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AMD’s Phenom X4 processor has been around for almost a year, though it took AMD a few months to fix some issues with the first product generation. The current products are all fine and can be recommended, as AMD is delivering great bang for the buck despite the fact that Core 2 Quad processors are typically faster. The Phenom X4 9950 quad core, which runs at 2.6 GHz, costs only $220 and offers great performance for multi-threaded applications, while the 2.2 GHz Phenom X4 9550 can be found for less than $160. A Core 2 Quad processor typically costs at least 50% more, but the performance gains are nowhere near that level.
Phenom X4 9350e is a 65-W Part
We were more interested in a low power version of the Phenom X4 quad core, because AMD has had versions that fit into the 65 W power envelope, and because that allows a direct comparison with Intel’s Core 2 Duo processors, which are also rated at 65 W. Considering that the Phenom processors are manufactured using the 65 nm process, and that there is no Intel Core 2 Quad processor that would be specified at less than 95 W—Extreme Editions are rated at 130 W or 136 W—this is an interesting product.
However, we need to point out that a processor’s TDP only represents the maximum thermal output specified by the manufacturer. It doesn’t mean that a particular model has to reach this power level, and there are many CPUs that do not even come close to their maximum thermal design points. In addition, a processor specified at 65 W TDP does not have to be more efficient than, say a 95 W part, when it runs under a low or medium load, because TDP does not specify idle power. All the TDP says is that the 65 W quad core Phenom X4 9350e provides 2.0 GHz of four-core performance, while not exceeding its 65 W limit.
Aside from its low-power specification, the 9350e isn’t different from the other Phenom models. All have 64+64 KB instruction and data cache, as well as 512 KB of second level cache per processing core. In addition to that, AMD implemented a 2 MB third level cache as well, which is shared by all of the processing cores. Avoid the Phenom X4 models 9500 and 9600, as these are based on the B2 stepping that is known for issues with the so-called translation lookaside buffer (TLB). The B3 stepping Phenom processors are free of major bugs, and they all carry model numbers ending with -50, such as the 9350e. All regular Phenom X4 processors are specified at 95 W, 125 W or 140 W TDP, while the e9100 and 9350e stick to the 65 W envelope.
All Socket AM2+ processors come with an integrated memory controller for DDR2 memory. Phenoms support memory clocks of up to 667 MHz, resulting in DDR2-1066 speeds based on double data rate technology. New 45 nm processors based on Socket AM3 with 6 MB L3 cache will support DDR3 memory, but will probably not be available before 2009.
Phenom X4 Dominates Multi-Threaded Benchmarks
As expected, the multi-core advantage is only on paper for the majority of benchmarks, giving the Core 2 Duo at its fast 3.16 GHz an advantage in many software titles that simply seem to perform best at a good balance between two cores and high clock speed. Thread-optimized titles such as AVG antivirus, Fritz 11 chess, the Mainconcept H-264 encoder and WinRAR 3.8 run faster on the 2.0 GHz Phenom X4 than they do on the 3.16 GHz Core 2 Duo. Many other titles, though, provide better performance on the Core 2 solution despite their optimization for multiple cores.
AMD Loses The Efficiency Battle
AMD loses both power consumption disciplines to Intel, which doesn’t come as a surprise: four cores simply require more power than two. This is very much like comparing a big V8 engine and a small 2-liter 4-cylinder, so we don’t want to complain about it. As the synthetic benchmarks prove, the Phenom X4 does provide the better performance, but it is not efficient in most of the application scenarios, including our performance per watt testing using SYSmark 2007 Preview and a 3D game cycle using Crysis.
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good work on getting the benchmarks out. but a better comparison would be amd quad vs amd dual. due to the fact that amd has the only real quad core. I think most if not all of us know that most apps aren't ready to scale well up to a full quad proc. keep in mind that amd has four ACTUAL cores on their procs, not two logiced out to four as intel does. Get programs that are fully optimized to run on four acutal cores, the benchmarks will change quite a bit. I honestly don't recommend a quad core to anyone for the price at this point in time unless they plan on keeping their computer upwards of at least 4 years due to the fact that software takes too long to catch up to hardware. Multi core scaling on the software side just isn't there yet. Look to amd's dual core offerings for a good price/performance ratio at this point in time.
but none the less... it's good to have some charts at this current point in time. thanks for the time put on the benchies... i'll click a sponsor or something. :-p
Just wondering if there's a little error on the game benchmarks page... the graph for Supreme Commander and the text don't seem to agree.
little nit @ second last paragraph:
"are all examples showing that a 2.0 GHz quad core can certainly beat a sophisticated 3.16 GHz quad core"
should be 3.16 GHz dual core.
The mainconcept analysis is wrong as well. Says the e8500 wins when it doesn't.
nachowarrior cut the AMD true quad core BS - 4 cores total wether it be attached or not, the performance speaks for its self, plus intel was smarter not to make one huge processor etc - same as ATi's 4870 x2 - you should know that fanboy.
LOL
If you want to get technical lets compare Intel nehalem quad - no competition
Sloppy editing alright - its making AMD look good!
Good idea, but the article is such a mess. Never seen anything like that on Toms. It needs editing, and needs it now. Shame.
I still can not concieve why they are comparing a 3.0+ dual core to a 2.0ghz quad?
