Official Phenom 2 Review Thread

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Dravic
Every penny I save on the platform gets me a better GPU.

Exactly.

Originally posted by: xusaphiss
AMD is lapped!

It's time for them to die!

Welcome to the forums, xusaphiss.

I don't think AMD dying will benefit anyone, not even you. If AMD were to die, so would Intel price drops. Think about it.

Originally posted by: DrBombcrater
Most reviewers are using DDR3 for the Core 2s (including AT, if I'm reading the test setup page right) which is hardly fair given the price differential between DDR2 and DDR3.

Hexus used DDR2 for both systems, which could be why their numbers show the PhII looking rather better in comparison to the C2Q than most other sites.

That's a great point. 4GB DDR3 kits are barely dropping below $100 while 4GB DDR2 kits have been available at $9 after rebate. Of course performance differs too, but it really isn't a proper comparison.

Then again, if it is available, why not?

Does any reviewer do a dollar-to-dollar comparison? I don't mean just for the CPU, but comparing TWO COMPLETE PLATFORMS at the same price point. Now THAT would be interesting.

Originally posted by: nyker96
I must say I am quite impressed with AMD for this new chip. Although not top of the line yet, the improvements over PIs are tangible.

Yup, kudos to AMD.

Seems to me that the Phenom II is a greater improvement over the Phenom than the Core i7 was over a Core 2 Quad.

 

[HannibalX]

Originally posted by: Regs
I agree with Anand. 15 months late on delivery yet AMD wants us to pay full price for it like we didn't notice. It's a sign that they're at least trying to improve it more or less like how P4 was with Intel.

Full price? Hardly. In 2006 the FX60 was going for $1000 and was King of the Hill. Intel was asking almost $1500 for it's Extreme Edition P4 (the 3.73GHz model) even though the FX60 mopped the floor with it.

The point is, this CPU is a steal at the current price.

 

[exar333]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: Dravic
Every penny I save on the platform gets me a better GPU.

Exactly.

Originally posted by: xusaphiss
AMD is lapped!

It's time for them to die!

Welcome to the forums, xusaphiss.

I don't think AMD dying will benefit anyone, not even you. If AMD were to die, so would Intel price drops. Think about it.

Originally posted by: DrBombcrater
Most reviewers are using DDR3 for the Core 2s (including AT, if I'm reading the test setup page right) which is hardly fair given the price differential between DDR2 and DDR3.

Hexus used DDR2 for both systems, which could be why their numbers show the PhII looking rather better in comparison to the C2Q than most other sites.

That's a great point. 4GB DDR3 kits are barely dropping below $100 while 4GB DDR2 kits have been available at $9 after rebate. Of course performance differs too, but it really isn't a proper comparison.

Then again, if it is available, why not?

Does any reviewer do a dollar-to-dollar comparison? I don't mean just for the CPU, but comparing TWO COMPLETE PLATFORMS at the same price point. Now THAT would be interesting.

Originally posted by: nyker96
I must say I am quite impressed with AMD for this new chip. Although not top of the line yet, the improvements over PIs are tangible.

Yup, kudos to AMD.

Seems to me that the Phenom II is a greater improvement over the Phenom than the Core i7 was over a Core 2 Quad.

I don't neccessarily think your last comment is actually kudos to AMD...

Kudos to AMD for making a crappy PI and then following with a good (not spectacular) PII??? Really? Intel took a great product and made it better. Period.

It's often easier to improve on a crappy product than to make something great even better. Also, whereas AMD put themselves in the "hurtbad" with Phenom to get on-track to a good 45nm processor, Intel made a very good i7 product that should yeild an amazing 32nm product. Wait until they squeeze double the L2 and 50% more L3 cache on the i7 and see it fly.

 

[aigomorla]

dude guys..

leave the i7's out of this.

PHII was NEVER INTENDED to go against i7.

Yes the i7 is faster, better, has more threads, more expensive, will make your epenis the size of texas.

But its not even in the same catigory for competition. :

so why do people keep bringing up i7s?

AMD was aiming at yorkfield, and i think they got pretty dayam close compared to the unspectacular PHI.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: xusaphiss
Come on, guys! I like a competitive market as much as the next guy but AMD is a whole generation behind. They should have had these when the 45nm C2s came out!

AMD is lapped!

It's time for them to die!

CPU standards will only go down if they actually resort to third-party distribution!

