Hardware AMD Phenom II X4 940 and 920 CPUs

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...d-920-review/1

AMD's 45nm consumer CPUs are finally here: the Phenom II X4 940 and 920 are the latest quad cores with bigger cache, more MHz, more overclocking potential and yet, still AM2+ with inexpensive DDR2! Does Intel finally have some worthy competition?

[docodine]

ahhh

i wish i had gone with the x4 940 over the q9400!

damn my impatience

[Diosjenin]

"For now though, it seems that AMD's promises of 4GHz are a little far fetched, but 3.5 to 3.7GHz should be do-able, unless there are some major BIOS breakthroughs in the coming weeks or the AM3 CPUs fair better."

It's "fare" better.

Anyway, I'm very interested to see where a better motherboard can take these things. I know companies like to emphasize and embellish, but when AMD claims these can hit 6-7GHz on LN2 and 4GHz on air... well, they haven't had much in the performance area to boast about for a while. If they're starting to do that again after all this time, there's probably something to it.

[Ghys]

I was hoping for a better performance gain at equal frequencies, but it's still better than nothing

I might consider getting a 940 if they're cheap. It might be a good replacement for my already-feeling-old 9500

[MBR]

I really dont like monopolies they allow company's to really EXPLOIT and over-price goods

In other words Can AMD Please step up and make serious processors to affect Intel's night of heavenly slumber, i mean they did it with Nvidia and "WE" are all happy about that

[BentAnat]

Personally, i am a bit sceptical about these.
I might be biased here, what with being an intel boy et al, though.
I have this (probably completely unfounded) idea stuck in my head that having a dedicated DDR2/DDR3 controller would be better (performance wise) than having 2 controllers in case the user does/does not wanna fork out the money for the more expensive one.

Inevitably, a DDR3 platform (which i see is how the diagram displays the "pisces", "leo" etc generation of platforms) is going to be expensive at this point in time (and i don't foresee that changing in a hurry). This means that those generations of platforms would be meant to take on i7 (price-wise).
Seeing that the Phenom II X4's are "not bad, but the intels outrun them by minor margins" (my interpretation of the article), i would really be surprised if the AM3/DDR3 ones can hit the high standard set by i7. Especially with more i7s lined up for this year, and also at different price points (intel has a way of releasing the middle of the road, followed by low- and high end CPUs).

Also, i am pretty sure that intel is not sleeping right now, and are going to drop prices on the Q9400,9450,9550... thus making sure they remain the CPU of choice (again - my bias speaking).

[Kúsař]

At last! I'm really pleased new Phenoms offer decent performance at reasonable power consumption, just what I need. I hope they'll release another low clock black edition Phenom II soon. When I bought X2 5000 black edition it was so cheap yet OC so well.

[Jipa]

The value seems reasonable. It doesn't OC as well as Intels, but then again, not every people overclocks their new rigs. If the motherboards are cheap then AMD COULD be a real choice once again...

[biebiep]

1.5v for SOI with gates as fat as AMD's 45nm is NOT much

1.5v for HKMG with gates as thin as Intel's is.

Don't compare the 2 voltage wise please, my best guess on the way to to this is to compare PhII to 65nm Core2's in terms of "acceptable" volts

(also because PhII also doesn't run nearly as hot at 1.5v as i7/Core2 does...)

Originally Posted by Jipa

The value seems reasonable. It doesn't OC as well as Intels, but then again, not every people overclocks their new rigs. If the motherboards are cheap then AMD COULD be a real choice once again...

Not true. SB750 + A change in attitude that 1.5v is ok and you will see ppl hitting 3.8 on air just like intel's 45nm quads. and 4ghz+ for water.

Mind you that Core i7's "reasonable" temps above 4ghz are usually achieved trough watercooling or turning of SMT (which causes a 10degree delta )
On the other hand ofcourse, we have that Q6600 and Q9550 now too instead of i7... And they both hit 3.6 and 4.0ghz respectively on decent aircooling.

It really is a hard choice to make now that Ph2 hit the shelves, but if i were to buy a new system today, it would still be that i7(920à on that sweet sweet eVGA board because it just has way more horsepower...