What is the real point of this article?
one thing that the authors forget that a typical use for a computer isn't just decompressing, surfing or gaming. The typical use is decompressing AND surfing AND using a resource hog like Skype AT THE SAME TIME! Oh, did I hear BitTorrent or multiple YouTube flash videos? How about them fancy Flash Ads, about 3 of them in every one of those 20-30 open tabs in the browser? Why don't you compare a quad core and a dual core in such an environment for general performance and responsiveness?
Maybe in Windows the time of the Quad core or even the Duo core hasn't arrived yet, but in Linux the multicore processors have been supported for a lot longer and I wouldn't be surprised if you find many more apps in Linux that are natively multithreaded. How about rerunning your comparison in Linux and see who's the winner there where neither processor has the advantage. Both are well supported in Linux where as many of the tests in Windows lopsidedly tainted toward Intel products. In other words, try a scenario where the processors are treated equally by the testing software.
Thanks for the analysis catches, guys. They should have been, but weren't, caught during layout. I've adjusted the text to correctly reflect the benchmark results. Take care!
I don't know why, but i would like to see an amd x2 @ 3.0 ghz running around those task.... It's cheaper and im really happy with it. Nice Article.
It appears that the author is referring to the e8500 in the above statement, this would be incorrect considering the e8600 has newer stepping and a higher clock rate.
The chart shows otherwise, something maybe awry with the report.
Should be AMD Phenom X4 9350e , "e" is misplaced.
Anyway, I would have liked to see what a Phenom 9950 and q6600 would have shown given the fact that their with in the same price point and would have shown the difference in efficiency and power.
good work on getting the benchmarks out. but a better comparison would be amd quad vs amd dual. due to the fact that amd has the only real quad core. I think most if not all of us know that most apps aren't ready to scale well up to a full quad proc. keep in mind that amd has four ACTUAL cores on their procs, not two logiced out to four as intel does. Get programs that are fully optimized to run on four acutal cores, the benchmarks will change quite a bit. I honestly don't recommend a quad core to anyone for the price at this point in time unless they plan on keeping their computer upwards of at least 4 years due to the fact that software takes too long to catch up to hardware. Multi core scaling on the software side just isn't there yet. Look to amd's dual core offerings for a good price/performance ratio at this point in time. but none the less... it's good to have some charts at this current point in time. thanks for the time put on the benchies... i'll click a sponsor or something. :-p
Sure it would, but the point of this article is to compare relatively similar costing processors with similar TDPs as a quad vs dual. Plus given how AMD is losing in the performance race clock for clock it emphasis on quad-core beating dual in some applications.
If it was AMD beating AMD everyone would be "so what?". Since it was (in some cases) AMD beating Intel, most go wow. The they compared the clockspeeds and wow. That really puts pressure on quad-core's performance. Great Work guys!=)
I have done some tests on my K8 X2. Moreover, I've taken some interest in Xvid development.
- current Xvid code isn't multithreaded: it is purely single core! In fact, when I encode two videos in parallel, I get almost no speed impact from the second encoding upon the first. If you want to try a multithreaded Xvid encoder, you must compile the 1.2 CVS version.
- I bet this benchmark uses Koepi's build of Xvid 1.1.3; as far as I know, he builds it against the Pentium Pro instruction set.
- I compared Koepi's build compressing some video under Windows (32-bit) and one built directly on my K8, in Linux 64-bit + SSE2 compressing the same video: encoding speed went up by a factor of 2.5.
- ever since most Xvid developers were hired by Miro to work on Miro's MPEG4 codec, Xvid development slowed down. Many developers got interested in x264 instead.
In short, using Xvid to compare AMD and Intel processors isn't as good as it used to be. Either that, or since Xvid is one of the few very CPU-intensive benchmarks out there, you should try and build it yourselves for each platform - just to be sure. It would also be interesting to benchmark current CVS build, to see how it scales with more cores.
agree with REappear. for hardcore multitaskers, like myself, the quad is clearly a winner. a couple of msn/skype windows AND 10+tabs AND running torrent AND playing Supreme Commander -its my favorite
- on a 20x20+ map with 4-6 players does the performance hit. in this case, 2g of memory (supcom eats up between 1.3 and 1.8) and 2g of ram isn't enough anymore.
. its a wicked thing to see a q6600 reaching only 43C on a prime test.
and there is a low TDP quadcore from intel, my q6600, doing 9x266@1.008
AMD should put much more cache on their chips, in most of the benchs this is the reason why their CPU is so slow. oh, and efficient doesn't mean it should be this slow too.
2g of memory and 2 cores... sry
"One fact remains clear above all: our comparison has shown that the time for quad core processors just hasn’t arrived yet."
Uhh...duh.
I think it is appropriate to run mixed benchmark with multiple tests at the same time. The outcome can be surprising. Working on quad systems fells different than on dual core,quads much more responsive if you run multiple tasks at the same time.
Good article and outcome as expected but I must agree when conducting tests we need to run multiple apps in conjunction for a true everyday experience. I would be interested in seeing how 2xquad cores fair on some NLE video editing apps like Premier & Vegas. Can we have some test ran on Linux? .... Please? Linux is becoming more and more popular to people so this would be refreshing to see. Don't worry bout the typo's we all make mistakes, it's no big deal. No worries, Keep on ROCKn THG!!
The Silent Majority
I agree with REapper, a multi-tasking benchmark will shed much more light on real-world user concerns. I also wonder what the interest of power efficiency in desktop cores is? I know everyone wants to be green, but for most desktop users that I know, heat and power aren't that big of an issue.
When it comes to multi-cpu workstations and clusters, heat IS a issue.