AMD Phenom 9600 Black Edition: New Hope?

Features
By The Editors of Tom's Hardware
published

Test Setup

Operating System: Windows Vista Enterprise

We have recently switched to a different version of Windows for our benchmarks: all benchmarks at THG are now run on Windows Vista Enterprise. While this version is not available in stores, its performance results are identical to those of Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate. However, we were forced to make this switch, since this is the only version that offers an Open License. This license allows us to activate Windows Vista over the Internet repeatedly, without having to make calls to Microsoft's activation hotline each time.

Windows Vista Enterprise

Hardware Configuration

We have updated our testbed system with new components, such as the graphics card, sound card and hard drive, in order to offer our readers results based on a platform that is both current and practical.

Hardware Setup

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System Hardware
AMD Platform AM2+(AMD 790FX)Gigabyte GA-790FX-DQ6 (Rev.1.0)AMD 790FX, BIOS: F3
AMD Platform AM2(Nvidia Nforce 5)Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe, Rev.1.03GNVIDIA nForce5, BIOS: 1001 (03/13/2007)
Intel Platform S775(Intel P35)Gigabyte P35C-DS3R, Rev. 1.0Intel P35, BIOS: F2o (05/11/2007)
Intel Platform S775(Intel X38)Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6, Rev. 1.0Intel X38, BIOS: F4 (09/19/2007)
Memory2x 1 GB A-Data DDR2-1066+ Vitesta Extreme Edition
DVD-ROMSamsung SH-D163A , SATA150
Graphics CardFoxconn Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTXGPU: 575 MHzShader: 1350 MHzMemory: 786 MB DDR4 (900 MHz, 384 Bit)
Sound CardCreative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
Power SupplyZalman, ATX 2.01, 510 Watt

Graphics Card: Foxconn Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTX

RAM: A-Data Vitesta 1066

Sound Card: Creative x-Fi Gamer

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE 3200 AAJS

All Phenom benchmarks were conducted on a Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6 motherboard.

The Editors of Tom's Hardware
3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • ShadowKai
    I think on page 14 the author meant:

    "When Cool'n'Quiet is deactivated, idle power consumption rises to 51 watts. The jump in power consumption at 2.70 GHz is a direct result of the core voltage increase from 1.250 V to 1.400 V."

    And the bars for Phenom 9600 BE and Phenom 9600 BE (CnC) should be switched around.
    Reply
  • I think it's also important to mention the fact that Vista SP1 includes it's OWN TLB fix which overrides the bios setting of many boards. I used an app that works in conjunction with Crystal CPUID to change the MSR directly to deactivate this secondary TLB fix. It caused a dramatic improvement in performance; the quick and simple WinRAR bench went from 232 to ~1300 after the fix. Just think it's worth mentioning!
    Reply
  • I think I may have found a new problem with this bug. I have a Phenom X4 9600, and have tried two different motherboards. The problem occurs when running Windows 7. BSOD with a message stating that the operating system did not receive an clock interupt signal from the second processor. At first I thought it was a bios problem, but have since had to replace the motherboard. Tried Windows 7 again after replacing the motherboard and still having the same problem.
    Reply