Phenom II x2 550BE and x2 250 reviews are up

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ShawnD1

Lifer
May 24, 2003
15,987
2
81
Originally posted by: Spoelie
WOW, it really amazes me how little performance has improved. Athlon II X2 250 (3ghz) is barely faster in most benchmarks than a Athlon X2 6400+ (3,2ghz), and loses in 1 or 2.

So the core "redesign" buys as little as 300mhz around 3ghz, or only 10%. Everything else that improved in phenom is uncore.

And this while the original is at 90nm and the new one is 45nm, what a waste of potential. It seems to me AMD could've tried a little harder with the Athlon II.

Wouldn't it then follow that Intel is a bunch of retards as well? The Phenom II X2 is similar to the E7xxx series and the Athlon II X2 is similar to the E6xxx series.

Dont jump the gun to fast, If the AII X3 or X4 come out you had better watch the watt range, I suspect alot of AM2 motherboards smoking out really quick.

I personally have an eye on the PhenII X2 as the watt ratting is below the AM2 motherboard I have in my personal workstation at work.
I wouldn't worry about that. The Athlon 3400+ Windsor was AM2 and it took 125W to run. A Phenom X4 9600 only takes 95W. A Phenom II X4 955 (AMD's most powerful processor) takes the same 125W as the Windsor.

edit:
What's most impressive about the new chips is that they use less power than the Intel equivalents. anandtech. Has AMD ever had a power advantage like that?
 

Idontcare

Elite Member
Oct 10, 1999
21,118
58
91
Originally posted by: Spoelie
WOW, it really amazes me how little performance has improved. Athlon II X2 250 (3ghz) is barely faster in most benchmarks than a Athlon X2 6400+ (3,2ghz), and loses in 1 or 2.

So the core "redesign" buys as little as 300mhz around 3ghz, or only 10%. Everything else that improved in phenom is uncore.

And this while the original is at 90nm and the new one is 45nm, what a waste of potential. It seems to me AMD could've tried a little harder with the Athlon II.

EDIT: Make no mistake, I'm rooting for AMD through and through, am just disappointed :(

Spoelie did you see this page in the xbitlabs review which benchmarked the various predecessor cores all at the same clockspeed (3.0GHz) for an apples-to-apples comparison for highlighting the core-based IPC improvements?

I thought it quite nicely demonstrated the progression of IPC improvements from 90nm thru 45nm.