depends on the game as to whether it will be faster or not, but still, most games are going to be more GPU bound than CPU bound, so it may not be much faster.

 

[tuffluck]

Not really, it Depends on which game. BC2 and SC show very significant gains with more than two cores.

says who? SC has never been known for its outrageous graphics, so i can't see SC2 not running smoothly on a PC that is <2 years old.

i average 40fps (completely playable) in BC2 with an old e6750 OC'd to 3.4ghz and it looks perfectly fine except really intense bomb sequences. i mean for practical purposes i don't think a lot of people ever really *need* the latest and greatest, so i can't see how a 6-core cpu is going to show a huge amount of a difference over the i5's and i7's that are out now.

 

[flyinfinni]

It may not be necessary to have a new 6 core CPU, but it could actually improve performance. some people also find 40 FPS as not acceptably playable. I mean, it really comes down to personal preference and an individuals particular setup and requirements. Some games will also be able to make more use of more cores than others and will show more improvement because of it, while others will not. It also depends on the GPU being used and where the bottleneck ends up.

 

[FALC0N]

With and Asus board, I would imagine they will do a bios update that will support the Phenom II x6. However, you have the SB600 version of the board, which is older and doesn't OC nearly as well as the newer SB750, just so you know...........

The southbridge shouldn't make any difference in overclocking. The SB 750 overclocking advantage over the SB 600 on 65nm Agena based cores is ACC, however this funtionality is supposed to be built in to all 45nm Phenom II and later chips. ACC has continued to be usefull for core unlocking, but that wont be an issue if you purchase an X6.

 

[flyinfinni]

Thats probably true, though the real issue with the sb600 version is they may only want to support the newer version with the sb750, so they may or may not release a BIOS update for the older board.

 

[werxen]

Recently techpowerful revealed that AMD is working on a black edition phenom x6 @ 3.2 Ghz and with a unlocked multiplier for 300. I am really interested in it and hope it can boost the performance in SC2. I have a AM2+ mobo that supports 140w CPU.

How much will I be able to OC with my noctua cooler and will bios flash be enough, so my mobo will support it,

Thank u for ur time.

http://techpowerup.com/118139/AMD_Working_on_Black_Edition_Phenom_II_X6_Part.html

Dude... don't be silly.

SC2 utilizes 2 cores at the moment. My E8500 @ 3.8 and 4850 run it flawlessly no matter how many units are on the screen and it does not even use 100% of the processor. There is absolutely no need to go above 4 cores for gaming. You have to understand the push between CPU makers for more cores and game developers for optimization. It takes a lot longer to multithread a game than it does to simply go back and rewrite tid bits of code and change polygon counts. I see the need for quads and gaming in the next year but certainly not 6 threads. Unless you are a severe multitasking robot - and by that I mean you encode, render, photoshop, run a couple games, av scan, dvd burn, rip albums, and watch a few HD movies at a time, stay away.

 

[FALC0N]

Thats probably true, though the real issue with the sb600 version is they may only want to support the newer version with the sb750, so they may or may not release a BIOS update for the older board.

Your right about that. Those boards were released in late '07 if I remember correctly. Thats a long time for a motherboard. Further bios updates may not be forthcoming. Asus is pretty good with bios support in my experince, but you don't know for sure until they do it.

 

[jimmysmitty]

I will go with a guess here but since its a new processor and has 2 more cores, 3.7GHz on air and stock voltage will be the normal max with a few able to go above with more voltage.

It will probably take 1-2 revisions or maybe a new process before we see them on 4GHz and air just like the Phenom IIs that took a revision.

 

[flyinfinni]

Isn't this still more of a revision and multiplying of cores from the Phenom II architecture? It might already be capable of similar overclocking levels of a Phenom II x4 BE at launch, and MORE with another revision/fab process.

 

[FALC0N]

I would also think we are seeing a core revision given that they appear to maintain the x4 thermal rating at the same clock speed.

As far as overclocking headroom, the current phenoms II chips have lots of overclocking headroom. They could break 6 GHz at the the launch of the Deneb core. Its simply a question of power draw and heat control.

If I had to guess now, I would say at launch that the X6 will overclock to about 3.7 to 3.8 on air with less than 1.5v. Which is about 200 Mhz less than the X4 due to the additional thermal load of the extra cores.

I also think they will match the core I7/I5 quads instruction per clock performance due to the extra cores. If so, this would put AMD in its best consumer market position since the release of the Core 2 Duo in the summer of 2006. Assuming they release them soon.