AMD Phenom II X4: 45nm Benchmarked

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Performance Analysis: Core i7 920 and Core 2 Quad 6600

The Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition can compete ably with Intel processors in its price class. The Core 2 Quad Q6600 is about 9% slower on average; a Core i7 920 system offers about 22% better performance.

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Benchmarks Core i7 920 - 2.66 GHz Header Cell - Column 2 Core 2 Quad Q6600 - 2.40 GHz Header Cell - Column 4
Crysis 10.3% Faster 1.0% Slower
Unreal Tournament 3 7.1% Faster 6.9% Slower
World In Conflict 43.3% Faster 4.2% Slower
Supreme Commander 13.0% Faster 8.2% Faster
AVG Antivirus 9.4% Faster 19.1% Slower
Winrar 3.80 35.3% Faster 17.9% Slower
Winzip 11 7.8% Faster 0.7% Slower
Acrobat 9 Professional 13.7% Faster 13.7% Faster
Photoshop CS 3 6.3% Faster 4.1% Slower
Itunes 6.8% Faster 8.1% Slower
Lame MP3 12.4% Faster 7.8% Slower
Studio 12 7.4% Faster 11.5% Slower
DiVX 31.9% Faster 22.6% Slower
XviD 19.5% Faster 13.3% Slower
MainConcept H.264 28.4% Faster 25.6% Slower
Premiere Pro CS3 HDTV 42.0% Faster 8.1% Slower
Cinema 4D Release 10 21.2% Faster 17.6% Slower
3D Studio Max 9 29.0% Faster 16.7% Slower
Fritz 11 33.9% Faster 8.0% Slower
Nero 8 Recode 60.5% Faster 3.3% Faster
Overall 22.0% Faster 9.1% Slower
164 Comments Comment from the forums
  • one-shot
    YAY!, The day has come! Haven't read it yet. I am excited to see what it brings!
    Reply
  • firedogevan
    why focus on the q6600... wouldn't the q9550 or 9650 be a more accurate comparison given their respective locations in the product lineup?
    Reply
  • dechy
    Yeah, the price comparison table should of included a Q9550, which costs same as i7 920 but with the lower mobo/ram combo price.

    Ends up being the same price as the AMD bundle, but with a good more performance... there goes the whole "AMD price/performance" aspect of this chip.
    Reply
  • one-shot
    Great review. Maybe some overclocking later? There were some pretty high claims about its overclocking potential. I'll wait for AM3 before I retire my E6750.
    Reply
  • cangelini
    Coming up soon one-shot--I was working on that one =)
    Reply
  • V3NOM
    who cares about performance/watt? PRICE/PERFORMANCE is the big deal
    Reply
  • The Q9xxx series would trump the PhenomII in all the categories listed above. THG, it was downright *criminal* to have not included the Yorkfield chips in your performance per dollar and performance per watt analysis.
    Reply
  • nashville
    hey bert/tom's:
    good write up: thought id comment on i7 watts:
    "we measured the power consumption directly from the 12 volt rail that supplied the CPU", i read somewhere the only i7 core logic gets power from 12v rail, the uncore/cache part somewhere else. if this is true, you going to do another measurements?
    Reply
  • kirvinb
    I'm so happy to see Intel has some competetion. While these new processors are not mind blowing, they offer some decent performance at the price given. I am sure this will lower the price of the q9400 and q9550, which is exactly what I want to see. Maybe even the i7s price will lower and maybe we will be back in the good days..where intel and amd flipped sides of the powerhouse like every 6 months..!! Good Write Up..
    Reply
  • jj463rd
    On the forums someone mentioned "why did they use DDR2-800 RAM when DDR2-1066 would give better performance for the Phenom II".Wouldn't this skew the benchmarks by a little bit (perhaps 2 to 3%)?
    Reply