Their video cards are always run hotter than NVIDIA and are just less stable and overclockable. The only way they was able to stay alive in the race was pitting two of their GPUs against one on one board. NVIDIA hasn't even begun using GDDR5 yet!

Intel and NVIDIA is not really receiving competition from AMD. AMD is just lowering standards.

This is the stupidest first post ever! :laugh:

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
dude guys..

leave the i7's out of this.

PHII was NEVER INTENDED to go against i7.

Yes the i7 is faster, better, has more threads, more expensive, will make your epenis the size of texas.

But its not even in the same catigory for competition. :

so why do people keep bringing up i7s?

AMD was aiming at yorkfield, and i think they got pretty dayam close compared to the unspectacular PHI.

Well other than the obvious troll in this thread, the only reason i7 came up was because that "review" from AMDzone brought it up.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: zerocool84
If Intel does cut prices at the end of this month as rumored to compete even better, I'll be looking at a Q9550.

This is also what I'm thinking . I have so much faith in a beautiful price war between these two cpus giants. Put the prices into dirt, AMD!

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: zerocool84
If Intel does cut prices at the end of this month as rumored to compete even better, I'll be looking at a Q9550.

This is also what I'm thinking . I have so much faith in a beautiful price war between these two cpus giants. Put the prices into dirt, AMD!

this pricewar is possible, but not for very long.

by the time it gets really big price drops, i bet you lynfield will be rolling out with a built in IGP on the cpu.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
dude guys..

leave the i7's out of this.

PHII was NEVER INTENDED to go against i7.

Yes the i7 is faster, better, has more threads, more expensive, will make your epenis the size of texas.

But its not even in the same catigory for competition. :

so why do people keep bringing up i7s?

AMD was aiming at yorkfield, and i think they got pretty dayam close compared to the unspectacular PHI.

Its easier to claim that PHII is a fail in that way.

Since I wasn't going to shell that huge amount of money in an i7, seems now I might get a nice cheap quad core (probably AMD cause they have the cheaper platform, but if Intel as the cheaper one at the performance I want, I will get them) in the near future

 

[exar333]

What I would love to see in the near future (when the AM3 PII's are out) is a review comparing a DDR2 PII, DDR3 PII, DDR2 C2Q, DDR3 C2Q, and a DDR3 i7. I think this would really let everyone see the actual performance comparison in a real and comparable way.

I didn't like how TH reviewed the X48 and X58 chipsets for power consumption and then used X45 for a cost comparison. If you don't include the major options out there, the review can really be made to say whatever it wants to.

All that aside, I thought the AT review was probably the best out of the bunch and came away with a very similar conclusion as I did reading through the meta-review information from all the different sites.

In regards to just PII, it would be great if AT sat down with some of the major boards for AM2 and AM2+ to test compatibility and BIOS support. I think this would really help those who are looking at PII as an atractive platform or want to know if their current setup will work with PII RIGHT NOW or if they should hold on for better support.

Edit: SP

 

[geokilla]

Phenom II looks great. However, if the rumored price cuts by Intel are true, AMD would either have to lower it's profit margin even further, or release the new models earlier than expected. However, if they take the latter approach, those AM3 chips better work well and not be like the original Phenom that didn't so well compared to Intel offerings.

Did anyone notice how much vcore AnandTech gave the Phenom II, using the STOCK cooler? I guess AMD really is using heatpipes on the new coolers.

 

[aigomorla]

since NDA is no more in effect.

Ima post what my friend said, only leave some names out:

"Real stock Vcore is 1.3125 V as selected by VID, 1.32 real.
Real Vcore on 2nd screenshot, at 3600 MHz is 1.4000V VID and 1.41 real - but this chip will do 3600 with less voltage after some tweaking."

All the cpu-z's are reporting wrong voltage when my friend showed that to us.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
dude guys..

leave the i7's out of this.

PHII was NEVER INTENDED to go against i7.

Yes the i7 is faster, better, has more threads, more expensive, will make your epenis the size of texas.

But its not even in the same catigory for competition. :

so why do people keep bringing up i7s?

AMD was aiming at yorkfield, and i think they got pretty dayam close compared to the unspectacular PHI.

It might have something to do with the not-so-subtle naming convention that AMD adopted...

What is the most plausible reasoning you think of for AMD numbering their processors the 920 and the 940?

The PhII may not be competitive with the i7, but AMD sure numbered them in a way to ensure as many potential ignorant consumers at Best Buy are confused enough to think the comparison ought to be made when deciding which system is the best for the dollar...

