Vishera, Deneb, Trinity, and Propus are code names for some of AMD's most value-oriented processor configurations from the past couple of generations. We get our hands on several models to compare in productivity, content creation, and gaming workloads.
Our story back in May, Is This Even Fair? Budget Ivy Bridge Takes On Core 2 Duo and Quad, put a spotlight on the per-clock performance and efficiency improvements made to Intel's architectures over the last five years. We were smacked in the face by the fact that the company's old Core 2 processors, tuned up through overclocking, were often able to fly past the newer budget-friendly Ivy Bridge-based parts.
Once you dip down under the Core i5 family, you're dealing with dual-core CPUs limited by locked multiplier ratios. Factor in a stubborn base clock that requires an enthusiast-oriented chipset to adjust, and we're left with an inability to coax extra performance from the Celeron, Pentium, and Core i3 families.
Thankfully, AMD isn't following suit. The company continues catering to frugal enthusiasts with numerous quad-core Black Edition and K-series processors sporting unlocked multipliers and a more receptive HyperTransport reference clock. Naturally, we felt compelled to explore AMD's offerings in the same way, hand-picking several options that were priced attractively.
Our oldest selection, the Phenom II, first appeared in 2009. Rather than use a four-year-old review sample, we went out and bought a Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition to get a more accurate snapshot of the chip's current overclocking headroom. This once-mighty flagship packs four cores running at 3.4 GHz and a hefty 6 MB of shared L3 cache.
Later in 2009, AMD released the affordable Propus-based Athlon II X4 processors, which were basically Phenom IIs without the on-die L3. We dug out an Athlon II X4 640 test sample running at 3 GHz to represent this configuration. Although the chip's multiplier is locked, we can still overclock it by manipulating the reference clock.
We knew we'd need a modern Vishera-based processor to pit against our former favorites, and AMD sent over FX-4350 and FX-6350 samples. The former sports a pair and the latter comes equipped with a trio of Piledriver-based modules, which in turn pack two integer cores each. Being a budget-minded experiment, the six-core FX is the fastest CPU we're testing.
Lastly, we noticed that the Athlon X4 750K finally reached North America. Although we couldn't get a sample from AMD, we went ahead and bought one to benchmark. This two-module Trinity-based processor lacks integrated graphics and represents the most affordable multiplier-unlocked quad-core chip available.
By comparing AMD’s K10 and Piledriver architectures, stock and overclocked, we hope to see where each excels, hopefully determining the CPUs most deserving of your hard-earned buck.
- Targeting Budget-Minded Enthusiasts With AMD CPUs
- Platforms And Overclocking
- Test System Configuration And Benchmarks
- Results: Synthetics
- Results: Audio And Video
- Results: Adobe Creative Suite
- Results: Productivity
- Results: Compression
- Results: Borderlands 2
- Results: Crysis 3
- Results: F1 2012
- Results: Far Cry 3
- Results: Hitman: Absolution
- Results: StarCraft II: Heart Of The Swarm
- Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Results: Tomb Raider
- Power Consumption
- Performance Summary
- Wrapping Things Up: AMD Vs. Intel In Gaming
- Wrapping Things Up: AMD Vs. Intel In Applications And Power
- AMD: Loving More Cores And Unlocked Multipliers

K10 has so much more potential...
I always wanted to see how it would compare to newer models, and even intel counterparts. Thank you for this. I loved reading the article. Keep comparisons like this coming.
The main thing I hate about FX CPU's in the IPC. companies like intel have steadily increased the IPC of their CPU's while with AMD, going from Phenom II to the latest FX, they significantly reduced the IPC of their CPU's, and furthermore the resource sharing of the cores (by going with core modules instead of true cores). if similar resources are stressed, performance suffers as shown in the link below
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/138394-amds-fx-8350-analyzed-does-piledriver-deliver-where-bulldozer-fell-short/2
AMD would have done better by improving upon the phenom II and making an 8 core version.
I currently use a Phenom II x6 1075t overclocked to 3.9GHz
in cinebench 11.5 I get 7.01 points Which is still acceptable even by todays standards.
Northbridge is at 2.6GHz and hyper transport is at 2.08GHz
The highest I can push the CPU is about 4.4GHz but those speeds require around 1.575 volts, meaning I cant load the CPU to 100% for very long unless I take more drastic measures of connecting a vacuum hose from the case air intake to the air output of an air conditioner (to siphon off some of the cold air)
If you want to see just how bad the fx is compared to phenom II, clock some phenom II's and some FX's at the same clock speed, then do a range of benchmarks.
if Only AMD optimized there K10 arch ..., 8 core k10 will be much better ...
Are you serious, K10 have evolved for years and reached its wall, we talking about semprons --> athlons ---> Phenoms 1 ---> Phenoms 2 ---> AMD FM1 APU`s
And The Phenom 965 using 45nm as seen in the above chart uses 180Watts on load and upwards ...
So wake up people, if there was any untapped resources in k10 AMD would have popped them.
Also an index of cinebench single threaded performanc results from my research is :
Sandy Bridge/ivy/and haswell (no real innovation since SB, and those 10% CPU improvements, only adds 0.0x) :
i3 = ~1.3x Point
i5 = ~1.5x point
i7 = ~1,8x point
AMD :
AMD Athlon a8-3850 k10 CPU 0.8 Point
AMD Phenom x6 1100T (BEST AMD K10 CPU) 1.08
Richland A10-6800K ~1.11 point.
All above results all from my research and wether you want to simply belive or better go research yourself is your choice, but AMD have problem in Single threaded perfomance, and the way they hided back day was giving more cores, like the Phenom x6 in CInebench Multi threaded it scores ~6.0 points even the lowert 1050T scores 5.9 point, and all intel i5 CPU does not go up than 5 points.
but adding real 6 cores is trouble and problematic and too much power and resource hungry for BULK designs using BULk materical, remeber those x6 can reach 200W and upwardes, and more there costly and there prices does not budge.
Since Bulldozer first design, there have been many fixes and improvements, and Pilediver is only the first step forward, next step is steam roller, with each step steadily enhancements are being made, not can be much said about k10 that after 3-4 steps forward it froze.
I have been waiting for this test since I first heard mention of it.
Fantastic work! am always harvesting older chips to cobble together some frankenstein machines - or even just buying newer parts to do the best possible super budget machines for friends - so this is a godsend. Thanks for the wide selection of games too - some reviews just do a handful which doesn't give a broad enough picture. Icing on the cake is the comparison to the intel chips, including that 8400. Even the global (fix the spelling on the chart) wattage is v interesting. Very nice.
Intel is offering a good balance between multi threading and single threading performance by having CPU's that can give more than 2 points per core in applications such as cinebench.
Clock for clock, the phenom II is significantly faster than the FX series.
If they cannot put 8 true cores on a single CPU, then they need to work on releasing a quad core with an IPC that rivals the intel CPU's.
Lower IPC is a step in the wrong direction, FX is the wrong choice.
(minor quibbles...) For completeness, it would have been nice to see the FX-8350 lining up. And perhaps include the 3570k in the individual results as a benchmark, for context (Though I realise this was an AMD roundup, of course).