AMD Phenom vs. Athlon Core Shootout

By Patrick Schmid
published

Phenom Models and Details, Continued

We were particularly interested in AMD's claims of Phenom performing up to 25% faster per clock than the recent Athlon 64 X2 processors. Given that there hasn't been any architectural revolution like the one that Intel initiated when switching from Netburst to Core, a 25% performance enhancement per clock is significant. It even appears a bit hard to believe, which is why decided to have a close look at the new processor. We compared the Athlon 64 X2 and Phenom 9900 at a 2.6 GHz base clock speed, using only a single core.

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Phenom CPUs
NameClock SpeedL2 CacheL3 CacheTDP
AMD Phenom 97002.4 GHz4x 512 kB2 MB125 W
AMD Phenom 96002.3 GHz4x 512 kB2 MB95 W
AMD Phenom 95002.2 GHz4x 512 kB2 MB95 W

Phenoms all look alike: this is our engineering sample, which is multiplier-unlocked.

Patrick Schmid
4 Comments Comment from the forums
  • spearhead
    its architecture it fine but
    it is clock speed the phenom lacks. if amd can just bump its speed up to around 3ghz-3.6ghz then it would make good competition towards faster intels. i can conclude from this benchmark that if you buy an phenom 9850 and clock it around 3ghz you have much more horse power then you would have with an athlon x2 6000+ however some benchmarks might tell you something else it makes sence if you use 1066mhz memory or just 800mhz mem
    Reply
  • tagasur
    i wish tom's would update this topic with new benchmarks on the amd phenom 9850be. i'd like to know if it's more stable now that the "nasty bug" has been remedied with the march 2008 product line refresh.
    Reply
  • brian1143
    Well this review says its not much more performance. I'm upgrading from 939 and actually thinking of getting the $60 AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 (AM2+) and OC it to at least 3ghz and run 1066 memory. I'd rather save the money for the future rather than have a few extra FPS.

    Intel's core i7 really is clearly the better processor with more headroom, but AMD has always had them in the price to performance ratio department. AMD isn't going away and perhaps they can make a better processor like when Athlon 64 came out or at least close the gap and let their price to performance ratio carry them the rest of the way. (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclock-phenom-ii,2119.html)

    Reply
  • mypobox
    Is an athlon II x3 really better then a phenom I x4 for 73$ at newegg ??
    Reply