Don't want your Phenom II 920 compared to an i7 920? Don't name it a 920 when there are literally an infinite number of alternate possible numbers to assign your product...its le enough for me to see why most folks are going to make the comparison from now until 2010.

 

[Peter Trend]

Originally posted by: SunnyD
Kyle being an idiot non-withstanding... the bolded part IS indeed correct. The AM2+ Phenom 2 automatically drops the DDR2 clock to 800MHz when populated with 4 DIMMs. This is indeed a limitation of the CPU (for example, Gigabyte's memory information for their 790GX board - which I have - specifically states this).

Does this mean you would be better off getting 2x4GB 1066MHz dimms than getting 4x2GB 1066MHz dimms, for overclocking purposes?

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: Peter Trend

Originally posted by: SunnyD
Kyle being an idiot non-withstanding... the bolded part IS indeed correct. The AM2+ Phenom 2 automatically drops the DDR2 clock to 800MHz when populated with 4 DIMMs. This is indeed a limitation of the CPU (for example, Gigabyte's memory information for their 790GX board - which I have - specifically states this).

Does this mean you would be better off getting 2x4GB 1066MHz dimms than getting 4x2GB 1066MHz dimms, for overclocking purposes?

That is something I honestly can't answer. Keep in mind, some motherboards don't support 4GB module densities (at least not officially). Also, I'm not sure if it's changed any, but usually higher density modules don't overclock as well and/or have equivalent timings. It's been a while since I've personally needed to know honestly.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: aigomorla
dude guys..

leave the i7's out of this.

PHII was NEVER INTENDED to go against i7.

Yes the i7 is faster, better, has more threads, more expensive, will make your epenis the size of texas.

But its not even in the same catigory for competition. :

so why do people keep bringing up i7s?

AMD was aiming at yorkfield, and i think they got pretty dayam close compared to the unspectacular PHI.

It might have something to do with the not-so-subtle naming convention that AMD adopted...

What is the most plausible reasoning you think of for AMD numbering their processors the 920 and the 940?

The PhII may not be competitive with the i7, but AMD sure numbered them in a way to ensure as many potential ignorant consumers at Best Buy are confused enough to think the comparison ought to be made when deciding which system is the best for the dollar...

Don't want your Phenom II 920 compared to an i7 920? Don't name it a 920 when there are literally an infinite number of alternate possible numbers to assign your product...its le enough for me to see why most folks are going to make the comparison from now until 2010.

Seems like a pretty low tactic to me. Some Madison Ave guy probably came up with that one.

 

[formulav8]

I actually read the AMDZone review and didn't see anything wrong with it? They were basically honest. They didn't have to much in-depth info or a tons of benches but it was worth a read.


Jason

 

[Extelleron]

Overall the Phenom II 920/940 are definitely the most competitive processors that AMD has released in quite a long time, but they are still a clear disappointment in my eye.

The per clock performance improvement over Agena isn't anything significant and most of the improvement is simply from the higher clocks - not anything really unexpected given that Deneb is simply a die shrink, but it would have been nice to see more. I expected that the Phenom II 940 would compete fairly well with the Q9550, but it turns out that most of the time it competes with the cut-down Q9400 instead.

Overall it comes down to one fact that can't be ignored - for users that are going to overclock, a 2 year old, $180 Q6600 is still a better choice than the Phenom II 940. It is still faster per clock and will overclock to around the same levels as the 45nm Deneb CPUs, which in reality hit maybe 3.6-3.7, not the 3.8-4.0 that AMD hinted at. For users that don't overclock, the Phenom II 940 is just as good or better than the Q9400 that it is priced against and the 920 model is likely the best CPU at the ~$230 price range as well. But all Intel needs to do is drop the Q9550 down to $266 and all that changes. Even as of now almost all users will benefit from spending another $30 on a Q9550, particularly overclockers.

Final verdict IMO - A solid improvement but it still has nothing on Core 2 much less i7. It's a very good choice for mainstream users and I suspect it is going to be quite successful in pre-built systems. Deneb is a refined Phenom, but we need a new architecture before AMD can truly compete again.

 

[dmens]

Originally posted by: formulav8
I actually read the AMDZone review and didn't see anything wrong with it? They were basically honest. They didn't have to much in-depth info or a tons of benches but it was worth a read.


