Black Edition Phenom Next Week!

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

v8envy

Platinum Member
Sep 7, 2002
2,720
0
0
Because 'half the price' would put the 9500 at $150ish. I have plenty of uses for a chip like that for a price like that, and I'm not alone.

Running Linux without the BIOS L3 errata fix puts the 2.2 within spitting range of a Q6600. Until Jan 20th and the introduction of 45nm Intel quads that would be a very compelling value for plenty of Linux users like myself. But at $200? I'll wait a few more weeks, thanks.
 

CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
5,676
776
126
I don't know what the big deal is with an unlocked multiplier these days. That feature is much less valuable than it once used to be, as current motherboards can easily max out most processors through the FSB.

Originally posted by: j0j081
Originally posted by: brainhulk
if you make crap faster, would it be diarrhea?

If you have diarrhea would you crap faster?

:laugh:
 

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
167
106
Originally posted by: CP5670
I don't know what the big deal is with an unlocked multiplier these days. That feature is much less valuable than it once used to be, as current motherboards can easily max out most processors through the FSB.

Originally posted by: j0j081
Originally posted by: brainhulk
if you make crap faster, would it be diarrhea?

If you have diarrhea would you crap faster?

:laugh:
It's useful for when you otherwise end up overclocking your RAM a good amount. RAM that runs faster than spec is typically stupidly expensive, so if the default FSB is already high then you want an unlocked multiplier so that you aren't spending gobs of money on high-performance RAM. FSB speeds have been slow to catch up so far so it's not a problem, but it could be in the future again.
 

CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
5,676
776
126
Can't you still use the memory dividers on AM2 boards? Those were common on 939 setups at least since they had almost no performance hit. DDR2 is very cheap these days anyway, with many great deals on the 800mhz stuff (some of which goes to 900-1000mhz easily).
 

AMDZen

Lifer
Apr 15, 2004
12,589
0
76
Originally posted by: taltamir
that chip we told you could not go past 2.3ghz because of the TLB bug? and had problems at that speed? yea that one, want to get it with unlocked muliplier and try to see if you can get it past 2.3 despite us not being able to?

Makes perfect sense... REALLY!

Also if AMD would have solved the TLB bug already there would be much fanfare and press info and immediate resumption of sales... although they CLAIM that this time they are gonna do a VERY rigorous testing scheme to make sure there are no more such problems (in fear of getting their reputation permanent tarnished... further...)

Also, not only is fudzilla the guys who couldn't cut it in the inquirer (their very name, fudzilla is a pun about having non verified rumors and speculation...), but this blurb is written by faud... and I have heard mention of him several times, every one of those was about him making completely BS statements that are not even remotely logical and then never coming to fruition. So he is agreed to be the LEAST reliable source on fudzilla... Probably known as the least reliable source anywhere, period.

Oh yea... and the black edition brisbane 5000+ is the ONLY black edition to have unlocked multipliers... As I discovered with the 6400+ windsor, other black editions merely mean that it is "so fast that to run at stock speeds you need a really good after market fan, so it doesnt COME with a fan"... In fact that piece of shit was unstably running (or rather, CRASHING on) 44c idle 57c load on a zalman 9500 coolder, a monster heatsink that keeps the C2D at under 35c load...

Exactly what I was thinking. The article begins with "A big surprise for overclockers" - I don't see how OC'ers are going to care.
 

Blacklash

Member
Feb 22, 2007
181
0
0
From a fellow @ XS

"The 9600BE is launching today. You need to ask or look for these part numbers - OEM Tray = HD960ZWCJ4BGD / PIB = HD960ZWCGDBOX. The first production lots just hit the distributors last night. We should see them in the channel in the next couple of days."

http://www.xtremesystems.org/f...7&posted=1#post2639387

I've seen some up on Froogle, and none @ Mwave, Newegg or ZZF yet.
 

Avalon

Diamond Member
Jul 16, 2001
7,571
178
106
Hmmm...

If they're hitting 3Ghz with stability, does that mean we're looking at a new stepping? If so, that's good news. I'm still going to wait for Penryn though, since I've already got an Intel system.
 

Tempered81

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2007
6,374
1
81
everyone knows Intels cpu's are faster than AMD's offerings. Just take a look at what this redneck posted over at hardocp:

"Man Let me tull yu sumthen. AMD sucks.

I got me a durr compewtur at the wal-mart and told ole Jimbo to make sur it wus INTELigent"

 

Avalon

Diamond Member
Jul 16, 2001
7,571
178
106
Originally posted by: Acanthus
Oh yay an unlocked phailnom. :roll:

Well, it's definitely not for us, but if the price is notably lower than a Q6600, some new builders may want to take a look.
 

meth0s

Senior member
Oct 18, 2006
270
0
86
Originally posted by: Acanthus
Oh yay an unlocked phailnom. :roll:

Yeah- I love it when people platform evangelize. :roll:

Who cares what you're a fanboy of as long as the market is competitive! If AMD can make Phenom really competitive it's just going to mean lower prices on the Intel quad cores....
 

Peelback79

Senior member
Oct 26, 2007
452
0
0
I'm already built and running, but I want AMD to come back to keep prices reasonable for Nehalem. The only problem I see with the new Phenom is that it was touted as being the best chip for AMD user to upgrade to. The only problem is it's not compatible with a lot of mobo's.

