AMD Phenom II X4: 45nm Benchmarked

By Frank Voelkel, Bert Toepelt
published

Performance Analysis: Phenom X4 9950 BE 13.8% Slower

Performance Analysis: Phenom I vs. Phenom II

The higher clock rate and larger L3 cache make a noticeable difference when comparing the first- and second-generation Phenom processors. 

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AMD Phenom vs. Phenom II
BenchmarkPhenom II X4 940 Black Edition Vs. Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition
Crysis18.5%faster
Unreal Tournament 319.8%faster
World in Conflict16.5%faster
Supreme Commander1.5%faster
AVG Anti-Virus 816.1%faster
Winrar 3.8015.9%faster
Winzip 1118.4%faster
Acrobat 9 Professional15.0%faster
Photoshop CS 315.3%faster
iTunes19.0%faster
Lame MP317.5%faster
Studio 126.9%faster
DivX17.8%faster
XviD17.2%faster
Mainconcept H.26419.8%faster
Premiere Pro CS3 HDTV17.6%faster
Cinema 4D Release 1017.5%faster
3D Studio Max 917.5%faster
Fritz 1118.1%faster
Nero 8 Recode19.0%faster
Average:16.3%faster
Frank Voelkel
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