Jason

real honest. i like this line

"Phenom II is a real challenger to Intel's Core 2 Quad series of Penryn chips and if they can ram up the clock speed they could take on the Core i7 from benchmarks we've seen."

they say that even as they completely exclude i7 from their comparisons. and they exclude q9400 or 9550, the most direct competitors.

that review is shit

 

[imported_SLIM]

Originally posted by: DrBombcrater

Originally posted by: Martimus
I have read the Tech Report review, which seems pretty well done (although they use DDR3 memory for the Q9400, and DDR2 memory for the X4 940 for some reason).

That may be quite an important point. Most reviewers are using DDR3 for the Core 2s (including AT, if I'm reading the test setup page right) which is hardly fair given the price differential between DDR2 and DDR3.

Hexus used DDR2 for both systems, which could be why their numbers show the PhII looking rather better in comparison to the C2Q than most other sites.

Finally some other people are also noticing this trend of using DDR3 in the benches and more expensive x48 boards but making price comparisons to DDR2 and P35 equipped C2Q. I think those two factors alone would put the q9550 vs PII 940 in a better light.

 

[solofly]

I don't see anything wrong with PII as long as the price is right...

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: BigDH01
If you visit their forums, you'll see that people there, in general, suffer from some sort of mass delusion. Perhaps my opinion is extreme, but it really is fascinating to read their forums and see how individuals feed off of each other to turn their desires into perceived reality. I find it particularly interesting as one might usually only find this in religious cults or other social groups where membership and information is often tightly controlled.

I think open forums like AMDZone (and others like the Hillary supporters forum) that exhibit the same pattern may be a useful case study for an aspiring doctor in Psychology and/or Sociology.

You should read some penny stock forums on ihub in which people have long since lost all their money on a pump and dump scam and they're still cheering it on as if they're going to actually make money.

 

[DrBombcrater]

Originally posted by: SLIM
Finally some other people are also noticing this trend of using DDR3 in the benches and more expensive x48 boards but making price comparisons to DDR2 and P35 equipped C2Q. I think those two factors alone would put the q9550 vs PII 940 in a better light.

Yeah, several sites are pulling that trick. Just finished reading Extreme Tech's rather poor review and they do it too. DDR3-1800 for the benchmarks and DDR2 for the price comparo.

I can't decide if this is incompetence or dishonesty. It's hard to believe there are so many bad hardware reviewers out there all by chance making the same error.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: SLIM

Originally posted by: DrBombcrater

Originally posted by: Martimus
I have read the Tech Report review, which seems pretty well done (although they use DDR3 memory for the Q9400, and DDR2 memory for the X4 940 for some reason).

That may be quite an important point. Most reviewers are using DDR3 for the Core 2s (including AT, if I'm reading the test setup page right) which is hardly fair given the price differential between DDR2 and DDR3.

Hexus used DDR2 for both systems, which could be why their numbers show the PhII looking rather better in comparison to the C2Q than most other sites.

Finally some other people are also noticing this trend of using DDR3 in the benches and more expensive x48 boards but making price comparisons to DDR2 and P35 equipped C2Q. I think those two factors alone would put the q9550 vs PII 940 in a better light.

Yep. It should be DDR2 vs. DDR2, winner take all.

I notice a huge discrepancy with the reviews. HardOCP hated it, and Hexus loved it. AT also seemed to like the P2.

I'm still holding out for a $100 quad core.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: DrBombcrater

Originally posted by: SLIM
Finally some other people are also noticing this trend of using DDR3 in the benches and more expensive x48 boards but making price comparisons to DDR2 and P35 equipped C2Q. I think those two factors alone would put the q9550 vs PII 940 in a better light.

Yeah, several sites are pulling that trick. Just finished reading Extreme Tech's rather poor review and they do it too. DDR3-1800 for the benchmarks and DDR2 for the price comparo.

I can't decide if this is incompetence or dishonesty. It's hard to believe there are so many bad hardware reviewers out there all by chance making the same error.

I'm thinking dishonesty. It's such a glaring error that there's no way you could miss something like that when writing an article.


I'm not overly impressed with the Phenom II so far; the 920 in particular. In a lot of gaming benchmarks it seems to be neck and neck with the Q8200. The problem is that the Phenom II 920 is $270 CDN while the Q8200 is $230 CDN on Newegg.

I just hope AMD manages to drop the price low enough to make it a viable option for gaming. Since games are the only reason I upgrade my computer, the gaming benchmark is all I ever look at.

I'm still holding out for a $100 quad core.

It's getting there. Phenom X4 - $120. It would suck at running any single application, but it could run 4 sucky programs at once!