-Excerpt taken from Tom's Hardware review on Phenom
"I don't really like the conclusion and AMD won't like it either, but the upgrade situation for users interested in replacing their Athlon 64 X2 processor with a quad core Phenom is all but promising. We looked at ten different motherboards to check how well these would work with the new Phenom quad core processor. The vast majority, eight out of ten motherboards, did not work with Phenom at all, which I found a very frustrating result. Yes, Phenom has only been available for roughly one month, and AMD is busy bug-fixing the TLB issue, which certainly came at a difficult moment. However, not being able to run the new processor on existing platforms, as promised by AMD, is both disappointing for those users still interested in using a quad core Phenom processor right away, as well as for AMD, who critically depends on selling its new product."
whole article

Regardless of the price of the Phenom, when you factor in at the least $100 for a decent motherboard, you're negating the "bargain upgrade" aspect of the chip.
 

Acanthus

Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
19,915
2
76
ostif.org
Originally posted by: meth0s
Originally posted by: Acanthus
Oh yay an unlocked phailnom. :roll:

Yeah- I love it when people platform evangelize. :roll:

Who cares what you're a fanboy of as long as the market is competitive! If AMD can make Phenom really competitive it's just going to mean lower prices on the Intel quad cores....

I would own a phenom if it wasnt a joke, my last 3 cpus before the Core 2 series were all AMD.
 

Duvie

Elite Member
Feb 5, 2001
16,215
0
71
WELL WHY 3GHZ IS NICE.......The fact that clock for clock it loses to the c2d now and the G0 steppings are hitting 3.4ghz+ quite regularly, it isn't enough to cause ppl to jump ship....still trailing

The fact that promised compatability went out the window will not be a good reason for AMD users looking for a cpu upgrade to stay with AMD.


The only silver lining I see is if AMD can cannibalize low end quad sales, intel will be forced to release quad cores in the 2-2.2ghz range...which woul be nice for all of us cheapskate ocers. Also most of intels delays appear to be nothing more then INtel sitting back waiting for some reason to release them. This keeps the prices dropping and innovation moving forward.
 

meth0s

Senior member
Oct 18, 2006
270
0
86
Originally posted by: Duvie
WELL WHY 3GHZ IS NICE.......The fact that clock for clock it loses to the c2d now and the G0 steppings are hitting 3.4ghz+ quite regularly, it isn't enough to cause ppl to jump ship....still trailing

The fact that promised compatability went out the window will not be a good reason for AMD users looking for a cpu upgrade to stay with AMD.


The only silver lining I see is if AMD can cannibalize low end quad sales, intel will be forced to release quad cores in the 2-2.2ghz range...which woul be nice for all of us cheapskate ocers. Also most of intels delays appear to be nothing more then INtel sitting back waiting for some reason to release them. This keeps the prices dropping and innovation moving forward.

I agree- the other advantage I see is in the OC headroom itself (over 20%)

If AMD can get the yields up and get some higher clocked bins out of these things, Intel will have to respond in some way (lower prices, cheaper addition to the lineup, etc.)

I'm all for anything that makes quad core cheaper for everyone :beer:
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
23,012
13,116
136
I couldn't run one even if I wanted to, unless I ditched my current Abit NF-M2 nView and got a compatible board. Stupid Abit.

That aside, nobody seems to be talking much about how the memory controller in Phenom runs at a speed independent of the chip, a fact that was once touted as a performance feature for K10 but now looks like more of a performance penalty. The memory controller runs at the on-chip northbridge's speed, not the processor speed, and it says quite a bit that the default NB speed on low-end Phenoms was downgraded to 1.8 ghz on the 9500 and 9600 (it's 2 gz on the 9700 and 9900). Whether or not AM2+ board BIOSes support full control of NB speed is something about which I am still not certain, and there's really no way to know if the NB will ever run faster when the chip is OCed on an AM2 board (provided that it can be OCed at all!). One of the nice things about K8 was that you got perfect CPU scaling when overclocking by raising HTT so long as you kept the same CPU multi and RAM ratio. With Phenom, that is not the case. And when you overclocked with some BE chip, that will certainly not be the case!
 

fire400

Diamond Member
Nov 21, 2005
5,204
21
81
Originally posted by: Duvie
WELL WHY 3GHZ IS NICE.......The fact that clock for clock it loses to the c2d now and the G0 steppings are hitting 3.4ghz+ quite regularly, it isn't enough to cause ppl to jump ship....still trailing

The fact that promised compatability went out the window will not be a good reason for AMD users looking for a cpu upgrade to stay with AMD.


The only silver lining I see is if AMD can cannibalize low end quad sales, intel will be forced to release quad cores in the 2-2.2ghz range...which woul be nice for all of us cheapskate ocers. Also most of intels delays appear to be nothing more then INtel sitting back waiting for some reason to release them. This keeps the prices dropping and innovation moving forward.

...This is almost exactly what Intel was trying to do with the Pentium 4. Now AMD is doing it. History repeats itself.

Clock per clock, Core 2 Duo technology is way better.
 

myocardia

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2003
9,291
30
91
Originally posted by: Acanthus
Originally posted by: meth0s
Originally posted by: Acanthus
Oh yay an unlocked phailnom. :roll:

Yeah- I love it when people platform evangelize. :roll:

Who cares what you're a fanboy of as long as the market is competitive! If AMD can make Phenom really competitive it's just going to mean lower prices on the Intel quad cores....

I would own a phenom if it wasnt a joke, my last 3 cpus before the Core 2 series were all AMD.

That nearly makes you an Intel fanboy, Acanthus.;) The last Intel CPU I bought was the pair of Celeron 366's @ 550 that I bought in 1997 or '98, IIRC. That still doesn't make the Phenom any better, though. It actually just makes it even more of a disappointment, especially since it was going to be the "Kentsfield killer".:roll: