Hardware First Look: AMD's Phenom processors

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...700_and_9900/1

We've had AMD's Phenom in our labs for the last week or so and it's time to find out if the company's new native quad-core consumer processor is it any good? We test this new beast at 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 and 2.6GHz, to find out how it scales and if it's worth buying.

[HourBeforeDawn]

ya this batch is a real shame, Im still planning on building a spider based platform system for one of my build projects so hopefully by then there will be a better batch or line out by then. ^_^

[mutznutz]

I'd like to go back to AMD but they need to give me a good reason to, maybe they'll sort themselves out middle of next year at upgrade time

[RotoSequence]

Intel: Nom Nom Nom

[Naberius]

Disappointing, what else can i say....

[cjoyce1980]

its the applications that are currently being used that are not showing off what the processors are capable of not the hardware, but i still think 2008 isn't going to be a great year for AMD. they need to release some sort of update to improve performance in single thread applications

[yakyb]

the only reason to go amd at the moment is to go Quad crossfire but really who in their right mind would do that

[DarkLord7854]

I was rather hoping AMD could at the very least, offer enough competition for Intel to stop being such money hoggers and start a price battle again like what happened over the summer with the Core2 chips. Sigh. =\

[mclean007]

Oh dear. Phenom gets comprehensively humped across the board, and that's before you even consider its woeful overclockability vs the legendary capabilities of Core 2.

Quick typo - final page - "What exasperates these fears is the potential" - exacerbates??

[Tim S]

Originally Posted by mclean007

Quick typo - final page - "What exasperates these fears is the potential" - exacerbates??

Thanks

[pumpman]

You said it yourself in the article that it is a total flip from the P4 -AMD64 days , people still bought intel chips then, but you have raised a good point about pricing of intel's top chip.
It has been a long time coming the new kit from AMD and its clear that the boards etc need to mature , much like the c2d kit has done over the last year. What is clear though is that no one will in great numbers from the enthusiasts camp, buy amd kit as it has almost been drilled into them from every piece on the net , that you would be mad to buy amd kit.

To me the reality is you can buy a Porsche or a BMW, both nice but one is quicker. Its an easy choice to make when you have two choices, there will be no choice if we are left with one high end chip maker.

Having said that apart from encoding I see no huge margins in performance between the two and doing everyday things, Im suprised at the number of people who have admitted going from x2 to c2d and saying they don.t really notice a difference.

It will be interesting to see what amd make of the proposed sharing of tech with the 45nm process, but the next big thing is can intel pull such a good product again out of the bag for the next generation of cpu.

[Bindibadgi]

What makes it worse is now AMD has changed its brand from a well known Athlon to Phenom which no layman will understand. Then they go look up "Phenom" on the net, see it gets average or lower reviews and decide to steer clear. :/

[Jebus.exe]

I just dont know what to say after reading this review. I was dead set on building a spider in Feb... now i just feel... somewhat "let down"

[xion]

I really hope that the green team pull something out the bag, no one likes a one horse race, even if that particular one trick pony is a thoroughbred

[mclean007]

Originally Posted by pumpman

You said it yourself in the article that it is a total flip from the P4 -AMD64 days , people still bought intel chips then

They did, but Intel has the advantage of being the market leader and the 'default' position for a lot of buyers. Even during the doldrums of P4, when pretty much every enthusiast would pick AMD over Intel, businesses bought Intel in droves because, as the saying goes, "no-one ever got fired for buying Intel". Similarly, Joe Average doesn't really need a tenth of the power a modern CPU delivers, and he'll buy whatever Dell tells him he needs. Until very recently, Dell didn't ship AMD at all. Also, Intel throws vast sums of money at advertising, which AMD cannot afford to do. Intel is far more a household name than AMD is ever likely to be, thanks in large part to the TV / poster advertising that is everywhere and that irritatingly catchy jingle (dum-dum-dum-da). The net result was Intel could have pressed silicon turds and would still sell them by the crate (as P4 proved), because they had a trusted brand and because, frankly, CPU horsepower is largely irrelevant to the majority of the computer buying population. Since every computer in the last decade has been capable of the most common tasks - word processing, internet, e-mail - what they care about is getting a reliable machine with a brand they recognise for the lowest price they can.

AMD does not have the luxury of brand recognition, so has had to rely on producing products with consistently better price/performance in order to attract buyers who want a bit more than the run of the mill from their machines. From the late 90s to 2005/6, AMD was doing pretty well carving out a niche here, but it relies on continuing to push out quality product because, with a few fanboy exceptions, this market will just as happily jump to Intel for their next upgrade. Unfortunately, Phenom doesn't seem to deliver, so AMD will really struggle over the next couple of years.

Having said that apart from encoding I see no huge margins in performance between the two and doing everyday things, Im suprised at the number of people who have admitted going from x2 to c2d and saying they don.t really notice a difference.

Total aside but I'm about to go from an Athlon XP2200+ to a C2Q6600 (another AMD -> Intel convert among the enthusiast community...). I think I'll notice a slight difference

[Phil Rhodes]

Very disappointing - I have a reasonably recent Foxconn motherboard which would presumably have been upgradeable to support these new devices. I was very interested, as I mainly use apps such as Adobe Premiere and After Effects, both of which are very definitely multi-threaded, and for both of which you really can't have enough number crunchability on hand.

But now it seems that the intel solutions are better, cheaper, more mature, less power hungry - better in every way.

I share the community's concerns about Intel now running amuck.

[Bindibadgi]

McLean has it in a (large) nutshell

On your upgrade: you'll see 3 more cores for starters.

[pumpman]

Total aside but I'm about to go from an Athlon XP2200+ to a C2Q6600 (another AMD -> Intel convert among the enthusiast community...). I think I'll notice a slight difference

I should hope so too theres about 5 years between the two techs

[Redbeaver]

Originally Posted by RotoSequence

Intel: Nom Nom Nom

totally.....

AMD got chewed *sigh*

[speedfreek]

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi

McLean has it in a (large) nutshell

On your upgrade: you'll see 3 more cores for starters.

Yeah, I want to stick with AMD but this new computer I got was cheap and AMD is being disappointing. I would be more than willing to make the switch back if they can come along with something good for a great price, like the athlons.