AMD Phenom II X4: 45nm Benchmarked

Features
By Bert Toepelt, Frank Voelkel
published

Hardware and Drivers Used for Testing

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Test Hardware and ComponentsHardware Technical Details
AMD Motherboard (Socket AM2+)Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe WiFi Revision: 1.02G Chipset: AMD790FX + SB600 Bios: 1202 (07/03/2008)
AMD Motherboard II (Socket AM2+)MSI DKA790GX Platinum (MS-7550) Revision: 1.2 Chipset: AMD790FX + SB700 Bios: V0.0 (11/25/2008)
Intel Motherboard (Socket 775)Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 Revision: 1.3 Chipset: Intel X48 + ICH9 Bios: F5 (07/21/2008)
Intel Motherboard (Socket 1366)Intel DX58SO Revision: 403 Chipset: Intel X58 + ICH10 Bios1: SOX5810J.86A.2260.2008.0918.1758 Bios2: SOX5810J.86A.2624.2008.1021.1531
DDR2-RAM AMD SystemA-DATA DDR2-800+ (2x 2 GB) Type: AD2800E002GU Setup: DDR2-1066 (CL 5.0-5-5-15-2T)
DDR3-RAM Intel SystemA-DATA DDR3-1600 (2x 2 GB) Typ: AD31600X002GU Setup: DDR3-1333 (CL 7.0-7-7-20)
Graphics CardMSI N280GTX-T2D1G-OC Chip: Nvidia GeForce GTX280 (GT200) Chip-clock: 650 MHz RAM: 1024 MB GDDR3 2300 MHz (512-Bit)
Blu-Ray-ROMPioneer BDC-202BK SATA150
Hard DiskCaviar SE 320 GB (WD3200AAKS) 7,200 RPM, SATA300, 16 MB cache
Power SupplyCoolermaster RS-850-EMBA 850 W, ATX 12V 2.3
Sound CardCreative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Chip: X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity A/D Converter: 96 kHz / 24 Bit
USB - StickCorsair Flash Voyager 4 GB Write: 16 MB/s Read: 33 MB/sec
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DriverDriver Details
ATI Chipset 7.8Northbridge Filter Driver 1.02.000.2 IDE Driver 5.1.0.8
Intel Chipset9.0.0.1008 (6/2/2008)
Intel Chipset ( Nehalem)9.1.0.1007
Intel Matrix Storage8.5.0.1032
Nvidia Graphics Card177.41 WHQL (06/26/2008)
Creative Audio Driver2.15.0006 (03/14/2008)
Bert Toepelt
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