[HourBeforeDawn]

considering the price for AMD, these are great results and a big jump for them so this is excellent to see

[Joe]

Well by the looks of this article and benchmarks it should be very interesting to read upcoming CPU based on the AM3 platform. Fabrication process still seems to be AMD's weak point plus platform support. i7 had a small start ahead and comparing past AMD and Intel platforms one can see that Intel have a broader selection portfolio.

But still - I have to say, if the price is right and it marginally underperforms i concider AM3 my next upgrade path instead of i7. That is if the price different warrents this.

Wonder how bad the triple channel vs duel channel in the AM3 setup will hurt AMD?

[wuyanxu]

it is a very solid compeititor.

and with the ability to overclock, it may take the crown for midrange CPU. speaking of overclocking, will AMD put that feedback southbridge on this and allow even more overclocking?

[eXpander]

OK, i looked over the test system:

I don't have a price for the MSI motherboard. The only similar product i have in store here at work (not in stock currently, though) is the Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H (same chipset), which costs around 200$. And I see the C2Q`s tested on Asus Rampage Extreme which costs 2.5 times as much, and DFI LT X48 T2R which is around 300$, so again, more expensive than the Gigabyte.

So the value is clearly superior to the Phenoms.

Originally Posted by biebiep

It really is a hard choice to make now that Ph2 hit the shelves, but if i were to buy a new system today, it would still be that i7(920à on that sweet sweet eVGA board because it just has way more horsepower...

You would pay a lot more money for the i7 platform. For the price of the i7-940 you can buy both the Ph2, the MB and the memory. The i7-920 is cheaper, at around 350$ here, but still, Ph2`s are a lot cheaper. And if u wanna game on the i7, I think it's a useless investment (same as the Skulltrail) for now.

I agree, the i7`s are a huge leap ahead, but for now they don't justify the costs.

Cheers!

[p3n]

Looks like they should have used some of that headroom, intel monopoly 3 years and counting....

[B1GBUD]

Couldn't AMD come up with some original model numbers? 920 & 940 sound similar to something but I can't quite put my finger on it... hmmm

[biebiep]

Originally Posted by eXpander

I agree, the i7`s are a huge leap ahead, but for now they don't justify the costs.
Cheers!

For a whole lot of people out there, it does.
Just because it's scaling in MT app's is completely out of whack. And as i recall, i can pick up an i7 system now for the same cost i picked up my E6600 based machine 2 years ago. (i'm not even going into Quad-pricing back then, Q6600 was like 4 times as much as it is now and we still called a Q6700 a QX )

DDR2 back then was as expensive as DDR3 is now (at least where i shop) and the processor cost is just about the same. The only thing that costs me 50€ more is the mobo, but that'll come down too .

[Hamish]

Originally Posted by Ghys

I was hoping for a better performance gain at equal frequencies, but it's still better than nothing

anand was showing 10-20% clock for clock improvement, which is pretty damn good for a process shrink + cache tweak
more than 65nm -> 45nm on Core2 iirc

[Paradigm Shifter]

Originally Posted by biebiep

1.5v for SOI with gates as fat as AMD's 45nm is NOT much

1.5v for HKMG with gates as thin as Intel's is.

This is what I've been hearing from people too. SOI is a lot more voltage tolerant that HKMG.

Phenom II looks OK. For me, it all depends on how much it'll cost in the UK. If they can scrape a miracle and have the 940 hit £200, then I'll almost certainly pick one up just to have a play.

I do want to see that chip overclocked with an M3A79-T, though. I think that one might do better. Or the 790FXB board from DFI... but the lack of power regulation circuitry on that board makes me unhappy with DFI there.

[Bindibadgi]

Originally Posted by Hamish

anand was showing 10-20% clock for clock improvement, which is pretty damn good for a process shrink + cache tweak
more than 65nm -> 45nm on Core2 iirc

We got 4-5% consistently.

[Aterius Gmork]

So would you recommend a Phenom II 940 over a Q6600 (overclocked to 3Ghz)?